Virtually Potato
open-menu closeme
vPotato
K8s on vSphere
vRA 8
Projects
Scripts
Tips
Connect icon
CounterSocial GitHub SimpleX Chat
github rss
  • Recreating Hashnode Series (Categories) in Jekyll on GitHub Pages

    calendar Jul 24, 2021 · 10 min read · meta jekyll  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    Recreating Hashnode Series (Categories) in Jekyll on GitHub Pages

    I recently migrated this site from Hashnode to GitHub Pages, and I'm really getting into the flexibility and control that managing the content through Jekyll provides. So, naturally, after finalizing the move I got to work recreating Hashnode's "Series" feature, which lets you group posts together and …


    Read More
  • Joining VMs to Active Directory in site-specific OUs with vRA8

    calendar Jul 21, 2021 · 7 min read · vmware vra abx activedirectory automation windows  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    Joining VMs to Active Directory in site-specific OUs with vRA8

    Connecting a deployed Windows VM to an Active Directory domain is pretty easy; just apply an appropriately-configured customization spec and vCenter will take care of it for you. Of course, you'll likely then need to move the newly-created computer object to the correct Organizational Unit so that it gets all the right …


    Read More
  • Virtually Potato migrated to GitHub Pages!

    calendar Jul 20, 2021 · 4 min read · linux meta chromeos crostini jekyll  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    Virtually Potato migrated to GitHub Pages!

    After a bit less than a year of hosting my little technical blog with Hashnode, I spent a few days migrating the content over to a new format hosted with GitHub Pages. So long, Hashnode Hashnode served me well for the most part, but it was never really a great fit for me. Hashnode's focus is on developer content, and …


    Read More
  • Script to update image embed links in Markdown files

    calendar Jul 19, 2021 · 2 min read · linux shell regex jekyll meta  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy

    I'm preparing to migrate this blog thingy from Hashnode (which has been great!) to a GitHub Pages site with Jekyll so that I can write posts locally and then just do a git push to publish them - and get some more practice using git in the process. Of course, I've written some admittedly-great content here and I don't …


    Read More
  • Federated Matrix Server (Synapse) on Oracle Cloud's Free Tier

    calendar Jun 28, 2021  · edit Sep 17, 2021 · 16 min read · docker linux cloud containers chat  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    Federated Matrix Server (Synapse) on Oracle Cloud's Free Tier

    I've heard a lot lately about how generous Oracle Cloud's free tier is, particularly when compared with the free offerings from other public cloud providers. Signing up for an account was fairly straight-forward, though I did have to wait a few hours for an actual human to call me on an actual telephone to verify my …


    Read More
  • Adding VM Notes and Custom Attributes with vRA8

    calendar Jun 1, 2021 · 5 min read · vmware vra vro javascript  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    Adding VM Notes and Custom Attributes with vRA8

    In past posts, I started by creating a basic deployment infrastructure in Cloud Assembly and using tags to group those resources. I then wrote an integration to let vRA8 use phpIPAM for static address assignments. I implemented a vRO workflow for generating unique VM names which fit an organization's established naming …


    Read More
  • AdGuard Home in Docker on Photon OS

    calendar May 27, 2021 · 7 min read · docker vmware containers networking security  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    AdGuard Home in Docker on Photon OS

    I was recently introduced to AdGuard Home by way of its very slick Home Assistant Add-On. Compared to the relatively-complicated Pi-hole setup that I had implemented several months back, AdGuard Home was much simpler to deploy (particularly since I basically just had to click the "Install" button from the …


    Read More
  • vRA8 Automatic Deployment Naming - Another Take

    calendar May 20, 2021 · 3 min read · vmware vra vro javascript  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    vRA8 Automatic Deployment Naming - Another Take

    A few days ago, I shared how I combined a Service Broker Custom Form with a vRO action to automatically generate a unique and descriptive deployment name based on user inputs. That approach works fine but while testing some other components I realized that calling that action each time a user makes a selection isn't …


    Read More
  • vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part Four

    calendar May 18, 2021  · edit May 20, 2021 · 10 min read · vmware vra vro javascript  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part Four

    My last post in this series marked the completion of the vRealize Orchestrator workflow that I use for pre-provisioning tasks, namely generating a unique sequential hostname which complies with a defined naming standard and doesn't conflict with any existing records in vSphere, Active Directory, or DNS. That takes care …


    Read More
  • Automatic unattended expansion of Linux root LVM volume to fill disk

    calendar Apr 29, 2021 · 5 min read · linux shell automation  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    Automatic unattended expansion of Linux root LVM volume to fill disk

    While working on my vRealize Automation 8 project, I wanted to let users specify how large a VM's system drive should be and have vRA apply that without any further user intervention. For instance, if the template has a 60GB C: drive and the user specifies that they want it to be 80GB, vRA will embiggen the new VM's …


    Read More
  • Using PowerShell and a Scheduled Task to apply Windows Updates

    calendar Apr 29, 2021 · 3 min read · windows powershell  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy

    In the same vein as my script to automagically resize a Linux LVM volume to use up free space on a disk, I wanted a way to automatically apply Windows updates for servers deployed by my vRealize Automation environment. I'm only really concerned with Windows Server 2019, which includes the built-in Windows Update …


    Read More
  • vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part Three

    calendar Apr 19, 2021  · edit Oct 1, 2021 · 9 min read · vmware vra vro javascript powershell  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part Three

    Picking up after Part Two, I now have a pretty handy vRealize Orchestrator workflow to generate unique hostnames according to a defined naming standard. It even checks against the vSphere inventory to validate the uniqueness. Now I'm going to take it a step (or two, rather) further and extend those checks against …


    Read More
  • vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part Two

    calendar Apr 2, 2021  · edit Mar 23, 2022 · 23 min read · vmware vra vro javascript  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part Two

    We last left off this series after I'd set up vRA, performed a test deployment off of a minimal cloud template, and then enhanced the simple template to use vRA tags to let the user specify where a VM should be provisioned. But these VMs have kind of dumb names; right now, they're just getting named after the user who …


    Read More
  • vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part One

    calendar Mar 29, 2021 · 9 min read · vmware vra  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part One

    I recently shared some details about my little self-contained VMware homelab as well as how I integrated {php}IPAM into vRealize Automation 8 for assigning IPs to deployed VMs. For my next trick, I'll be crafting a flexible Cloud Template and accompanying vRealize Orchestrator workflow that will help to deploy and …


    Read More
  • Integrating {php}IPAM with vRealize Automation 8

    calendar Feb 22, 2021  · edit Jul 25, 2022 · 24 min read · python rest vmware vra networking  ·
    Share on: twitter facebook linkedin copy
    Integrating {php}IPAM with vRealize Automation 8

    In a previous post, I described some of the steps I took to stand up a homelab including vRealize Automation (vRA) on an Intel NUC 9. One of my initial goals for that lab was to use it for developing and testing a way for vRA to leverage phpIPAM for static IP assignments. The homelab worked brilliantly for that …


    Read More
    • ««
    • «
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • »
    • »»

John Bowdre photo

John Bowdre

Wrangler of imaginary computers.
vExpert Badge
Read More

Featured Posts

  • Create Virtual Machines on a Chromebook with HashiCorp Vagrant
  • ESXi ARM Edition on the Quartz64 SBC
  • Secure Networking Made Simple with Tailscale
  • Burn an ISO to USB with the Chromebook Recovery Utility

Recent Posts

  • Cat a File Without Comments
  • Create Virtual Machines on a Chromebook with HashiCorp Vagrant
  • PSA: Microsoft's KB5022842 breaks Windows Server 2022 VMs with Secure Boot
  • Tailscale golink: Private Shortlinks for your Tailnet
  • Tailscale on VMware Photon OS
  • K8s on vSphere: Building a Kubernetes Node Template With Packer

Series

TIPS 15 PROJECTS 14 VRA8 14 SCRIPTS 8 K8S-ON-VSPHERE 3

Tags

VMWARE 31 LINUX 20 VRA 14 CONTAINERS 10 DOCKER 9 AUTOMATION 8 HOMELAB 8 SHELL 8 CHROMEOS 7 CLOUD 7
All Tags
3DPRINTING1 ABX2 ACTIVEDIRECTORY2 ANDROID2 API2 AUTOMATION8 AVAILABILITY1 CERTS2 CHAT2 CHROME1 CHROMEOS7 CLOUD7 CLUSTER2 CONTAINERS10 CROSTINI3 DOCKER9 GCP3 HOMEASSISTANT1 HOMELAB8 HUGO2 INFRASTRUCTURE-AS-CODE2 JAVASCRIPT7 JEKYLL3 KUBERNETES6 LCM2 LINUX20 LOGS2 META5 NETWORKING6 NSX1 OPENSSL1 PACKER1 PHOTON1 PHPIPAM1 POWERCLI4 POWERSHELL7 PYTHON3 REGEX3 REST2 SALT1 SECURITY6 SERVERLESS1 SHELL8 TAILSCALE4 TANZU5 TASKER3 VMWARE31 VPN6 VRA14 VRO7 VSPHERE3 WINDOWS6 WIREGUARD4 WSL2
[A~Z][0~9]
Virtually Potato

Copyright 2018-  Virtually Potato. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by Hugo, Hugo Clarity theme, and Netlify. Privacy-friendly analytics with Cabin.
View source.

to-top