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    • Using PowerShell and a Scheduled Task to apply Windows Updates

      calendar Apr 29, 2021 · 3 min read · windows powershell  ·
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      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 …


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    • vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part Three

      calendar Apr 19, 2021  · edit Oct 1, 2021 · 9 min read · vmware vra vro javascript powershell  ·
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      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 …


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    • vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part Two

      calendar Apr 2, 2021  · edit Mar 23, 2022 · 21 min read · vmware vra vro javascript  ·
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      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 …


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    • vRA8 Custom Provisioning: Part One

      calendar Mar 29, 2021 · 8 min read · vmware vra  ·
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      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 …


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    • Integrating {php}IPAM with vRealize Automation 8

      calendar Feb 22, 2021 · 22 min read · python rest vmware vra networking  ·
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      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 …


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    • Using VS Code to explore giant log bundles

      calendar Feb 18, 2021 · 2 min read · logs vmware  ·
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      Using VS Code to explore giant log bundles

      I recently ran into a peculiar issue after upgrading my vRealize Automation homelab to the new 8.3 release, and the error message displayed in the UI didn't give me a whole lot of information to work with: I connected to the vRA appliance to try to find the relevant log excerpt, but doing so isn't all that …


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    • VMware Home Lab on Intel NUC 9

      calendar Feb 5, 2021 · 13 min read · vmware homelab vra lcm  ·
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      VMware Home Lab on Intel NUC 9

      I picked up an Intel NUC 9 Extreme kit a few months back (thanks, VMware!) and have been slowly tinkering with turning it into an extremely capable self-contained home lab environment. I'm pretty happy with where things sit right now so figured it was about time to start documenting and sharing what I've done. …


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    • PSA: halt replication before snapshotting linked vCenters

      calendar Jan 30, 2021 · 3 min read · vmware  ·
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      PSA: halt replication before snapshotting linked vCenters

      It's a good idea to take a snapshot of your virtual appliances before applying any updates, just in case. When you have multiple vCenter appliances operating in Enhanced Link Mode, though, it's important to make sure that the snapshots are in a consistent state. The vCenter vmdird service is responsible for …


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    • Burn an ISO to USB with the Chromebook Recovery Utility

      calendar Dec 23, 2020 · 2 min read · chromeos  ·
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      Burn an ISO to USB with the Chromebook Recovery Utility

      There are a number of fantastic Windows applications for creating bootable USB drives from ISO images - but those don't work on a Chromebook. Fortunately there's an easily-available tool which will do the trick: Google's own Chromebook Recovery Utility app. Normally that tool is used to creating bootable media to …


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    • Auto-connect to ProtonVPN on untrusted WiFi with Tasker [Update!]

      calendar Nov 24, 2020  · edit Mar 12, 2021 · 10 min read · android automation tasker vpn  ·
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      Auto-connect to ProtonVPN on untrusted WiFi with Tasker [Update!]

      [Update 2021-03-12] This solution recently stopped working for me. While looking for a fix, I found that OpenVPN had published some notes on controlling the official OpenVPN Connect app from Tasker. Jump to the Update below to learn how I adapted my setup with this new knowledge. I recently shared how I use Tasker and …


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    • Safeguard your Android's battery with Tasker + Home Assistant

      calendar Nov 14, 2020 · 4 min read · android tasker automation homeassistant  ·
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      Safeguard your Android's battery with Tasker + Home Assistant

      A few months ago, I started using the AccuBattery app to keep a closer eye on how I'd been charging my phones. The app has a handy feature that notifies you once the battery level reaches a certain threshold so you can pull the phone off the charger and extend the lithium battery's service life, and it even offers an …


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    • Showdown: Lenovo Chromebook Duet vs. Google Pixel Slate

      calendar Nov 6, 2020 · 5 min read · chromeos  ·
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      Showdown: Lenovo Chromebook Duet vs. Google Pixel Slate

      Okay, okay, this isn't actually going to be a comparison review between the two wildly-mismatched-but-also-kind-of-similar Chromeblets, but rather a (hopefully) brief summary of my experience moving from an $800 Pixel Slate + $200 Google keyboard to a Lenovo Chromebook Duet I picked up on sale for just $200. …


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    • Setting up Linux on a new Lenovo Chromebook Duet (bonus arm64 complications!)

      calendar Oct 27, 2020  · edit May 20, 2021 · 8 min read · chromeos linux crostini docker shell containers  ·
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      Setting up Linux on a new Lenovo Chromebook Duet (bonus arm64 complications!)

      I've written in the past about the Linux setup I've been using on my Pixel Slate. My Slate's keyboard stopped working over the weekend, though, and there don't seem to be any replacements (either Google or Brydge) to be found. And then I saw that Walmart had the 64GB Lenovo Chromebook Duet temporarily marked down to a …


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    • Fixing WSL2 connectivity when connected to a VPN with wsl-vpnkit

      calendar Oct 7, 2020 · 2 min read · windows linux wsl vpn  ·
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      Fixing WSL2 connectivity when connected to a VPN with wsl-vpnkit

      I was pretty excited to get WSL2 and Docker working on my Windows 10 1909 laptop a few weeks ago, but I quickly encountered a problem: WSL2 had no network connectivity when connected to my work VPN. Well, that's not entirely true; Docker worked just fine, but nothing else could talk to anything outside of the WSL …


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    • Abusing Chrome's Custom Search Engines for Fun and Profit

      calendar Sep 24, 2020 · 3 min read · chrome  ·
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      Abusing Chrome's Custom Search Engines for Fun and Profit

      Do you (like me) find yourself frequently searching for information within the same websites over and over? Wouldn't it be great if you could just type your query into your browser's address bar (AKA the Chrome Omnibox) and go straight to the results you need? Well you totally can - and probably already are for certain …


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    John Bowdre

    Wrangler of imaginary computers.
    VMware vExpert
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    Featured Posts

    • VMware Tanzu Community Edition Kubernetes Platform in a Homelab
    • Secure Networking Made Simple with Tailscale
    • Burn an ISO to USB with the Chromebook Recovery Utility
    • Setting up Linux on a new Lenovo Chromebook Duet (bonus arm64 complications!)

    Recent Posts

    • Getting Started with the vRealize Automation REST API
    • ESXi Arm Edition on the Quartz64 SBC
    • Download Web Folder Contents with Powershell (wget -r replacement)
    • Active Directory authentication in Tanzu Community Edition
    • Nessus Essentials on Tanzu Community Edition
    • Bulk Import vSphere dvPortGroups to phpIPAM

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