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VMware NSX

Using NO SNAT rules in Cloud Director and NSX

While working with a customer to get them onboarded in a VMware NSX (NSX-T) based Cloud Director environment, a use case for NO SNAT rules presented itself that I want to share. In this case the customer has an NSX-T based Edge gateway (T1) connected to a dedicated (VRF based) T0 for route advertisement. Check my previous post about Inter Tenant routing in Cloud Director for some background on the matter. Case background To explain Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago

Cloud Foundation: Update SDDC bring-up parameters

While troubleshooting of a failed SDDC Manager deploy task in Cloud Foundation 4.4 together with VMware support, the engineer showed a way to update the SDDC bring-up parameters. This can be very helpful because it can restart a failed SDDC deployment with updated parameters. This prevents redeploying the physical servers intended for the management domain and reverting Cloud Builder to a previous snapshot. Solution The Cloud Builder VM has a so-called Supportability and Serviceability (SoS) Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago

Cloud Foundation: Deploy of SDDC Manager failed during bring-up

Recently I moved to the latest Cloud Foundation version (v4.4) in a lab environment that I often re-deploy. I noticed that during the Cloud Builder bring-up phase the deploy of the SDDC managed failed ever since, while using the same input parameters in the deployment parameters workbook. So it worked in 4.1.x and 4.2.x, but not in 4.4 (I did not test 4.3). Strange, right? Symptoms Cloud Builder was well underway when the error “SDDC Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago

Cloud Director: Distributed Firewalling with NSX-T

In the beginning of 2022, I attended the “VMware Cloud Director: Advanced Networking with NSX-T Data Center” training for VCD 10.2. The training touched on a couple of topics, that are blog worthy. Let’s start with the third one in this latest Cloud Director series. Previous ones in this series are: Cloud Director tidbits: DHCP Modes with NSX-T Cloud Director: Comparing Data Center Group network features Since Cloud Director (VCD) 10.2, one or more NSX-T Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago

Cloud Director: Comparing Data Center Group network features

In the beginning of 2022, I attended the “VMware Cloud Director: Advanced Networking with NSX-T Data Center” training for VCD 10.2. The training touched on a couple of topics, that are blog worthy. Let’s start with the next one in this latest Cloud Director series. Other posts in this series are: Cloud Director tidbits: DHCP Modes with NSX-T Cloud Director: Distributed Firewalling with NSX-T Since Cloud Director (VCD) 10.2, one or more NSX-T backed Virtual Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago

Cloud Director tidbits: DHCP Modes with NSX-T

In the beginning of 2022, I attended the “VMware Cloud Director: Advanced Networking with NSX-T Data Center” training for VCD 10.2. The training touched on a couple of topics, that are blog worthy. Other posts in this latest Cloud Director series are: Cloud Director: Comparing Data Center Group network features Cloud Director: Distributed Firewalling with NSX-T Let’s start with the DHCP features that can be configured on network segments. Available DHCP Modes When DHCP services Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago

NSX-T Tidbits: Appliance root password reset made easy

When you’ve lost the root password of your NSX-T 3.x Manager, Edge or Cloud appliance (including 2.5.2+) things have gotten a lot easier. Nowadays a password reset method is now build into the Edge, Manager and Cloud Manager appliance. In the versions before 2.5.2, it was a pretty tedious procedure involving a lot of steps, including and booting the appliance with a Ubuntu server ISO. In my case the passwords of all local users on Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago

Office for Mac AutoUpdate stuck in Installing state

A constant appearing message in Word and Excel about to “Check for updates” triggered me to start updating Microsoft Office on my Mac. Normally it starts Microsoft AutoUpdate (MAU) which searches for Office updates. Now it did open the tool, but it looked like it failed updating itself and got stuck in the “Installing” state before it could update Office. This was really annoying, because Office apps kept notifying me of available updates after every Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago

Ubuntu gets DHCP address while static configured

One of my Raspberry Pi’s runs Ubuntu Server 20.04 (Focal) and has a static IP interface configuration using systemd. The Pi is configured in the same way as in the previous post on this topic, “Linux interface config with systemd“. The previous post describes how systemd can be configured for network interface IP configuration, instead of plain old interface files. One of issues I had while writing that post was that my host had a Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago

VMware NSX-T Data Center 3.1 Security exam guide

After attending VMware EMPOWER earlier this year, I won a voucher for a free exam (thanks EMPOWER team!). I chose the NSX-T 3.1 Data Center Security exam because of personal interest and exciting security features NSX offers. While preparing for the exam I gathered a list of study materials I wanted to share with you all. The voucher expired on the 31st of August, but got it in mid-July during my PTO. So, work to Read more…

By Daniël Zuthof, ago