Virtually Boring

Azure Private Endpoints, DNS Private Resolver, and Conditional Forwarders: Private Access End-to-End

March 18, 2026 by Daniel

Diagram of Azure DNS with Private Resolver, Private DNS Zone, and Conditional Forwarder

By default, most Azure services — storage accounts, key vaults, SQL databases, you name it — are reachable over the public internet. That’s fine for a quick lab, but not great when you want your on-premises workloads to talk to Azure resources without any of that traffic ever leaving your private network. That’s where Private Endpoints come in. A Private Endpoint drops a Network Interface Card (NIC) directly inside your Virtual Network, giving your Azure resource a private IP address that’s only reachable from within your network. No public internet required. The catch? DNS. Your on-premises DNS servers still resolve that storage account’s hostname to its old public IP. We need to teach them to ask Azure’s private DNS instead. To bridge that gap we’ll use Azure’s DNS Private Resolver — a fully managed, serverless DNS forwarder that lives inside your VNet — and then configure a Conditional Forwarder on your Windows DNS server to point traffic for Azure domains at it. Here’s what we’re building end-to-end: Environment note: In this walkthrough I use a storage account as the example resource, but the same pattern applies to any Azure service that supports Private Link (Key Vault, SQL, App Service, etc.). Only the resource type and DNS zone name change. There are multiple scenarios for using these services. The scenario I am deploying is called Azure Private Resolver for virtual network and on-premises …

Deploying Azure Virtual Network Gateway Basic: A How-To Guide

March 17, 2026January 27, 2026 by Daniel

If you’ve got an Azure subscription through Visual Studio Enterprise, you’ve basically been handed the perfect playground for testing and learning in the cloud. But once you start building resources inside a private Azure network, you quickly hit the next challenge: how do you securely connect it back to your home lab without exposing everything to the internet? In this post, I’m going to go through the process of how I deployed a Basic Azure Virtual Network Gateway and connected it to my Ubiquiti Dream Machine, creating a secure site-to-site VPN tunnel between my Azure VNet and my home network. I wanted to document what that process looked like for me and share it in case it helps someone else doing the same thing.

How to Takeover an Unmanaged Directory in Azure

March 1, 2022 by Daniel

When trying to create an Azure subscription I received the following error:

This tenant is viral. If you are an IT admin, you can take over the directory.

After some reading a viral tenant is another meaning for an unmanaged directory. An unmanaged directory is a directory that was automatically created when a user with @virtuallyboring.com created an Azure account. Its a directory that has no global administrator. Microsoft created a Azure Active Directory (AAD) tenant in the background and is sitting there unmanaged. This is so users can create an account and use resources without it being a blocker that the domain isn’t claimed in AAD.

There are two ways to take over an unmanaged directory:

Internal admin takeover:
- Your account gets elevated to global administrator
- No users, domains, or service plans are migrated
External Admin Takeover:
- Add the unmanaged domain name to a tenant where you are a Global Administrator
- A mapping of users to resources is created in your managed Azure Active Directory
  - Users can continue to access services without interruption

Source: Admin takeover of an unmanaged directory – Azure AD | Microsoft Docs

For my example I will be using a internal admin takeover.

Migrate GoDaddy Domain and DNS to AWS Route 53

April 20, 2021December 23, 2020 by Daniel

I started this blog back in June of 2014 to play around with platforms like Joomla and WordPress. I wouldn’t be truthful if I didn’t say the GoDaddy Superbowl commercials didn’t sell me to start with GoDaddy to register my domain name and provide hosting. Over the years I haven’t had any major issues that caused long term outages, only a few hours sprinkled in every month with their Linux Hosting Essential with CPanel plan. With 2020 being my first year working in AWS I felt strongly to move my domain over to AWS Route 53 so I can start playing around with the AWS suite of services! That is the goal of this post is to walk through the transfer my domain and DNS from GoDaddy to AWS Route 53!

These instructions are specifically for GoDaddy but would work for any domain registrar provider you are using today. The screenshots would be different but the task would be the same. You have to switch back and forth between GoDaddy console and AWS Console quite a bit. I try to start the task stating if a console swap is need and where you should be. Working with DNS can be tricky as it can be a waiting game especially when dealing with external DNS replicated across the world (Time To Live – TTL). If doing this in a production environment make sure you do this during a low peak time and give yourself extra window of time to troubleshoot (and wait for DNS replication). It’s pretty easy and straight forward, but it’s DNS.

What exactly is Route 53? Route 53 is Amazon Web Services (AWS) highly available and scalable Domain Name System (DNS) service launched back in 2010. It has powerful traffic routing policies and health checks that you use depending on your use case. Route 53 has a default limit of 50 domain names however this limit can be increased by contacting AWS support.

Part 1 – Migrate from GoDaddy DNS to AWS Route 53:

Step 1: Create AWS Route 53 Hosted Zone

What is a AWS Hosted Zone? Here is a snippet from the Route 53 FAQ:

A hosted zone is an Amazon Route 53 concept. A hosted zone is analogous to a traditional DNS zone file; it represents a collection of records that can be managed together, belonging to a single parent domain name. All resource record sets within a hosted zone must have the hosted zone’s domain name as a suffix. For example, the amazon.com hosted zone may contain records named www.amazon.com, and www.aws.amazon.com, but not a record named www.amazon.ca. You can use the Route 53 Management Console or API to create, inspect, modify, and delete hosted zones. You can also use the Management Console or API to register new domain names and transfer existing domain names into Route 53’s management.

First we must create the Hosted Zone in Route 53. This is so we can get our Amazon Name Servers for use in a later step. Go to Route 53 in the AWS console, then click Hosted Zones on the left column, then Create Hosted Zone:

Enable SSH Service on ESXi hosts using PowerShell

October 7, 2020September 13, 2016 by Daniel

I found myself wanting to enable the SSH service on my ESXi hosts. I could use Host Profiles to enable it but I decided to PowerShell script it! To enable SSH there are three parts to it:

You will need to start the SSH service and set it to Start and Stop with Host:

And you will need to suppress the SSH is enabled warning message:

This script does all of the above to an entire cluster. Let’s see it in action!

######################################################################
# Start SSH Service, change Startup Policy, and Suppress SSH Warning #
######################################################################

#Variables
$vCenter = "LABVC01.virtuallyboring.com"
$Cluster = "Nested ESXi Cluster"

### Start of Script
# Load VMware Cmdlet and connect to vCenter
Add-PSSnapin vmware.vimautomation.core
connect-viserver -server $vCenter

$VMHost = Get-Cluster -Name $Cluster | Get-VMhost

# Start SSH Server on a Cluster
ForEach ($VMhost in $Cluster){
Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN "Starting SSH Service on " -NoNewline
Write-Host -ForegroundColor YELLOW "$VMhost"
Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService | ? {($_.Key -eq "TSM-ssh") -and ($_.Running -eq $False)} | Start-VMHostService
}

# Change Startup Policy
ForEach ($VMhost in $Cluster){
Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN "Setting Startup Policy on " -NoNewline
Write-Host -ForegroundColor YELLOW "$VMhost"
Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostService | where { $_.key -eq "TSM-SSH" } | Set-VMHostService -Policy "On" -Confirm:$false -ea 1
}

# Surpress SSH Warning
ForEach ($VMhost in $Cluster){
Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN "Setting UserVar to supress Shell warning on " -NoNewline
Write-Host -ForegroundColor YELLOW "$VMhost"
Get-VMhost | Get-AdvancedSetting | Where {$_.Name -eq "UserVars.SuppressShellWarning"} | Set-AdvancedSetting -Value "1" -Confirm:$false
}
### End of Script

How to Add ESXi Hosts to vCenter using PowerShell

October 6, 2020July 14, 2016 by Daniel

There are quite a few clicks needed to add a host to vCenter. If you are deploying multiple hosts to your environment you have many clicks ahead. You should script it! This PowerShell script will make adding multiple hosts to vCenter easy!

Let’s see it in action!

#####################################################################
# Load VMware Plugins and connect to vCenter
#####################################################################

Add-PSSnapin vmware.vimautomation.core
## Enter your vCenter here
connect-viserver -server LABVC01.virtuallyboring.com

########################################################################
# Add Multiple Hosts to vCenter
########################################################################

# Variables
## You can use comma separated names or change to pull from a text file. Your pick.
$ESXiHosts = "ESXi01.virtuallyboring.com" , "ESXi02.virtuallyboring.com" , "ESXi03.virtuallyboring.com"
## Enter the name of a Data Center or Host Cluster
$ESXiLocation = "Nested ESXi Cluster"

# Start Script
$credentials = Get-Credential -UserName root -Message "Enter the ESXi root password"

Foreach ($ESXiHosts in $ESXiHosts) {
Add-VMHost -Name $ESXiHosts -Location $ESXiLocation -User $credentials.UserName -Password $credentials.GetNetworkCredential().Password -RunAsync -force
Write-Host -ForegroundColor GREEN "Adding ESXi host $ESXiHosts to vCenter"
}
# End Script

vSphere Thick Client End of Life – A Look at the HTML 5 Client Fling

June 10, 2016May 28, 2016 by Daniel

On May 18th VMware announced the end of the road for the C# vSphere Thick Client. The next version of vSphere the thick client will not be available. VMware has been building up to this moment and previously announced they wanted to move to a web based client to have maximum compatibility and mobility. The current versions of the vSphere thick client will remain supported (5.5, 6.0) until their end of life cycle. So what does the future look like for the vSphere Client? VMware will keep the existing Flash web client and introduce the HTML5 based vSphere Client. The Flash web client will remain so third party developers can migrate their plugins over to the long term HTML5 client.

The HTML 5 Web Client Fling is available to download and install. It gives a fantastic view of how VMware envisions the new HTML 5 client. There are quite a few limitations in the current form but VMware will have the kinks worked out before it becomes the primary client. Below is how to deploy the v1.6 HTML 5 Client Fling and link to a VCSA:

Full installation instructions can be found here

Deploying the OVA:

Once the OVA is downloaded from the Fling website, login to your vSphere Web Client, right click on the Data Center, then click Deploy OVF Template:

VMware Horizon View 7: Instant Clone Desktop Pool [Part 8]

June 2, 2016May 28, 2016 by Daniel

In Part 8 of this Boring series I will be setting up an Instant Clone Desktop Pool. This is one of the coolest features announced of Horizon 7 in my opinion! You may have heard of Project Fargo (aka vmFork) announced during the keynote speech of VMworld 2014. This is the result of that project! Instant Clone gives you the ability to rapidly deploy VMs (children) from a already powered on and running VM (parent). The child clones share the memory and disk of the parent for Reads while Writes are placed in a delta disk. To read more about Instant Clone technology check out this VMware Blog post.

vBoring Blog Series:

Creating the Instant Clone Template:

For a guide to setup your Master Template follow my previous post: https://boring.wpengine.com/vmware-horizon-view-7-create-master-desktop-template/

There are a few additional stipulations that needs to be met:

Windows 7 and Windows 10 are the only supported operating systems for Instant Cloning
Only VSAN and VMFS datastores are supported; NFS and local storage are not allowed
Ensure your template is VM Hardware Version 11
When installing the Horizon View Agent, ensure you enabled the VMware Horizon Instant Clone option:

VMware Horizon View 7: Automated Desktop Pool [Part 7]

May 28, 2016April 23, 2016 by Daniel

Part 7 of the series we will be creating a Automated Desktop Pool using Full Desktops.

vBoring Blog Series:

Create Automated Desktop Pool:

To create a desktop pool login to the View Administrator Console, drill down to Catalog-> Desktop Pools -> then click Add:

VMware Horizon View 7: Create Master Desktop Template [Part 6]

May 28, 2016April 23, 2016 by Daniel

Part 6 of the series we will be creating a ‘golden’ master desktop template to use for our View Desktop pools. I will be creating a Windows 10 template but you could use any Windows version you wish!

vBoring Blog Series: