The Remote Desktop Gateway [RDG] role enables you to access your RDS environment remotely over 443.
Setup RD Licensing Role on Windows Server 2012 R2
Once you have an Remote Desktop Services [RDS] environment setup and want to continue using it past the 120 day trial period you will need to setup the RD Licensing role. This blog post will document how to setup the role, activate the license server with Microsoft, add a license key, then configure RDS with the license.
Setup Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2012 R2
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services [RDS] allows users to access centralized applications and workstations in the data center remotely. Microsoft RDS is the new expanded and renamed Microsoft Terminal Services. In this post I will document the implementation of RDS in my home lab using an ‘all-in-one’ configuration.
vBoring Blog Series:
- Setup Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2012 R2
- Setup RD Licensing Role on Windows Server 2012 R2
- Setup RD Gateway Role on Windows Server 2012 R2
A General System Error Occurred: Cannot get user info
After a fresh deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance 6 (VCSA) I got the error below when using “Use Windows session credentials” check box on the thick and web client. After some searching I found VMware KB 2050701 which states this is a known issue affecting vCenter Server Appliance 5.1, 5.5, and 6.0.
Deploying the VMware I/O Analyzer Fling
VMware I/O Analyzer is a virtual appliance designed to provide storage performance in a virtual environment. It is offered as a SUSE appliance that provides a web GUI to interact with.
I deployed I/O Analyzer in my vSphere 6.0 environment to see the performance of VSAN 6 compared to my Synology NAS. With this post you should be able to deploy I/O Analyzer in its simplest form and perform performance testing on your storage.
My Summary of VMworld 2015!
Whew! What a week VMworld 2015 was! I am now getting back into the groove since coming back home from VMworld 2015 in San Francisco, CA. This was my first year attending VMworld and I had a blast! I took quite a few pictures and wanted to make a quick post about my experience at VMworld 2015.
I can see why the Moscone Center was picked as the location as it is quite large to accommodate the over 23,000 attendees!
VMware Virtual SAN 6 – Requirements [Part 1]
VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) is a hypervisor-converged storage solution for your vSphere environment. It was built to be extremely easy to use and administrator, high performance and expandable. In this post I will go over the requirements and how to prepare your environment for VSAN.
vBoring VSAN Series:
- VMware Virtual SAN 6 – Requirements [Part 1]
- VMware Virtual SAN 6 – Setup and Configuration [Part 2]
VSAN Requirements:
Here are the minimum requirements to build out a VSAN environment.
Refer to VMware KB article 2106708 for an in depth breakdown of all requirements.
- Minimum of 3 ESXi 6.0 host that contribute storage
- At least one SSD and one Hard Disk per host
- Hosts need I/O controller supporting Pass Through or RAID 0 (prefer them to be on the VSAN Hardware Compatibility List)
- VMkernel port configured for VSAN traffic
- 1 GB network for small test/lab environment (VMware recommends 10GB)
- If you are deploying VSAN in your test/dev/lab and the 60 day evaluation period isn’t enough check out the VMUG Advantage subscription for a 1 year license.
VMware Virtual SAN 6 – Setup and Configuration [Part 2]
In this post I will go through enabling and configuring VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN) 6 cluster within vSphere. Virtual SAN is embedded directly in the hypervisor and does not require any additional software to be installed.
Add Virtual Machine Templates (.VMTX) to Inventory using PowerShell
Here is a script that will scan a datastore for VM templates (.VMTX) and add them to inventory. This is a modified version of the Add Virtual Machines (.VMX) to Inventory script.
You must have VMware PowerCLI installed in order to have the cmdlets required for PowerShell to run the script.
Add VMTX (Virtual Machine Templates) to Inventory from a Datastore:
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 |
##################################################################### # Load VMware Plugins and vCenter Connect # ##################################################################### Add-PSSnapin vmware.vimautomation.core connect-viserver -server ENTER VCENTER FQDN HERE ##################################################################### # Add .VMTX (VM Templates) to Inventory from Datastore # ##################################################################### # Variables: Update these to the match the environment $Cluster = "ENTER CLUSTER NAME HERE" $Datastore = "ENTER DATASTORE NAME HERE" $VMFolder = "ENTER FOLDER NAME HERE" $ESXHost = Get-Cluster $Cluster | Get-VMHost | select -First 1 foreach($Datastore in get-datastore $Datastore) { # Collect .vmtx paths of registered VMs on the datastore $registered = @{} Get-Template -Datastore $Datastore | ForEach-Object -Process { $registered.Add($_.Name+'.vmtx',$true) } # Set up Search for .VMTX Files in Datastore(s) $null = New-PSDrive -Name TgtDS -Location $Datastore -PSProvider VimDatastore -Root '\' $unregistered = @(Get-ChildItem -Path TgtDS: -Recurse | ` Where-Object -FilterScript { $_.FolderPath -notmatch '.snapshot' -and $_.Name -like '*.vmtx' -and !$registered.ContainsKey($_.Name) } ) Remove-PSDrive -Name TgtDS #Register all .vmtx Files as VMs on the datastore foreach($vmtxFile in $unregistered) { New-Template -Name $vmtxFile.Name -TemplateFilePath $vmtxFile.DatastoreFullPath -VMHost $ESXHost -Location $VMFolder -RunAsync } } |
Let’s see it in action!
Add Virtual Machines (.VMX) to Inventory using PowerShell
There are quite a few clicks to add a virtual machine from a datastore to inventory. If you were to consolidate an environment and had to add multiple virtual machines this would be quite a manual task. Easier solution? Script it! The below script makes scanning a datastore and registering all virtual machines with vCenter a breeze.
You must have VMware PowerCLI installed in order to have the cmdlets required for PowerShell to run the script.
Add VMX (Virtual Machines) to Inventory from a Datastore:
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 |
##################################################################### # Load VMware Plugins and vCenter Connect # ##################################################################### Add-PSSnapin vmware.vimautomation.core connect-viserver -server ENTER VCENTER FQDN HERE ##################################################################### # Add .VMX (Virtual Machines) to Inventory from Datastore # ##################################################################### # Variables: Update these to the match the environment $Cluster = "ENTER CLUSTER NAME HERE" $Datastore = "ENTER DATASTORE NAME HERE" $VMFolder = "ENTER FOLDER NAME HERE" $ESXHost = Get-Cluster $Cluster | Get-VMHost | select -First 1 foreach($Datastore in $Datastore) { # Searches for .VMX Files in datastore variable $ds = Get-Datastore -Name $Datastore | %{Get-View $_.Id} $SearchSpec = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostDatastoreBrowserSearchSpec $SearchSpec.matchpattern = "*.vmx" $dsBrowser = Get-View $ds.browser $DatastorePath = "[" + $ds.Summary.Name + "]" # Find all .VMX file paths in Datastore variable and filters out .snapshot $SearchResult = $dsBrowser.SearchDatastoreSubFolders($DatastorePath, $SearchSpec) | where {$_.FolderPath -notmatch ".snapshot"} | %{$_.FolderPath + ($_.File | select Path).Path} # Register all .VMX files with vCenter foreach($VMXFile in $SearchResult) { New-VM -VMFilePath $VMXFile -VMHost $ESXHost -Location $VMFolder -RunAsync } } |
Let’s see it in action!