VVD on VxRail – Shared Edge & Compute Domain (External vCenter Installation)

David Ring VMware, VxRAIL , , , , ,

Note: this is an example for reference only please use the VxRail ‘External vCenter’ installation procedures provided by Dell EMC.

The following will require an understanding of the VVD on VxRAIL design for which all associated documentation can be found here:

VMware Validated Design 4.2 on VxRail Deployment Guides

This post details how to install a VxRail appliance leveraging an external vCenter server, for example this is the case when you wish to deploy a VVD on VxRail solution where the second VxRail instance used for the Shared Edge and Compute Domain (Workload Domain) requires the use of an external vCenter (vCenter is deployed on the Management Domain VxRail Appliance). This process is strictly for the workload domain  and differs from the procedure used to deploy the first Management Domain VxRail Appliance. For more information on the architecture of VVD on VxRail please check out this cool lightboard video from Jason:

VVD for SDDC on VxRail Lightboard Overview

To begin you will need to have the Shared Edge and Compute Domain (Workload Domain) vCenter deployed on the management VxRAIL Appliance. Continue reading →

Windows RDP – CredSSP encryption oracle remediation

David Ring Microsoft , , , ,

I have encountered this error on several systems over the past couple of months while attempting to create an RDP session to a Windows remote machine:

RDPCredSSPError1

I found adding the registry entry detailed below to the client machine the quickest fix:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\CredSSP\Parameters 

Create REG_DWORD: AllowEncryptionOracle
Value: 2

RDPCredSSPError2

You can run the following cmd from an elevated prompt to apply the registry config:

REG ADD HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\CredSSP\Parameters\ /v AllowEncryptionOracle /t REG_DWORD /d 2

RDPCredSSPError3

As per MS the issue was caused by a CredSSP update:

‘The most common scenario is that the client has the CredSSP update installed, and the Encryption Oracle Remediation policy setting does not allow an insecure RDP connection to a server that does not have the CredSSP update installed.’

VMware vSAN – Enable Provision of VM SWAP Files as Thin

David Ring VMware, VxRAIL , , ,

The following steps detail how to enable vSAN to provision the Virtual Machine Swap files as thin. vSAN Sparse Swap Files allow you to conserve space in the vSAN datastore by only consuming vSAN storage as the swap gets used i.e instead of leaving as default thick swap files which means for example when you create a VM with 32GB of memory this results in the creation of a 32GB virtual swap file (.vswp) unless of course you have configured reservations. You can see how quickly your vSAN datastore could fill if there are many hundreds of VM’s created in this default manner.

Steps to to enable provisioning of virtual machine swap files on vSAN as thin:

From the vSphere Client

1. In the Navigator, click Hosts and Clusters and expand the entire cluster tree.
2. Select the first host in the clsuter.
3. Click the Configure tab->System->Advanced System Settings.
4. Click the Edit button.vsanvswpthin0 Continue reading →

vCenter VCSA 6.5 – Repoint to New PSC

David Ring VMware, VxRAIL , , , , ,

Please also see related post:

VCSA 6.0U2 Lookup SSO Domain Name & Site Name

The following details how to repoint a vCenter VCSA using an external PSC within the same site to a different PSC FQDN. One reason for completing such a task is in the event of your active PSC failing you can simply repoint VC to a second PSC in the same site. The reason I completed such a task was part of a VxRAIL VVD deployment leveraging a load balanced PSC config which required to repoint the VxRAIL management VC to the LB FQDN.

If you wish to confirm the current configuration status of PSC & VC simply navigate via the Web Client:

Home->Admin->System Config->Nodes->Objects

vcsarepoint0 Continue reading →

Windows Powershell – Setting Environment Variable

David Ring Microsoft

The following describes how to leverage the $ENV:PATH syntax within powershell to add a value to the Path environment variable, please note changing the environment variables using this method only works for the current powershell session. If you wish to make this change persist in the registry then use System properties->Advanced->Environment Variables->Path->Edit->Edit Text 

psenvpath1 Continue reading →