Using SSH Agent as a form of single sign-on (SSO)

As mentioned in a previous post, Secure Shell (SSH) is a tool for secure system administration, file transfers, and other communication across the Internet or other untrusted networks. When implementing SSH keys to allow the use of encrypted public key authentication to eliminate the manual login process in a large number of hosts, you will probably face the challenge regarding … Continue reading Using SSH Agent as a form of single sign-on (SSO)

Provisioning VMs on Azure Stack HCI

Azure Stack HCI is a flexible hyperconverged infrastructure that will let you deploy a hybrid cloud solution where you can run virtual machines on-premises and easily connect them to Azure hybrid services. In this post, we will review some of the steps required to create these virtual machines. There are several ways to build a … Continue reading Provisioning VMs on Azure Stack HCI

Install Ansible quickly on a Linux host

There are many ways to install Ansible or the latest ansible-core on a particular host, but to learn and start using Ansible as configuration management or as an automation tool, preferably you will need a Linux host that will be your control node. The control node could be any popular Linux distribution available or any … Continue reading Install Ansible quickly on a Linux host

Deploying a nested ESXi lab sandbox

In this post, I am going to explain how to quickly deploy a nested ESXi lab using OVFTool as the primary tool with the help of some additional bash scripting. Instead of deploying a full working lab, I put this together as small building blocks to easily deploy and/or re-deploy the minimum necessary components like … Continue reading Deploying a nested ESXi lab sandbox

Install ESXi from USB flash drive

In this post, I am going to explain how to create bootable USB media to install ESXi on a virtual or physical machine. The first thing to do is download the required version of ESXi from VMware downloads. In the following example, I will be using ESXi 7.0U1c to create the bootable USB flash drive. There … Continue reading Install ESXi from USB flash drive

A sandbox lab using Vagrant

There are many tools out there to create and generate virtual environments, but for a quick and easy sandbox environment in my opinion one of the best options is Vagrant. The first thing we need to clarify is that Vagrant is not a tool for production, it is intended for development environments. Vagrant leverages a … Continue reading A sandbox lab using Vagrant

SSH key pairs for automating logins in a nutshell

Secure Shell (SSH) is a tool for secure system administration, file transfers, and other communication across the Internet or other untrusted network. It encrypts identities, passwords, and transmitted data so that they cannot be eavesdropped on and stolen. Also, SSH by definition is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. In simple terms, … Continue reading SSH key pairs for automating logins in a nutshell

Deploying PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition on a nested ESXi

Today we are going to deploy the PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition (aka DDVE) on ESXi 6.7 U3, using VMware Workstation 15.5 as the desktop virtualization platform for the nested ESXi host. First I will recommend before starting the setup process verify that you have valid credentials for http://support.dell.com which will be required to download all the necessary … Continue reading Deploying PowerProtect DD Virtual Edition on a nested ESXi

Nested ESXi on VMware Workstation in under 2 minutes

There are several ways to install ESXi, bare metal option is the process generally used by most IT Administrators, but you can also install ESXi nested under VMware Workstation, Player, or Fusion environment for training, evaluation, or educational purposes. To be in accordance with the purpose of this personal blog site which is looking for … Continue reading Nested ESXi on VMware Workstation in under 2 minutes

Installing the UnityVSA as primary data storage on your PC

On this LAB were going to install the DellEMC UnityVSA (Virtual Storage Appliance) as primary data storage on a VM under VMware Workstation Pro. Is important to mention that installing and running the UnityVSA under VMware Workstation is unsupported and this is only for evaluation, testing, or education purposes. For this LAB I did the … Continue reading Installing the UnityVSA as primary data storage on your PC