SSL

Retrieve an SSL Certificate from a Server With OpenSSL

by

I was setting up VMware vRealize Automation’s Active Directory connections the other day and I needed the public SSL certificate for the AD DCs to authenticate correctly. You can use OpenSSL to get that information. I used a Linux shell but this should be do-able from a Mac or with OpenSSL installed on Windows, too. If you wanted to read the SSL certificates off this blog you could issue the following command, all on one line: openssl s_client -showcerts -servername lonesysadmin.net -connect lonesysadmin.net:443 < /dev/null In this case you’ll get a whole bunch of stuff back: CONNECTED(00000003)depth=2 O = Digital Signature Trust Co., CN = DST Root CA X3verify return:1depth=1 C = US, O = Let’s Encrypt, CN = Let’s …

Read More

Interesting Dell iDRAC Tricks

by

Deploying a bunch of machines all at once? Know your way around for loops in shell scripts, or Excel enough to do some basic text functions & autofill? You, too, can set up a few hundred servers in one shot. Here’s some interesting things I’ve done in the recent past using the Dell iDRAC out-of-band hardware management controllers. You need to install the racadm utility on your Windows or Linux host. I’ll leave this up to you, but you probably want to look in the Dell Downloads for your server, under “Systems Management.” I recently found it as “Dell OpenManage DRAC Tools, includes Racadm” in 32- and 64-bit flavors. Basic Command The basic racadm command I’ll represent with $racadm from …

Read More

Notes on Upgrading the VMware vCenter Server Appliance 5.1 to 5.5

by

I’ve done a few upgrades of the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) 5.1 now, to the GA release of 5.5 (build 1312297). Here are my observations: You need a second IP temporarily for the upgrade. The way it works is that you deploy a new vCSA, then the two of them talk to each other to do the upgrade. When they’re done copying stuff around the process will shut the old one off and reboot the new one so it’s fully functional. While the need for a second IP is fairly obvious, I managed to overlook it. Don’t specify a hostname for the new vCSA in the OVF/OVA deployment wizard if you don’t want to change the name of the …

Read More

Four Things VMware Engineering Can Give Me For Christmas

by

I hope everybody out there in the virtualization world is having a great holiday season this year! My religion celebrates Christmas, and these are four things I’d love to see under my Christmas tree this year. 1. IPv6 support at all levels of the VMware stack. For a cloud vendor that fancies themselves as forward-looking, not to mention trying to be the “VMware of Networking,” the lack of IPv6 is pretty embarrassing. I know, I know, the tired argument is that nobody is really looking at IPv6. Well, it’s hard to look at when your vendor doesn’t support it much. 🙂 Chicken, meet egg. This would also help ameliorate the fact that VMware products need an awful lot of IPs …

Read More