PowerCLI - How to backup VCSA 6.5

I have recently been working on an issue with a PowerCLI script that has been working for a few weeks that just stopped working. The script is modified version of the one Kyle Ruddy posted about here:
https://blogs.vmware.com/PowerCLI/2018/07/automate-file-based-backup-of-vcsa.html

The script also uses Credentials store to be able to run the script securely but other than that the script is pretty vanilla.

Now that you are up to speed with how it is supposed to work, my next post will cover the issue, and how to resolve it.

PowerCLI - Datastore Report

I recently was working in an environment where they are still running vSphere 6.0. While doing some storage expansions I discovered that the Flash Client and the C# Client were not reporting the same size on the Datastore. This can be very frustrating as you are not sure which one you can trust. So as a tie breaker I decided to turn to my good friend PowerCLI.

It turns out that the PowerCLI and the C# client were reporting the same thing. So I decided to create a PowerCLI Script to assist me in my work. You can find the script there on my Github:

https://github.com/kenbshinn/PowerCLI-Scripts/blob/master/VM_Datastore_Report.ps1


I hope you found this post helpful and will share it with your friends.

PowerCLI - Virtual Host Hardware Information

I have recently been working on a asset inventory issue where I was provided a list of serial numbers from our hardware vendor and I was asked to reconcile it with what we had. Well that is easier said than done in most cases.

I know that vCenter collects a bunch of hardware information and I wanted to see if there was a way to pull the Serial number that is on the System board and put that information into a .csv.

In comes the following command:

 Get-VMHost | Get-VMHostHardware -SkipAllSslCertificateChecks | Export-Csv C:\temp\VMHostHardware.csv

This command will pull all the hardware information that vCenter records and puts it to a .CSV.

I will do my best to update this post with an example of what the results will look like.

I hope you find this post helpful, if so please share with your friends.

PowerCLI - vSphere Role Privilege report

So I have been looking for ways to expand my knowledge with PowerCLI. This whole effort came about from going to VMWorld 2019 in San Francisco and seeing presentations by Kyle Ruddy and Luc Denkens. Let me tell you, they did some amazing things in their presentations. 

I had been working on a project where I needed to get list of all of the Non-Standard vCenter Roles along with the privileges assigned to those roles. I am still very new to this whole PowerCLI thing, but my google skills are top notch. I found a blog post on this blog http://kunaludapi.blogspot.com/

I ran the script to see how well it worked and it worked as advertised. I created a copy of the script on my Github which you can find here: https://github.com/kenbshinn/PowerCLI-Scripts/blob/master/vSphere_Role_Report.ps1

I hope you find this post helpful, and if you do please share it with your friends and colleagues.

How to unlock and reset SSO password in vSphere 6.x (2146224)

So I have a bit of a embarrassing confession to make. I forgot to record the Administrator password for my VCSA Appliance. Total disclosure, I was freaking out and I really thought I was going to have to start from scratch. I did some research I was surprised to find out that you can actually reset the Administrator account on a VCSA appliance as long as you have the root password for the appliance and you have access to the VCSA Console. Below are a list of the links to the KB Articles from VMware.

Resetting SSO Administrator Password
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2034608
Resetting SSO Administrator - VCSA 6.x

Below is the PUTTY session as an example.

shinnk@Computer:~$ ssh root@devvcsa01.xxxx.xxxxx
ssh: Could not resolve hostname devvcsa01.xxx.xxxxx: Name or service not known
shinnk@Computer:~$ ssh root@172.26.44.18
The authenticity of host '172.26.44.18 (172.26.44.18)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:7E4K1HVpg2ExWz+vEkkRdJ0M5jUYftb3HZw6OSDKFEICSOEPWWKYERe4.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added '172.26.44.18' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.0.21000

Type: vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller

Password:
Connected to service

    * List APIs: "help api list"
    * List Plugins: "help pi list"
    * Launch BASH: "shell"

Command> shell.set --enabled true
Command> shell
Shell access is granted to root
root@devvcsa01 [ ~ ]# /usr/lib/vmware-vmdir/bin/vdcadmintool


==================
Please select:
0. exit
1. Test LDAP connectivity
2. Force start replication cycle
3. Reset account password
4. Set log level and mask
5. Set vmdir state
6. Get vmdir state
7. Get vmdir log level and mask
==================

3
  Please enter account UPN : Administrator@vsphere.local
New password is -
/a+p|8M?vRl`%"p4*+oZ


==================
Please select:
0. exit
1. Test LDAP connectivity
2. Force start replication cycle
3. Reset account password
4. Set log level and mask
5. Set vmdir state
6. Get vmdir state
7. Get vmdir log level and mask
==================

Once you go through all these steps you are now able to log into VCSA with that temporary password that you are given and you are also able to reset it as well.

I hope you find this post helpful, and if you do please share it out to your friends.

Getting past Certificate issue in Power CLI

So I recently started working more with PowerCLI. After my time at VMWorld 2019 (which I will cover in another post) I realized how powerful that PowerCLI actually is (pun not intended). In starting to work with PowerCLI I came across the following message whil: trying to connect to my vCenter

Connect-vIServer : xx-x-xxxx xx:xx:xx Connect-VIServer Error: Invalid server certificate. Use Set-PowerCLIConfiguration to set the value for the InvalidCertificateAction option to Prompt if you’d like to connect once or to add a permanent exception for this server.

I did some googling and I found this article,so shout out to Ivo Beerens for his article.

https://www.ivobeerens.nl/2018/07/18/quick-tip-powercli-invalid-server-certificate-error/

In his article he goes on to share this command

Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -InvalidCertificateAction Ignore -Confirm:$false

After putting that into PowerShell and pressing enter you will no longer get the Invalid Certificate message.

I hope you found this post helpful, I will be posting about some of the scripts that I have been posting on my Github. Please share with your friends if you found this helpful. 

Enable a Remote Mailbox in Office 365

So I recently ran into an issue where I had a user who's Local AD account had been deleted but their Office 365 Mailbox was still showing up. We tried to bring the user account back, however the AD recycle bin was not enabled. So we had to create a brand new account for the user and then work from there.

We originally planned to create a new mailbox and let the user start from scratch. However we ran into an issue were the old mailbox would not go away, and it was preventing us from migrating a new mailbox into Exchange Online for the user.

I then found the following Exchange Management Shell command which will allow you to connect the local AD account to the Exchange Online Mailbox.

Enable-RemoteMailbox USERNAME -RemoteRoutingAddress Alias@domain.onmicrosoft.com

After running the command the user is now able to log in with their new AD account and have access to their mailbox.

I hope you found this post helpful, and if you did, please share it with your friends.

VMWorld is in 2 days!!!

VMWorld 2019 will be in 2 days!! I will be attending this year for my first time. I must say I am very excited and anxious to go. I am looking forward to all the people I will meet and events that I will have the opportunity to take part in. 

I will do my best to post updates throughout the week. Be sure to follow me on twitter @kenbshinn where I am sure I will be posting updates as well. 

Microsoft Active Directory Time Sync Settings

So I was recently asked by a client: "Why is the time on my PC 5 minutes off from my phone?"

Now this is a small environment, a very small environment (1 Server and 7 workstations). The first thing I thought about was what does the server clock look like? So I remoted into the server and sure enough it had the same time as the workstation.

I went and checked the registry and found that the server was pointed get its time from time.windows.com, but for some reason that was not working.

I then used the following command to point it to several of the pools hosted by NIST.gov

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:time-a-g.nist.gov,time-b-g.nist.gov,time-c-g.nist.gov,time-d-g.nist.gov /syncfromflags:manual /reliable:yes /update

After that I restarted the W32Time (Windows Time) service to make the update work.

Once that is done it should force a resync of the time service which could take some time to update and to sync with all the workstations.

I hope you find this post helpful, and if so please share it with your friends.

Power off entire Virtual Environment using a PowerShell Script and PowerCLI

So I have a lab that I manage where we have had several scheduled power outages in the last few months. So it is my job to make sure that we power off the lab so none of our equipment have issues when we bring it back up.

I would estimate that our lab is comprised of about 90% VMware ESXi Hosts, and after going through the exercise of powering off the whole lab 1 or 2 times, it became it bit of a pain.

So I created a PowerShell Script using PowerCLI to not only power off all the Virtual Machine, but also the Virtual Hosts, and the VCSA appliance itself.

I have posted the script to my Github which you an check out here:

https://github.com/kenbshinn/Poweroff_VirtualEnvironment

Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think.

I hope you found this post helpful, and if so, please share it with your friends.

Home Automation.... reinventing the wheel

A few months back I had a catastrophic failure with the Raspberry Pi that had been running my Home Automation Platform (Home Assistant). Long Story short, I reached the physical limit of writes available on an SD Card. Who knew you could reach that limit on less than 2 years if you are running an a Home Automation System, Logging Location Services, Temperature monitoring, well as an MQTT Broker on the same box?? 

Unfortunately my schedule did not allow for me to rebuild my Raspberry Pi sooner, and I am kind of glad that it did. During the time of being Home Assistant-less, I learned that I was really not using it to it's fullest extent and that overtime most of the features that I depended on it for had been transitioned over to my Google Home/Smart Things Hub, or my kids ended up reprogramming (more on this later).

I started to think about what I really needed Home Assistant for, well besides turning on my Z Wave Controlled office lights for me (that was very handy). I also thought about how my Google Homes had been taking over my life. Then it occurred to me. 90% of what I use my Google Homes for is Voice controlling my lights. That is not Automation, 4 times out of 10 I have to repeat myself to get it to work, and the effort of turning on a light switch with my hand is not very taxing. 

Really, I am just being lazy..... End of Story!

Just kidding....

In all seriousness I decided to get back to basics and figure out what I had going on in my house that could use Automating and here is a list of projects I have come up with that I will do blog posts about in the future.

• Install Philips Hue Lights (the wife bought me these about a year ago, Time I put them to work)
• Automating Dehumidifier - using a Z Wave humidity sensor and a WEMO Outlet
• Automating Basement Space Heater - Same concept as above
• Automating Office Fan - Now this one is going to be tricky. I am not sure if I want it to turn on when I open the door, or at a certain temperature. 
• Automating my Bearded Dragon's Lights - Using a WiFi Enabled power strip
• Automating Exterior lights - Using Presence of all family members and time of day

I have other lists of things that I would like to do down the road, but for now, this should keep me busy. 

Just so you are aware, I do have vanilla Home Assistant running on my Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do about an MQTT Broker to communicate with my Smart Things Hub. I have been playing around with Docker and I am thinking that is a good place for it to live, as well as hosting it on a separate Pi or Linux machine. 

Come September my schedule will be going back to crazy, if not worse with some additional things I am putting on my plate which I hope to talk about soon.

How to convert a User Mailbox to a Shared Mailbox in Exchange 2016

So I discovered that there is the right way and the wrong way to create a Shared Mailbox when using Office 365 Exchange Hosted and Exchange 2016 in a Hybrid configuration. So the way I would normally do it would be to migrate the mailbox to Office 365 and then click that pretty little button to convert to a Shared Mailbox.

It turns out that when you do that it will create the mailbox as a shared mailbox, however the Active Directory (AD) Components are non-existent. Which means you cannot assign permissions to users who are synced by AD.

Well.... you can.... but it doesn't actually work.

So what can we do to make it work when you have a user who is complaining that they need to send out a file at 4:45 PM on a Friday???

Well there is not much that you can do, but I would start with converting the mailbox back to a normal user mailbox and then migrate the mailbox back to your Local Exchange Environment.

Once the migration is complete you can then run the following command to convert a normal user account to a Shared Mailbox on Exchange.

Set-Mailbox AJones -Type shared

Once the command is complete (which is really freaky fast) you will then be able to see the mailbox under the "Shared Mailbox" section in Exchange.

I would then Migrate the mailbox back to Office 365 the way that it is and once it is done you should be good to go.

In the event that you would want to switch the Shared Mailbox back to a normal mailbox, here is the command to switch it back.

Set-Mailbox AJones -Type regular

I hope you found this guide helpful, and if did, please share it with your friends.

All vCenters not showing up after adding a new one to an SSO Domain

As I have mentioned before, the company I work for had a disaster event that took place almost a year ago and because of that we have had  some of our infrastructure duct taped together.

Today I am proud to say that I had the opportunity to rip off another piece of that duct tape and actually move our Virtual Infrastructure forward.

You see, Pre-Disaster we had a single vCenter appliance which managed 3 sites. (Yes I know... yuck)

But, because of the disaster we had to move all of our services from the 1 site to the other 2. In the middle of the DR event I had to create 2 VCSA appliances to be able to manage the 2 sites, and due to a lack of sufficient network connectivity at the time, they were just islands. I even set them up a separate SSO Domains.

Fast forward to today, and I have now consolidated these 2 SSO Domains down to 1 and I must say it is pretty slick.

I did however run into a bit of an anomaly, which is the purpose of my post today. You see on the VCSA appliance that was added to the existing SSO domain, I discovered that I could see the first VCSA Appliance in the vSphere Web Client as well as it's inventory which was awesome!

However on the vSphere Web Client of the Original VCSA Appliance, I can only see the 1 VCSA Appliance.

I consulted Dr. Google but found nothing at first, until I came across this post on the IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions site.

It turns out that you need to restart the vSphere Web Client in order for the new vCenter server to appear.

Just encase the link dies I will post the resolution here:

This is a known VMware 6.5 issue.

To resolve the problem, you must restart the vSphere Web Client:

Using the root account, connect over ssh to the vCenter VM (virtual machine) of the previously ordered instance.
Type shell to enter the bash shell.
Enter service-control --stop vsphere-client to stop the client.
Enter service-control --start vsphere-client to restart the client.
After the vSphere Web Client of the previously ordered instance is restarted, confirm that the vCenter Server system for the newly added secondary instance is visible in the vSphere Web Client.

NOTE: Rebooting the VCSA Appliance will also resolve your issue.

I hope you found this helpful, and if so please let me know and share with your friends.

Philadelphia VMUG UserCon is on Thursday!!!

Well it is almost here, Philadelphia USERCon at the Valley Forge Casino and Resort! It is not too late to sign up to attend. 

Registration, Parking, and Breakfast and Lunch are all Free!!

Not to mention all the speakers, vendors, and networking that will be open to you!!

Click on this link to register now

https://vmug12.snoball.events/a/kenneth-shinn-1

Unable to log into a new VCSA Appliance added to an SSO Domain

So today I ran into an interesting issue. I was adding a new VCSA appliance to an preexisting SSO domain for a post that will come out in the coming weeks and I discovered a few things.

First of all, I learned that there are not many blogs covering this so I figured I would make a post just encase I get hit with a brick and forget.

So I ran through the install of the new VCSA appliance and selected all the settings as you would normally do. However when the installation completed it said everything was fine and I should be able to log in at the new URL.

I opened the URL and tried to log in.... and It failed. This being the first time I have tried this I was not sure what to expect, and here is what I mean:

The Platform Services Controller (or PSC) is responsible for authentication to vSphere. That being said I figured I might be able to log in with my Domain credential.... I was wrong.

So I then tried logging in with the Administrator Credentials for the SSO Domain.... that too did not work.

I then logged into the vSphere Web Client for the First VCSA to see if I could see what is going on over there. It turns out, from an SSO Perspective, everything was running great. I went to see if I could reset the Administrator password and discovered that I must not have had enough coffee this morning. You see, because vSphere is based on some form of Linux Kernel, I forgot to take into account that THE USER NAME IS CASE SENSITIVE!!!!!

So I went back to the login screen and logged in with the correct credentials and IT WORKED!!

Now to figure out why AD Authentication was not working.....

Well it turns out that that lack of coffee I mentioned earlier came back to bite me yet again <face palm>

Although the SSO component was working and showed my AD domain as a valid and default authentication source, it doesn't mean squat if the server is not a member of the Active Directory Domain. A quick add to AD and a reboot later and we were in business.

Lesson Learned:

1. Don't skip out on Coffee
2. Linux based credentials are Case Sensitive
3. Drink more Coffee
4. Make sure that host is added to AD before you try to authenticate.

I hope you found this helpful and if I ever get around to it I will add screen shots for a more TL:DR experience.

Philly VMUG Meeting Recap

On May 16th Philly VMUG held it's first meeting of 2019. The meeting was at the Dave and Busters on Delaware Ave in Philadelphia and it was very well attended.

We has 3 presenters:

PureStorage

Hytrust

Nexenta

Since we had so much interest in out event, we decided to create a YouTube Channel to showcase our speakers and to help get their message out. You can click on the links above to view the videos or click on the link below to view our YouTube channel where you can subscribe and stay notified on what is going on with our local VMUG Community.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7iMzG8B29-BwMCmpAt40vA

17 Days until UserCon !!!

Hey everyone, there is only 17 days until the Philadelphia VMUG UserCon. Registration is free to attend and you can register at the link below:

https://vmug12.snoball.events/a/kenneth-shinn-1

Click on the link to get registered!! 

We have so many awesome speakers coming out to speak with Ducan Epping, Frank Denneman as our Keynote Speakers and Ariel Sanchez coming out to speak about the vCommunity. 

Tools Discussion - VMWare Converter Standalone

Today I wanted to talk about VMware Converter Standalone which has been a constant in my bag of tricks for a long time. VMware Converter is a tool that allows you to convert a Physical Machine to a Virtual Machine which can run on a VMware ESXi host or VMware Workstation / Player. You can also use VMware Converter to resize Virtual machines or even convert them from Thick Provisioned virtual disks to thin.

Before VMware Converter was a free Standalone product, it was an add-on to vCenter (version 3-4.1 if my memory was correct) that was licensed by VMware. It enabled you (much like it does now) to convert a physical machine and turn it into a Virtual Machine. Pretty Sweet huh?!

Somewhere between vSphere 4 and 5 they decided to remove it from vCenter as an add on and make it a a separate product and best of all made it free!

During the installation process you are now asked to decide if you are doing a standalone installation or a Client Server install. I will probably do an install guide for this later so I can discuss further as both have their merits.

If you are interested in getting a copy of VMware Converter Standalone you can follow this link. It will also be available on the Tools page once this post goes live.

I hope you found this post helpful and please check back later for more articles.

Philadelphia VMUG UserCon just a month away!!!

I am very proud to announce that Philadelphia's VMUG UserCon is only a month a way. 

Have you registered yet? If not, here is the link to the registration page.

I have always had a great time at the UserCon in years past, and I am sure that this year will be no different. 

As always registration is free and this year we have a list of All Star speakers such as:

Duncan Epping

Frank Denneman
Ariel Sanchez

Just to name a few. We also have some amazing giveaways just to add icing to that cake.

If you are able to attend, I can assure you that you will not be disappointment. 

Philly VMUG has scheduled it's first meeting of 2019

Hey guys, as you all know I am a VMUG Leader for Philadelphia (AKA Philly VMUG) and I am very excited to announce that we have our first meeting of 2019.

This being the first meeting that I am involved in with scheduling and setting up, I am very excited to see the outcome.

To learn more about VMUG click on the link here.

To learn what a VMUG Leader is Click here.

If you are interested in attending out meeting click on this link to register.

Azure VPN Client not working on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1

I was working on an issue with a client who was not able to connect to an Azure VPN. He was getting the following error message:

The connection was prevented because of a policy configured on your RAS/VPN server. Specifically, the authentication method used by the server to verify your username and password may not match the authentication method configured in your connection profile. Please contact the Administrator of the RAS server and notify them of this error. (Error 812) For customized troubleshooting information for this connection, click Help.

After doing some extensive research, I found out that TLS 1.2 needs to be enabled on the workstation for it be able to connect.

In order to fix this issue, you will need to add the following registry keys:

reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RasMan\PPP\EAP\13 /v TlsVersion /t REG_DWORD /d 0xfc0

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\WinHttp" /v DefaultSecureProtocols /t REG_DWORD /d 0xaa0 if %PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE% EQU AMD64

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\WinHttp" /v DefaultSecureProtocols /t REG_DWORD /d 0xaa0

You will also need to install the following patches:

• KB3140245
• KB2977292

Then you will need to reboot the PC and you should be able to connect to the VPN.

How to see what iSCSI targets are connected to a CentOS Host

I was working on a server after there was an outage on the storage system which was a iSCSI QNAP NAS.

I did a little Google searching and found this command which worked wonderfully

iscsiadm -m session

This will give you a list of all of the devices connected via iSCSI, including the IP Address of the device you are connecting to.

Hopefully, by documenting this I will be able to remember it when I need it in the future. 

If you found this helpful, please share it with your friends, and if you are interested in some of the hardware mentioned in this post, please check the affiliate links below. 

QNAP 8 bay NAS

QNAP 4 bay NAS

Synology 2 Bay NAS

How to convert VMDK from Thick to Thin Provision

As I have stated in a previous post, I have been trying to help out on the VMware Community Forum. One of the threads that I was able to help out on was how to convert a VMDK from thick to thin.

I have had the opportunity to do this several times in the past, but I have never needed to document. I was able to do a step by step procedure from memory for the thread, but I figured doing an actual guide might be helpful to someone else. 

The first thing that you need to realize is that the VM you want to change from Thick Provision to Thin MUST be powered off before you can convert it. 

Launch the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client software.

Click on the Convert Machine button.

That will launch the Converter wizard

By Default  the Source machine will be set to Powered on VM. You will need to select the Powered off radio button which will give you to option to select VMware Virtual Machine. 

Enter the Server Name or IP address, Username, and Password for the Source system and click Next

This will cause the Wizard to do a check against the Source machine to make sure that the credentials are able to access the vCenter server. 

Once you are logged in, will see the your vCenter server and ESXi hosts. Click on the vCenter server, or ESXi Host to see all the VMs that are available. 

Select the Powered off VM you wish to convert to thin provisioned and click Next. 

Next you will need to enter the Server Name, User name and Password for the destination host. Before you ask, yes the source and destination host can be the same server, however the Virtual Machine name will need to be different. 

Click Next to Continue

As I mentioned above, you will need to give the Virtual Machine a unique name, otherwise vCenter gets pretty mad. 

Select the Data Center you would like to put the VM on and click Next. 

Select the Host, Datastore, Virtual Hardware Version, and click Next.

NOTE: You should probably pick a different datastore that the one you used before, just to make sure that you don't run out of space. 

This will take you to the Options screen which is where you are allowed to change the Virtual Disk from Thick to Thin. 

Click Edit as seen in the screen below.

This will bring up the disk configuration for this Virtual Machine.

Click on the drop down under Type and change it from Thick to Thin and then click Next.

You will then be presented with the Summary screen which you can review, and then click Finish to start the conversion. 

 As you can see the Job gets submitted and will run until it completes successfully

Once it completes you will see in vCenter that there is a new Virtual Machine and if you check the settings of that Virtual Machine the VMDK will be Thin Provisioned. 

Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you found this post helpful and please check back later for more updates. 

How to connect to Exchange Online with PowerShell

I realized that my previous post might have been confusing about how to connect to Exchange Online. So I wanted to do a post on how you can connect to Exchange Online Using PowerShell.

First things first, because some of the scripts that you will need to run are not native to your machine, you will need to run this command, probably as an administrator before you can try to connect.


Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned


Next you will need to set your login credentials. This account needs to have administrative privileges in Exchange Online for it to Connect:


$UserCredential = Get-Credential

This will bring up a Office 365 login prompt. Enter your username, then your password and when it is done the screen will close and you will be back in PowerShell

$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection

Lastly you will need to run this command

Import-PSSession $Session -DisableNameChecking

Which will enable several commands that are now available to you.

I hope that this guide helps you, I know that I always forget how to do this so doing a Blog post should help. 

Please feel free to share with your friends if you think it will help them. 

Office 365 Hybrid - Shared Mailboxes Created in Exchange Online do not appear to users whose mailboxes exist on local Exchange

I have been working on an Hybrid Exchange Solution using Office 365. The Client has several shared mailboxes and I wanted to see if a Shared Mailbox created in Office 365 would appear for users who have not been migrated.

Long Story short, the answer is no, they cannot. The reason for this is actually pretty simple. Anything created in Office 365 is not assigned a GUID by Active Directory (because we are only doing a unidirectional sync) so Exchange does not have any record of it.

 It turns out however, that if you migrate the mailbox to the On Premise Exchange server a GUID can be assigned.

I found this Article on Microsoft's support site on how to do it:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3129334/users-in-a-hybrid-deployment-can-t-access-a-shared-mailbox-that-was-cr

Here is the process that you would need to follow in order to get it to work

Please note, the website says that you do not need to do this if your are running Exchange 2016 CU 10 or later. The Client was running 13 at the time, however these steps did work.

1. Convert the shared mailbox to a regular mailbox by using the Exchange admin center in Exchange Online. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Open the Exchange admin center in Exchange Online.
   2. Click recipients, and then click shared.
   3. Select the shared mailbox, and then click Convert.
   4. On the Warning page, select Yes to convert the shared mailbox.
2. Create an on-premises object for the cloud mailbox by using the New-RemoteMailbox cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell.
   
   Note This object must have the same name, alias, and user principal name (UPN) as the cloud mailbox.
3. Set the ExchangeGuid property on the new on-premises object that you created in step 2 to match the cloud mailbox. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Connect to Exchange Online by using a remote session of Windows PowerShell.
   2. Use the Get-Mailbox cmdlet to retrieve the value of the ExchangeGuid property of the cloud mailbox. For example, run the following command:

      Get-Mailbox <MailboxName> | FL ExchangeGuid 

   3. Open the Exchange Management Shell on the on-premises Exchange server.
   4. Use the Set-RemoteMailbox cmdlet to set the value of the ExchangeGuid property on the on-premises object to the value that you retrieved in step 3b. For example, run the following command:

      Set-RemoteMailbox <MailboxName> -ExchangeGuid <GUID>

4. Wait for directory synchronization to occur. Or, force directory synchronization.
5. Make sure that the Office 365 user object is displayed as "Synced with Active Directory."
6. Move the mailbox from Exchange Online to the on-premises environment.
7. Convert the mailbox to a shared mailbox by using the Set-Mailbox cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell. For example, run the following command:

   Set-Mailbox <MailboxName> -Type Shared

8. Move the mailbox from the on-premises environment to Exchange Online.
   

I hope you found this guide helpful, and if you do please tell your friends.

Adding an IDE Storage Adapter for an OVF that is supposed to run in vSphere? What were you thinking???

A few weeks ago I had the misfortune of having to deal with a .OVF that was sent by a support team to one of our engineers so we can run a Virtual Machine in our lab environment.

That seems pretty cut and dry, except when I go to import the .OVF and I get this message when the import gets to the Validating Step.

I had never seen this message before, but after seeing the part of the message that says DiskControllerReference, I automatically assumed that there was an issue with the .VMX file on the VM. Well because this is not a VM, but an .OVF I decided to open the .OVF file in Notepad ++ and found this.

I do not know why the person who created this .OVF selected a IDE controller for the HDD., but here we are.

I informed my Engineer of the issue, and he said that they told him to use VMware Converter to change it into an acceptable VM image. 

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I downloaded the lastest copy of VMware Converter Standalone (which took me a day, because VMware's Download site was not working) and tried to convert it.

Guess what, It didn't work!!

This is also not the first time I have run into this issue with this particular vendor (who shall remain nameless). Their .OVA files will give you the same error message.  So needless to say anytime I run into this vendor, I immediately tell my Engineers to get me an .ISO and I will build them a VM from Scratch. 

I hope you find this post helpful, and if you would like to know more information about this, please feel free to DM me on one of my social media accounts. 

Thanks for reading, and check back soon for more articles. 

Home Automation Platform Discussion Continued......

In my previous post I spoke about the shut down of the Lowe's IRIS Home Automation Platform. I went into great detail about several of the Open Source options that exist out there such as:

Home Assistant
HomeGenie
openHAB

I also made mention to there being paid Home Automation Systems that are available that do not require a subscription. But I did not make mention of them in my last post. I would like to take this opportunity to list some of the (in my opinion) more popular ones.

Depending on which one you plan on going with, you might be locked into a particular type of hardware or protocol, in other cases the platform might me more Open.

Google Home/Alexa - I mostly have experience dealing with the Google Home line of products, however I do have some experience with writing Alexa skills. I can say for sure that Google Home is compatible with a wide variety of products and services including some open source ones like Home Assistant.

Smartthings - Samsung is another one of those platforms that will accept different pieces of hardware. However I am pretty sure that you are locked into using the Zigbee protocol. Oddly enough, if you sign up for their developer portal, you can reprogram IKEA TRADFRI lights to work with it as seen in this Blog post I did years ago.

Philips Hue - I believe they only deal with lights, many different kinds of lights. From Bulbs, to LED Strips, to Wireless LED bulbs. Within their app you can set different Profiles or scenes for each device so you an set the mood.

Ikea Tradfri - I would call this one the poor man's Hue. That does not mean that this product is any worse that the Hue, but I will say that the lights are cheaper, like $12 a bulb vs $20 a bulb for the hue. Like I said above, the TRADFRI operates using the Zigbee Protocol, so you can reprogram them to work with a Smartthings Hub if you follow the guides.


What I like the most about all of the hubs that I listed above is that they all can integrate with Home Assistant which is by far my favorite home automation platform. The downside is I now have 4 or more hubs running on my home network, but that is my problem.

I hope you guys found this article helpful and if so please share.

If you are interested in purchasing anything covered in this post, feel free to check out some of these links below.

Alexa: https://amzn.to/2CpgDiK

Hue: https://amzn.to/2CqcpHt

Smartthings: https://amzn.to/2HDzmKW

Raspberry Pi: https://amzn.to/2CjoMVV

Lowe's to shut down IRIS Home Automation Platform.....

A few weeks ago I saw this Article about Lowe's Home Improvement Store shutting down it's own proprietary home automation system. Here is the article if you wish to read it:

https://www-techhive-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.techhive.com/article/3337249/hubs-controllers/lowes-will-shut-down-its-iris-by-lowes-smart-home-platform.amp.html?amp_js_v=0.1#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.techhive.com%2Farticle%2F3337249%2Fhubs-controllers%2Flowes-will-shut-down-its-iris-by-lowes-smart-home-platform.html

I have never used this system before, but my very first Home Automation System was a Nexia Home System. I thought it was awesome, until I realized it was a pay service, and I needed to use their hardware which was very hard to find.

The purpose of this post is not to mark the death of another proprietary home automation platform, but to bring awareness to some of the open platforms like Home Assistant, OpenHab, and others.

There ares several issues with these proprietary systems such as:

Locked into hardware - You have to use a set hardware list provided by the hub supplier. This limits you on what hardware you can use, and where you can procure it. Also non-branded hardware might not be supported by your hub.

Large up front costs - Just to get into the Home Automation game you not only need to pay for the "Smart" Hardware, but you will also need to pay for the Smart Hub, or Gateway.

Subscription Cost - You are required to purchase a subscription to use your home automation system. If you do not pay, your services will be terminated.

Locked into protocol - Each proprietary hub uses their own protocol. It could be ZWave, ZIGBEE, WiFi, or something else entirely. But either way you only get to use one.

Security - Instead of all events being handled on the local HUB (sometimes called a Gateway) all functions are handled in the "Cloud". This means not only do you need an internet connection, but you are relying on the vendor for the security of your data, and your home.

Once you realize this you are going to think, is it even worth it to look into Home Automation?? Why should I do this when the cost is so much??

Well I am here to help show you another way. You see there are several open source options out there as well as non-subscription based Smart Home Solutions available to you.

Open Source Solutions

The benefits of Open Source Solutions include the following:

Open Hardware - You are not locked into specific hardware, which means that you can get your hardware from anywhere.

Low upfront cost - Most if not all Open Source Solutions can run their software on cheap/low cost hardware such as a Raspberry Pi.

Open Protocols - Most if not all Open Source Solutions support any protocol, if not multiple protocols at the same time.

Security - As the hub is running in your house, it is not necessary to connect it to a cloud service (but you can if you want) so you can prevent your system from being accessed from the internet if you want to.

Below is a list of Open Source solutions that I would recommend looking into:

OpenHab - I do not have much experience with Open Hab, but like most Open Source Home Automation Solutions, you can run the Hub software on a Raspberry Pi.

Home Genie - This was the first Home Automation Solution that I used. It was very easy to administer, but I found it limiting with what I could do. Now it has been several years since I looked at it, so I would suggest checking it out again. This one also can run on a Raspberry Pi.

Home Assistant - This is the Solution that I am currently using, and I have to say I love it. I have not found a limitation with the system, except for my SD card running out (but that was my Error). It is super simple to setup and even has a cloud connector is you want to be able to connect to cloud services like Alexa or Google Home.


I hope you found this guide helpful, please share with your friends.

If you are interested in purchasing anything mentioned in this post, please feel free to check it out in the links below.

Raspberry Pi: https://amzn.to/2CjoMVV

Nexia Home Automation: https://amzn.to/2FiEm5T

How to install ESXi 5.5

Continuing the saga of building out my VMware home lab I will be covering the process off installing ESXi 5.5 as a Virtual machine in my environment. As stated in my previous posts, I am a VMUG Advantage Member so I do have access to newer versions of VMware software. 

That might make you wonder why I am going with ESXi 5.5, well you are going to have to wait and see what my plan is for that. 

Lets get started with the installation of ESXi 5.5

Once the ESXi .ISO has been booted up on the machine you will be presented with this screen.

Press Enter to boot, or let the countdown continue and it will boot automatically. 

The ESXi installer will load into memory. It may take some time for this to complete depending on how much Memory you have on your machine, so your mileage may vary. 

After all of this you will be presented with the ESXi 5.5 Welcome Screen. Press Enter to continue. 

Press F11 to Accept the End User License Agreement to continue on.

Once you press F11 the install will start scanning the System it is installing on to see what Storage is available. 

On the next screen you will be presented with a list of Datastores that are available to you to install ESXi on. Select the Datastore that you want to use and press Enter. 

You will then be asked to select your Keyboard layout. Press Enter to continue.

Now you will have to set the Root Password for the OS. Once you confirm the password press Enter to continue. 

The ESXi Installer will then can your system again .

You will then be asked to Confirm your decision to install ESXi on the datastore you selected. Press F11 to continue. 

Now the installation will begin, again your mileage may vary as to how long it will take to complete. 

Once the installation has been completed you can press Enter to reboot the machine to complete in installation. 

After the reboot has been completed and the system boots up you will be presented with the following screen. 

This concludes the ESXi install guide. I hope you found this helpful an please check back for more updates to come.

How to Create a Virtual Machine using VMware Workstation Professional 15

Continuing on from my previous post, I wanted to go through the process of creating a Virtual Machine with VMware Workstation Professional 15. Mostly because the last time I did a how to create a VM post, it was a few years ago and it was vCenter 5.5, and because I will be building off of this for future posts.

So let's get started.

Launch VMware Workstation Professional 15 Pro and you will be presented with the following screen. 

You will want to click on the Create a New Virtual Machine Button (Circled in Red below)

That will launch the New Virtual Machine Wizard.

From here you will want to select either Typical or Custom for your installation configuration. For the purposes my installation I am going to go with a Custom installation. 

After selecting Custom click Next. You will be presented with the option to choose your Virtual Machine Hardware Compatibility. 

As as you can see from the drop down menu below there are many options to choose from. Each option has different compatibility requirements which also brings different limitations. Also remember that Newer Hardware Versions will not be compatible with older versions of VMware Workstation, so if you have to move between versions please keep that in mind. 

For our purposes I will be Selecting ESXi 6.5, which should allow me to import this VM into an ESXi environment without needing to use VMware Converter. I will probably cover this in a later post. 

After making your selection, click Next to specify the OS for your Virtual Machine. You can either select and Installer disk, and Installer Image File (.iso), or I will install the Operating system later. For the purpose of this post I will be installing from a Image File (.iso). 

Click on browse to be prompted to select your Image file.

Select your installer Image File and click Open to continue. 

Depending on the .ISO you are using as the installer, VMware Workstation will attempt to determine what Operating System (OS) you are trying to install. This will also provide recommended settings based on your OS.

Click Next to continue on to name your Virtual Machines and specify where I want the Virtual Machine files to be located.

Click Next to move on to set Processor Configuration. The Processors are capped at the total number of Virtual CPUs available on your machine. If you try to over provision your processor you will get a Error message. 

Click Next to continue on to set the Memory for the Virtual Machine.

As you can see there is a "Recommended Memory" setting when you get to this screen. This is gathered from the .ISO check a few slides back. Click Next to continue on.

For Network Type you have 4 Options as seen above. The default is to use network address translation. This setting is all dependent on how much access you want to give to your VM. Do you want it to be accessible to or from your network? Perhaps you are setting up a VM to test some dangerous program? All these things you need to consider before clicking Next to continue. 

On this screen you will need to select your I/O Controller. I went with the recommended setting and clicked Next to continue.

 On the next screen you will be presented with options for Virtual Disk Type. Depending on what you will pick will determine compatibility with other Hypervisors in the future and can cause a real headache for someone else down the line if you don't consider your options. I will cover that in a different post. For my purpose I will be sticking with SCSI which is recommended and is also the default selection.  

Next you will be asked to Select a disk from the following option.

As this is a new Virtual Machine I will be selecting Create a new Virtual Disk and Clicking Next.

You will then be presented with the following screen where you can specify the size of your Virtual Disk, if you want to Thick Provision it, and how you would like the file stored. 

Make you selection and Click Next to Continue. Next you will be able to Name the Virtual Hard disk and Specify what storage it will be installed on. 

 

Click Next to continue. Review your settings and Click Finish to continue.