Everyone that has a VMware environment deployed must update their vSphere stacks to stay current and up to date with the latest security releases right, so in looking at good security practices your VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) access to the internet. With that brings us Update Manager Download Services (UMDS). This server should be…
Infrastructure Security – Thought Exercise
In this post I want to go back to the basics of security design and the implementation of the security buzz words that I am quite certain that everyone has heard, such as Defense in Dept, Zero Trust, Micro Segmentation etc. With that I would like to provide an overview of a fictitious network that…
TroubleShooting vSphere 7.0 Update 2
During the upgrade of VMware VCSA 7.0 Update 2, I came across some issues with the Stage Only and Stage and Install tabs. My intent was to stage fist however I was presented with the “Exception occurred in install precheck phase”. So, the work around that I found with the help of some google searches…
VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 2 Upgrade
VMware vSphere 7 Update 2 has been available as of March 2021 so at the time of this post its nearing the end of May 2021. Now that the updates have had some time to have potential bugs addressed and commented on, I believe its time for a quick step by step guide on the…
DNS Data Exfiltration Explained
Why DNS Data Exfiltration is hard to detect and why you should care? In this quick explanation of the topic, I will explain the fundamental aspects of DNS and Data Exfiltration via DNS Tunneling for baseline understanding and conclude with ways to detect and alert on such an attack. Note, most firewalls allow all DNS…
Web browser preventive controls
How to provide additional layers of security with Web sessions One of the latest security exploits has been in the area of a popular web browser Google Chrome. The Google chrome browser is feature rich providing a world of capabilities to explore and make ones browsing experience more connected and functional. Of course, with this…
Cisco UCS Authentication Issues after 4.1 (3b) Firmware Upgrade
This post will go over the identification of the latest bug and fix actions for the Cisco UCS Firmware bundle 4.1 (3b). Cisco Bug(s) CSCvx33064 CSCvx23029 So, after successfully upgrading the Fabric and server firmware to version 4.1(3b) you log off and attempt to log back on and you receive the login attempt failed. With…
The Importance Of Regression Testing
This post will briefly explore the topic of regression from a standpoint of data center testing. There are many different approaches and methodologies when it comes to regression testing. At its core the CIA fundamentals are achieved, Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. The original use cases stem from the Software development spaces, however in this article…
VMware’s Built In Troubleshooting Tool “ESXTOP”
The previous post Troubleshooting virtual machines included a brief introduction to ESXTOP and I realized quickly that I should elaborate on the topic, so lets dig in. ESXTOP is a built in real time ( 5 second refresh interval) utility that allows you to see exactly what your ESXi Host is doing. In this post…
Navigating VMware ESXi Host Log Files – The Basics
The log files on your ESXi Host contain tons of information pertaining to your systems over all state. In this post we will take a look at some of the ways to access and view Log files via SSH. Because VMware leverages several Linux-like commands I will list a few of the more frequently used…