# vNinja.net | VMware, VCF & Homelab

> Practical writing on virtualization, homelabs, and the infrastructure in between from two engineers who actually install, design, and run the gear.

## Posts

- [Ghostty xterm-ghostty Over SSH: What's Actually Fixed (and What Isn't)](https://vninja.net/2026/07/19/ghostty-ssh-terminfo-whats-actually-fixed/) — Ghostty shipped a partial fix for its SSH terminfo problem back in version 1.2.0, and a proper one is coming in 1.4.0. I went looking for why I was still running into trouble, and found the real story is more complicated than either release note lets on. [2026-07-19 · Christian Mohn · ~1200 words]
- [Migrating from Unifi UXG-Lite to Express 7](https://vninja.net/2026/07/17/migrating-from-unifi-uxg-lite-to-express-7/) — A UniFi restore that reports no errors, restarts cleanly, and lets you log in with your admin account, but somehow leaves you with an empty configuration, is a special kind of frustrating. That's the short version of what it took to move from a HostiFi-hosted controller to a local UniFi Express 7 (UX7). It should have been a cable swap and a restore. Instead it turned into a two-attempt debugging exercise, followed by a workaround involving a throwaway Docker controller and some direct MongoDB open-heart surgery. [2026-07-17 · Christian Mohn · ~2200 words]
- [ESXi Has No MFA: A Practical Hardening Checklist](https://vninja.net/2026/07/03/esxi-mfa-gap-hardening-checklist/) — ESXi supports no MFA, no SSO, and no identity federation, and vCenter's identity controls stop at the host boundary. Here's exactly where that gap is, and the concrete controls that actually close it. [2026-07-03 · Christian Mohn · ~1400 words]
- [Closing the Loop: ESX, vCenter, and Identity as One Attack Chain](https://vninja.net/2026/05/18/closing-the-loop/) — What the ESX, vCenter, and identity relationship means as a complete operational model. [2026-05-18 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Identity Is the Real Attack Surface](https://vninja.net/2026/05/18/identity-is-the-real-attack-surface/) — Why identity determines whether ESX and vCenter are reachable at all. [2026-05-18 · Christian Mohn · ~1000 words]
- [vCenter Is the Crown Jewel](https://vninja.net/2026/05/14/why-vcenter-is-usually-the-real-target/) — Why vCenter becomes the highest-impact system once compromise reaches the control plane. [2026-05-14 · Christian Mohn · ~1000 words]
- [ESX Security Advice that Actually Matters in 2026](https://vninja.net/2026/05/12/esxi-security-advice-that-actually-matters-in-2026/) — ESX security in 2026 is driven less by hypervisor hardening and more by identity, reachability, and control-plane exposure, where vCenter access and visibility gaps ultimately determine real-world compromise paths. [2026-05-12 · Christian Mohn · ~1600 words]
- [VCF Security Reality Check: What This Series Covers](https://vninja.net/2026/05/12/vcf-security-reality-check/) — Scope and assumptions for the VCF Security Reality Check series. [2026-05-12 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Intel Arc SR-IOV Hardware Transcoding with Plex on Proxmox VE](https://vninja.net/2026/05/07/intel-arc-sr-iov-hardware-transcoding-with-plex-on-proxmox-ve/) — How to set up Intel Arc SR-IOV on Proxmox VE with three ASUS NUC 15 Pro units for Plex hardware transcoding, including notes on kernel compatibility and the required Plex beta release. [2026-05-07 · Christian Mohn · ~2000 words]
- [GL-iNet Brume 3 (GL-MT5000) VPN Security Gateway: Some Takeaways](https://vninja.net/2026/04/21/gl-inet-gl-mt5000-vpn-security-gateway/) — At the end of 2025 I received a GL-iNet Brume 3 (GL-MT5000) as part of a beta testing program, and it’s been quietly running in my home network ever since. I didn’t redesign my setup around it or do anything particularly fancy—simply dropped it into the network alongside my existing gateway to see how it would behave in a real-world environment. [2026-04-21 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [When Synology Says No: Building a Minimal rsync-to-NFS Bridge That Actually Works](https://vninja.net/2026/04/08/when-synology-says-no-rsync-to-nfs/) — There’s a special category of problems that only show up when everything looks like it should just work. [2026-04-08 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [VMUG Connect 2026 Amsterdam – Security, Community, and the Reality of "Living with IT"](https://vninja.net/2026/03/20/vmug-connect-2026-amsterdam-security-community-living-with-it/) — This past week I attended VMUG Connect 2026 Amsterdam at RAI Amsterdam.This was the first VMUG Connect event ever held in Europe, and that alone made it a notable milestone. [2026-03-20 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Will We See YOU at VMUG Connect 2026 in Amsterdam?](https://vninja.net/2025/12/21/vmug-connect-2026-amsterdam-session/) — We’re thrilled to announce that mine and Stine’s joint session, **Hypervisor Horror: Root Access and Regulatory Rage**, has been selected for the first european VMUG Connect in Amsterdam **17th - 19th March 2026**! [2025-12-21 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMUG Connect is expanding in 2026 with five stops!](https://vninja.net/2025/11/24/vmug-connect-2026/) — After a successful launch in St. Louis this year, VMUG is bringing the experience to more communities. Next year, VMUG Connect will give members across these cities a chance to connect, learn, and collaborate in person. [2025-11-24 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vSphere: It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Root](https://vninja.net/2025/09/18/vsphere-its-all-fun-and-games-until-someone-gets-root/) — At the VMUG UserCon UK 2025 I presented a session called *vSphere: It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Root*. The premise of the talk was the havoc a malicious actor can wreck to an environment, if they gain root access to an ESXi host.
Of course, once someone has gained root access, all bets are off anyway, but there are some interesting tecniques that can be utilized simply by using native commands. This is otherwise known as **Living off The Land (LOTL)**, where attackers use legitimate tools and features that are already present on a system. [2025-09-18 · Christian Mohn · ~1200 words]
- [GL-iNet Opal (GL-SFT1200) Travel Router: Real Usage Experience](https://vninja.net/2025/09/15/gl-inet-opal-travel-router-experience/) — In August 2024, I acquired a GL.iNet Opal (GL-SFT1200) Travel Router, and it has since become an indispensable companion for my multi-day travels. Its compact design and robust feature set have consistently met my connectivity needs on the road. [2025-09-15 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [vSphere LCM Moving From Baselines to Images](https://vninja.net/2025/09/12/vsphere-moving-from-baselines-to-images/) — If you are using baselines to update your VMware clusters it is time to move to using images instead. [2025-09-12 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~0 words]
- [Storage in Hypervisor and Kubernetes Environments: What Are the Options?](https://vninja.net/2025/09/12/storage-in-hypervisor-and-kubernetes-environments/) — When talking about modern infrastructure, storage is as critical as compute and networking. Applications — whether traditional VMs or cloud-native containers — depend on reliable, performant, and consistent storage. [2025-09-12 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Containers in Your Hypervisor vs. VMs in Kubernetes: What’s the Difference?](https://vninja.net/2025/09/11/containers-in-your-hypervisor-or-vms-in-kubernetes/) — When talking about modern infrastructure, there are multiple ways to combine virtualization and Kubernetes. The architectures described below are general concepts and not specific to any single hypervisor. They illustrate common patterns for combining virtualization and Kubernetes, but exact implementations may vary depending on your infrastructure vendor and setup. [2025-09-11 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [How to set up a VMware vSphere Native Key Provider (NKP)](https://vninja.net/2025/08/15/how-to-set-up-a-vsphere-native-key-provider/) — From VMware vSphere 7.0.2 you can configure a vSphere NKP to enable encryption-related functionality from your vCenter. The ESXi hosts do not require a TPM 2.0 chip to use NKP, but a TPM chip provides enhanced security. [2025-08-15 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~0 words]
- [Casting Home Assistant Dashboards to Google Nest Hub 2nd Gen - Take 2](https://vninja.net/2025/07/20/homeassistant-google-nest-hub-2nd-gen-take2/) — Back in 2022, I shared how I used Cast All The Things (CATT) to display Home Assistant Lovelace dashboards on my Google Nest Hub 2nd gen. At the time, the setup was admittedly complex relying on Node-RED to SSH into a virtual machine and trigger bash scripts.
That approach served me well for a few years, but I've since streamlined the process significantly. With the help of two excellent tools, ha-catt-fix and the ryanbarrett/catt-chromecast container I have eliminated the need for Node-RED and the custom scripts entirely. [2025-07-20 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Migrating From Sonoff ZBDongle-P to SMLIGHT SLZB-MRW10 in Zigbee2MQTT](https://vninja.net/2025/07/16/migrating-from-zbdongle-p-to-slzb-mrw10-zigbee2mqtt/) — My home Zigbee network has been powered by a Sonoff ZBDongle-P coordinator since 2022, and it's worked very well. The problem with it is that it's USB based, and since I run Zigbee2MQTT as an addon to Home Assistant in a VM, that VM needs to be pinned to a specific host in the the cluster and I couldn't move it around. Thankfully there's been some great development around these kinds of devices in the last couple of years, and newer devices with direct network connectivity, powered via PoE, is now available. [2025-07-16 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [VMware Critical Security Advisory: VMSA-2025-0013](https://vninja.net/2025/07/15/vmware-critical-security-advisory-vmsa-2025-0013/) — Back in May at Pwn2Own Berlin 2025 a couple of new VMware ESXi, Workstation/Fusion and VMware Tools exploits were successfully exploited. Today Broadcom has released a new security advisory, VMSA-2025-0013, specifically targeting these exploits. [2025-07-15 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware Explore on Tour 2025: London](https://vninja.net/2025/07/09/vmware-explore-on-tour-2025-london/) — Registration for VMware Explore on Tour 2025 London is now live! [2025-07-09 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vSphere 8: Error Installing HA components failed](https://vninja.net/2025/07/09/error-installing-ha-components-failed-vsphere-8/) — Enabling vSphere HA in a cluster might fail with Applying HA VIBs on the cluster encountered a failure or Installing HA components failed on the cluster: domain-cX [2025-07-09 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [ESX to ESXi and Back Again](https://vninja.net/2025/06/18/esx-to-esxi-and-back-again/) — A complete version history of VMware's hypervisor from ESX 1.0 (2001) through ESXi 8.0 and back to ESX 9.0 with VCF 9 — including release years and naming changes explained. [2025-06-18 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VCF / VVF 9 Deprecation Notices](https://vninja.net/2025/06/18/vcf9-deprecation-notices/) — While new features and enhancements are always exciting, new releases often also come with deprecation notices and end of support notices for features that were previously available, and those might also have a huge impact on a deployment. That is also the case for VCF 9 / VVF 9, and they are highlighted in the Release Notes for VCF 9 under Product Support Notes. [2025-06-18 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VCF 9.0 Is Here — What Does That Mean?](https://vninja.net/2025/06/17/vcf9-is-here-what-does-that-mean/) — The main focus in Broadcoms annoncement is that this is the realization of the Modern Private Cloud. The focus has switched from being everything, everywhere to everyone, aka the old VMware Multi-Cloud vision, to a clear focus on Private Cloud — **and Private Cloud only**.
This release also aligns all the products in the VCF (and vSphere Foundation (VVF)) stack into one product with a set of features, instead of a set of products combined into a release. [2025-06-17 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [phpIPAM to Homepage](https://vninja.net/2025/01/22/phpipam-to-homepage/) — I recently set up Homepage which offers an application/service dashboard for my resources. For a small home lab this works well, and it is very handy to have an easy to access dashboard like this available. It offers integration and widgets for a whole slew of services like Plex, Uptime Kuma and Synology. It even has native icmp based monitoring built in. All in all, it's pretty slick! <br/><br/> phpIPAM to Homepage automates services.yaml creation based on information from phpIPAM for larger lab environments [2025-01-22 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Seamless Home Assistant NFC Automations on iPhone](https://vninja.net/2025/01/02/nfc-tags-iphone-home-assistant/) — Home Assistant has the ability to read and write NFC tags via the Companion App but using this on an iPhone is a bit cumbersome as Apple doesn't allow that apps read NFC tags and do an action without a confirmation from the user. This default setting makes sense, as I don't want random NFC's triggering events on my phone, but there is no way of overriding this behaviour even for known tags — which sometimes defeats the purpose of having NFC tags automate actions and events in Home Assistant. There is, however, a way to work around this limitation. [2025-01-02 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Ghostty — Workaround for Missing or Unsuitable Terminal xterm-ghostty](https://vninja.net/2024/12/28/ghostty-workaround-for-missing-or-unsuitable-terminal-xterm-ghostty/) — The freshly made public Ghostty terminal emulator by Mitchell Hashimoto (co-founder of Hashicorp) is all the rage at the moment, and it definitely looks interesting! <br/><br/> The first real issue I had with it, was when using SSH to connect to remote resources. This produced the `missing or unsuitable terminal: xterm-ghostty` error message, because the remote resource doesn't have the `xterm-ghostty` terminfo defined. The official Ghostty docs has some workarounds for it, but these are either to convoluted like copying terminfo entries to all remote systems, or setting `SetEnv TERM=xterm-256color` in `.ssh/config` for each remote host. The other alternative is to set `SetEnv TERM=xterm-256color` system wide but that also affects other terminal emulators (as does setting it in `.ssh/config`) [2024-12-28 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Beware Of The Rogue VMs!](https://vninja.net/2024/11/11/beware-of-the-rogue-vms/) — At this years VMware Explore 2024 in Barcelona, I did a presentation called <b>CMTY1321BCN: Beware Of The Rogue VMs!</b>, a recording of the session is also available on the VMware Explore 2024 Community YouTube channel. Here is a quick text based recap of it. [2024-11-11 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Rickrolling WiFi at VMware Explore Barcelona 2024](https://vninja.net/2024/11/08/rickrolling-wifi-at-vmware-explore-barcelona-2024/) — This last week I attended VMware Explore 2024 in Barcelona. While at was at the conference, I had a small ESP32 board with an external antenna in my backpack, connected to a powerbank. The sole purpose of this little device, was to provide some fun random WiFI SSID's, and to see if anyone actually connected to it. [2024-11-08 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [GL-iNet Opal (GL-SFT1200) Travel Router: First Impressions](https://vninja.net/2024/08/25/gl-inet-opal-travel-router-first-impressions/) — For a while now I've been looking at travel routers, in order to have something small and portable I can bring with me wherever I go. After some research, I ended up purchasing a GL-iNet Opal (GL-SFT1200) Travel Router. The device seems to tick all the boxes for my requirements, including WireGuard VPN and DNS encryption [2024-08-25 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [My Updated Pi-Hole Setup](https://vninja.net/2024/08/10/my-updated-pi-hole-setup/) — Back in 2018 I outlined My Pi-Hole Setup and while the setup is still mostly the same some things have naturally evolved from there. That being said, Pi-Hole has been rock solid for all these years, and is still my main go-to for blocking ads and trackers from my home network devices. Since that post from 2018, I have done a few changes. [2024-08-10 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Driver Issues When Updating VMware ESXi With vLCM Images](https://vninja.net/2024/08/05/driver_issues_when_updating_vmware_esxi_with_vlcm_images/) — Since baselines are deprecated in vSphere version 8 and baselines are restricted to only VMware-provided content after ESXi 7.0.3 Update P I helped one of my customers to move over to image based updating via vLCM. This has not gone by without any issues as mentioned in my previous post. </p> This time I was updating a 7.0.3 installation of ESXi to Update Q and got stuck on a driver issue that I had not seen before: **“Downgrades of manually added component Mellanox Native OFED ConnectX-3 Drivers (3.19.70.1) in the desired ESXi version are not supported”**. [2024-08-05 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~200 words]
- [VMware Explore 2024 Barcelona Content Catalog Is Now Live](https://vninja.net/2024/07/31/vmware-explore-2024-barcelona-content-catalog-is-live/) — The content catalog for VMware Explore 2024 Barcelona is now live! Scheduling will open on the 24th of September 2024, but you can start favouriting sessions now for easy access. [2024-07-31 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vCenter Upgrade 8.0 U3a vSphere Lifecycle Manager Port Issues](https://vninja.net/2024/07/30/vcenter-upgrade-8.0u3a-vsphere-lifecycle-manager-port-issues/) — I was updating one of my customer’s environment to vCenter 8.0 Update 3a today and was moving from the old vSphere Update Manager Baselines over to image based updating via vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM), but the compliance check stopped at 30% for some reason. [2024-07-30 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~0 words]
- [VMware vSphere CVE-2024-37085 - A Nothing Burger](https://vninja.net/2024/07/29/vmware-vsphere-cve-2024-37085/) — Microsoft has caused some noise today with CVE-2024-37085, which explains a well known feature in vSphere. A feature that has been available since vSphere 5.1 came out in September 2012 (no, that is not a typo, it is in fact 12 years old!).
The feature in question is that if an ESXi host is joined to an Active Directory domain, it will by default look for an AD security group called ESX Admins and grants every member of that security group *root* access to the host. [2024-07-29 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Where Did My VMware Security Advisories Go? They Went Here!](https://vninja.net/2024/05/13/where-did-my-vmware-security-advisories-go-here/) — VMware by Broadcom recently published a blog post called Where did my VMware Security Advisories go? outlining the location changes for the VMware Security Advisories (VMSAs), making clear that from May 6th 2024, they are moved to the Broadcom Support Portal. </p> While this was anticipated as part of the content transition following the acquisition,  it was not anticipated that the VMSAs would be moved into a walled garden that required a login. While it was free to create an account, and get access to the advisories, this was a move that caused some uproar and controversy. </p> Thankfully VMware by Broadcom has reconsidered the login requirement, and the advisories are again easiliy accessible for everyone [2024-05-13 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware by Broadcom Promises Free Security Updates for vSphere](https://vninja.net/2024/04/16/vmware-by-broadcom-promises-security-updates/) — In a new blog post by Broadcom CEO Hock Tan VMware by Broadcom promises that they will continue to provide security updates for VMware vSphere and other products for all customers who are running the old perpetual licenses, even if those customers don't transition to the new subscription based license model. [2024-04-16 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Vaultwarden+Caddy and Microsoft CA](https://vninja.net/2024/03/06/vaultwarden-caddy-and-microsoft-ca/) — In my work lab environment, we have a need to share passwords and other login credentials among the team who uses it. Recently we decided to try out using Vaultwarden for this purpose.
Linuxiac.com has a great guide on setting up Vaultwarden with Caddy, with Docker Compose, but this particular setup relies on Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates. Let's Encrypt is great, but requires some online presence, which we don't want for this environment. In addition that we have an internal Microsoft CA based PKI infrastructure that we wanted to use for this purpose. [2024-03-06 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Migrating from Unifi USG to UXG-Lite](https://vninja.net/2024/02/19/migrating-from-usg-to-uxg-lite/) — It was finally time to replace my old UniFi Security Gateway (USG) 3P with it's shiny new brother, the Gateway Lite (UXG-Lite). The USG 3P has served me well over the last 5 or so years, but as the new UXG-Lite promises better throughput especially when enabling IDS/IPS it was time to replace it. In addition to the routing performance improvements, the UXG-Lite also offers WireGuard VPN support out of the box, which will allow me to get rid of my old L2TP VPN setup. <br/><br/> This is how I migrated my entire home network from the USG-3P to a new UXG-Lite, with minimal downtime. [2024-02-19 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Let's Talk Data by Proact](https://vninja.net/2024/01/26/lets-talk-data-proact/) — My employer, Proact, has a podcast called Let's Talk Data and I have recently joined as permanent member of the panel after I've been a guest a couple of times before.
Along with my colleagues Tony Gent and Christian Lehrer we dive into various IT-topics. This is a general IT podcast, as the tagline suggests; *The Podcast for IT-professionals – by IT-professionals* [2024-01-26 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Removing vCLS Machines in vSphere 7.0.3](https://vninja.net/2023/12/30/removing-vcls-machines/) — I was recently contacted by a customer that needed help with some vCLS VMs that somehow had gotten moved to a datastore and now resided on servers that they weren’t registered on. [2023-12-30 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~0 words]
- [Fun and Games With WLED, ESP32, IKEA UPPLYST and Home Assistant](https://vninja.net/2023/12/17/fun-and-games-with-wled-esp32-ikea-upplyst-and-homeassistant/) — IKEA has a fun little LED lamp called UPPLYST which is shaped like a cloud. I've been using this lamp in the background of my video meetings from the home office for quite some time, but recently decided to have some more fun with it. [2023-12-17 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Down the Rabbit Hole With VMware Aria Automation Config @ Explore 2023 [VMTN2239BCN]](https://vninja.net/2023/11/08/down-the-rabbit-hole-with-vmware-aria-automation-config-explore-2023/) — At VMware Explore 2023 Barcelona I was lucky enough to be able to present my Down the Rabbit Hole With VMware Aria Automation Config session, and the good people behind vBrownbag has made a recording of it available on YouTube! [2023-11-08 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware Explore 2023 Barcelona Partner Leadership Forum](https://vninja.net/2023/11/03/vmware-explore-2023-barcelona-partner-leadership-forum/) — My VMware Explore 2023 Barcelona week kicked off with a Partner Technical Leadership Forum at the Fira. [2023-11-03 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Updating Shodan Monitor Assets via REST API and Curl](https://vninja.net/2023/11/01/updating-shodan-monitor-assets-via-rest-api-and-curl/) — Shodan Monitor is a service by shodan.io that allows for monitoring of IPs, networks or domains, based on your own definitions. In my case, I use it to monitor my home network public IP, and to alert me if there is anything strange going on, like new services or any other abnormalities.
This is very useful, I get alerts both via a Slack Webhook and email, but as most residential connections I have a dynamic IP address from my ISP. It doesn't change often, but it happens. My Shodan Monitor definition is based on an IP assignment, and all of a sudden I got notifications for things that were not present in my network. My public IP had changed, and I was now receiving alerts for someone elses network who had been assigned my old public IP. Suboptimal. [2023-11-01 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [vSphere Distributed Switch Configuration on Some Hosts Differed From That of the vCenter Server](https://vninja.net/2023/11/01/vsphere-distributed-switch-configuration-on-some-hosts-differed-from-that-of-the-vcenter-server/) — I recently came across this message: _The vSphere Distributed Switch configuration on some hosts differed from that of the vCenter Server._ when I was going to upgrade some vDS switches.
There were several complicated solutions presented to me via Google, but this is how I eventually managed to fix it easily. [2023-11-01 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~0 words]
- [Tips for VMware Explore Barcelona 2023](https://vninja.net/2023/10/18/tips-vmware-explore-barcelona-2023/) — VMware Explore Barcelona 2023 is upon us and if you are travelling for the first time or just looking for some general tips about the conference, look no further. I previously wrote about my experience traveling to VMware Explore last year. It was my first trip to VMware Explore, which was also my first big convention.
My tips will be a characterized by Explore being downsized last year before a lot of last minute registrations, so everything was very crowded. [2023-10-18 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~200 words]
- [VMware Explore 2023 Barcelona: My Sessions](https://vninja.net/2023/09/26/vmware-explore-2023-barcelona-my-sessions/) — VMware Explore Barcelona 2023 is fast approaching, the 6th to 9th of November is only a little over a month away.
The content catalog is now open for scheduling, and I'm lucky enough to have *two* sessions lined up this year.  [2023-09-26 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Using vSphere Datasets in Salt](https://vninja.net/2023/09/25/vsphere-datasets-in-salt/) — vSphere 8 introduced the new vSphere Datasets feature. In short, Datasets provides a way to exchange information (metadata) between vCenter and a VM, read/writeable through VMware Tools.

I thought this might be a nice way to pass information from vCenter, or a VM, to Salt in order to use this metadata information on a Salt minion. Thankfully, this was fairly easy to accomplish. [2023-09-25 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Tech X 300 2023: Wrapped](https://vninja.net/2023/09/23/techx-300-2023-wrapped/) — VMUG Denmark put on the (northern European?) VMUG event of the year on the 20th and 21st of September; Tech X 300. It was held at the beautiful Nordisk Film Biografer Palads cinema in Copenhagen, which offers great rooms for the presentations, along with huge screens. I think the largest one was over 12 meters wide! [2023-09-23 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMware vSAN 8 U2 Announced at Explore 2023](https://vninja.net/2023/08/22/vmware-vsan8u2/) — There is nothing really big and revolutionary in the core vSAN 8 U2 announcement, besides vSAN Max that is. It is nice to see that native file services in vSAN ESA are now in feature parity with vSAN OSA, and that the configuration of 2-Node and Stretched Clusters as been simplified. Other than that, everything else seems to be performance improvements, simplified management and scalability improvements but no stand-out new features in the core offering iself. [2023-08-22 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [VMware vSAN 8 U2 to the Max](https://vninja.net/2023/08/22/vmware-vsan8u2-to-the-max/) — The clear stand-out new offering in vSAN 8 U2 is the new Disaggregated Storage offering called vSAN Max. Broken down to its core, this is vSAN HCI Mesh on steroids, with some new and very shiny sprinkles on top. vSAN Max, with its new license model, is a dedicated storage cluster, built on vSAN ESA. A vSAN Max cluster only provides storage resources, and does not run traditional VM workloads.
This storage cluster can be consumed by other vSphere clusters, either as a primary storage option or in addition to the storage those cluster already consume from other sources. [2023-08-22 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [VMware vSphere 8 U2 Announced at Explore 2023](https://vninja.net/2023/08/22/vmware-vsphere8u2/) — Like with vSAN 8 U2, there are really no new stand-out features in the vSphere 8 U2 announcement. It is an evolutionary release, with a number of welcome improvements both to hardware support and sane defaults for security and hardening, but no eyepopping new features. [2023-08-22 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [iOS VPN Connection Toggle Shortcut](https://vninja.net/2023/07/17/ios-shortcut-toggle-vpn/) — I have probably been living under a rock for quite some time, but it turns out **iOS Shortcuts** (and MacOS) are pretty awesome, once you identify a proper use case for them. For me, the use case was simplifying connecting to my home, or work lab, network, via VPN.
Now, I am pretty sure I have looked into how to do this years ago, without finding a solution, but in case someone else might benefit from it, here is a walkthrough of creating a simple VPN toggle button on your iOS homescreen, i.e no more diving into settings to connect. [2023-07-17 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMUG TechX 300 Here I Come!](https://vninja.net/2023/06/27/techx-300-here-i-come/) — This september, VMUG Denmark is hosting <b>TechX 300</b>: The ultimate technical summit for enthusiasts seeking a deep dive into VMware solutions, and I am lucky enough to have been selected as a speaker! My talk is called <em>Down the Rabbit Hole with VMware Aria Automation Config (SaltStack)</em>, which should be a lot of fun. Expect live demos! [2023-06-27 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [IT Architect Series: Stories From the Field, Volume 2](https://vninja.net/2023/05/19/it-architect-series-stories-from-the-field-vol2/) — Another book in IT Architect series has finally been released: IT Architect Series: Stories from the Field, Volume 2. This is the follow up to Volume 1 which was released back in 2020. [2023-05-19 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Upgrading to vCenter 8 Update 1: Invalid Type, expected String, instead got NoneType](https://vninja.net/2023/04/19/upgrading-vcenter8-invalid-type/) — vCenter 8.0 Update 1 was released on April 18th, and I quickly jumped to upgrading my existing home lab vCenter, but ran into an issue that prevented the upgrade from completing, namely the error message <i>Invalid Type, expected String, instead got NoneType</i>. [2023-04-19 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Are Your (old) ESXi Hosts Publicly Available? — They won't be for long.](https://vninja.net/2023/02/06/are-your-esxi-hosts-publicly-available/) — Back in February 2021, I published a post named Is Your VMware vCenter Publicly Available? <br/> It is now February 2023, and here we are again. A new widespread ransomware attack dubbed **ESXiArgs** is targeting publicly available ESXi hosts, using a vulnerability that was patched **two years ago** (CVE-2021-21947). [2023-02-06 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware Explore 2023 Dates and Venues](https://vninja.net/2023/01/06/vmware-explore-2023/) — Some ~~unofficial~~ dates and details for VMware Explore 2023 has come to light, and by the looks of things the rumors of moving the US version from San Francisco to Las Vegas are true. It also seems like the EMEA conference will yet again be held in Barcelona. [2023-01-06 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [My Experience: VCP-DCV for vSphere 7.x 2V0-21.20 Exam](https://vninja.net/2023/01/04/vcp-dcv-vsphere7-2v0-21.20/) — I knew one thing was going to change when I transitioned from being an operations engineer and became a consultant: the fact that I had rarely done any kind of certification. <br/><br/> Trying to figure out what certification I should start with was a daunting prospect, but luckily, I could ask Christian Mohn, and we decided I should start with VCP-DCV for vSphere 7.x (VCP for short). It’s described by VMware as “The VCP-DCV 2022 certification validates candidate skills to implement, manage, and troubleshoot a vSphere infrastructure, using best practices to provide a powerful, flexible, and secure foundation for business agility that can accelerate the transformation to cloud computing.”, and sounds like a good place to start to showcase that you are generally skilled when it comes to working with VMware. [2023-01-04 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~600 words]
- [CloudBytes Podcast — Season 3](https://vninja.net/2022/12/22/cloudbytes-season-3/) — The CloudBytes Podcast recently released Season 3 of their series of podcasts. The main topic this season is core components of cybersecurity, and I was lucky enough to be asked to be a guest on no less than two of the episodes. [2022-12-22 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Leveling Up: My First VMUG Presentation](https://vninja.net/2022/12/22/leveling-up-my-first-vmug-presentation/) — I’ve been a member of VMUG for years now and I’ve always looked up to the people organizing it. I got asked to hold a short presentation for Norway VMUG in November and I was so honored. <b>Then the nerves started!</b>
<b>What should I talk about? Could I be interesting? Am I good enough?</b> Impostor syndrome was doing a number on me, but I was adamant that I would get over this. I had always secretly wanted to speak at VMUG and now was my chance. [2022-12-22 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~400 words]
- [VMware vCenter CVE-2022-31697](https://vninja.net/2022/12/20/vmware-vcenter-cve-2022-31697/) — VMware has released security advisory VMSA-2022-0030 which includes several vulnerabilities: CVE-2022-31696, CVE-2022-31697, CVE-2022-31698, CVE-2022-31699. Among these CVE-2022-31697 caught my eye as a potential issue in many environments. [2022-12-20 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [vSAN 8 ESA VMware Compatibility Guidance](https://vninja.net/2022/12/07/vsan8-esa-vmware-compatibility-guidance/) — VMware has just released a new KB90343: What You Can (and Cannot) Change in a vSAN ESA ReadyNode™. For those looking to utilize the new vSAN 8 Express Storage Architecture (ESA) this is a great resource that outlines what components in a vSAN ESA ReadyNode™ can be changed and it also includes a very handy vSAN ESA ReadyNode™ FAQ. [2022-12-07 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [My First VMware Explore](https://vninja.net/2022/12/02/my-first-vmware-explore/) — Weirdly I have worked mainly with VMware products for years now without having the pleasure to go to VMware Explore. This year that was about to change and I was so excited! I was heading from the cold weather of Norway to sunny Barcelona to attend VMware Explore Europe and I could hardly wait. <br/><br/>I have written down a little recap of my trip, with some tips and tricks for other people that might have not gone to Explore before. [2022-12-02 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~600 words]
- [VMware vSAN 8 ESA in my Homelab](https://vninja.net/2022/11/24/vsan8-esa-in-homelab/) — Ever since vSAN 8 was announced, I've been waiting to try out the new Express Storage Architecture in my HomeLab, especially since the internal storage in my hosts is NVMe only. Yesterday the last piece of the puzzle was released, namely the new USB Network Native Driver v1.11 for ESXi 8 which I needed before reinstalling my hosts in order to get vSAN traffic isolation. <br/><br/> Once the hosts were installed and configured, it was time to enable vSAN and try out the new Express Storage Architecture. vSAN ESA is configured in the same way as the traditional OSA version, you just select that you want ESA at configuration time. [2022-11-24 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [VMware Explore Europe 2022: My Immediate Thoughts](https://vninja.net/2022/11/11/vmware-explore-europe-2022-my-thougths/) — This week was the return of VMworld, *post-pandemicly renamed to VMware Explore*, in Europe. As has been the case for several years now, it was held in the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona. [2022-11-11 · Christian Moh · ~600 words]
- [VMware vSAN 8 Announced — New Architecture Model!](https://vninja.net/2022/08/30/vmware-vsan8-announced/) — With vSphere 8 comes vSAN 8, and with it a slew of improvements and even a brand new architecture option! This new optional next generation architecture is built into vSAN 8, and going forward customers can choose which architecture to deploy; vSAN Original Storage Architecture (OSA) or vSAN Express Storage Architecture (ESA). [2022-08-30 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [VMware vSphere 8 — The Enterprise Workload Platform Announced!](https://vninja.net/2022/08/30/vmware-vsphere8-announced/) — VMware announces vSphere 8 — The Enterprise Workload Platform at VMware Explore US 2022. The new release comes with a number of new features and enhancements. Read more for a quick summary of changes and enhancements. [2022-08-30 · Christian Mohn · ~1400 words]
- [Expired VMware vCenter certificates](https://vninja.net/2022/08/08/expired-vmware-vcenter-7-certificates/) — Last week, I worked with a customer on what was seemingly a straightforward VMware vCenter 7 certificate replacement job but encountered several red herrings that also turned out to be issues that needed solving. I thought I’d share these in this post, in the hope that they can help others in future. The initial issue was that during the summer holidays, the customer’s certificates had expired, and they were presented with **“Error 503, service unavailable”** messages when trying to log into vSphere Client. While renewing certificates with certificate-manager in vCenter BASH Shell via SSH the services got stuck at 85%, and then failed to start after several minutes. [2022-08-08 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~1600 words]
- [VMware issues Updated ESXi SD card USB Boot Device Guidance](https://vninja.net/2022/04/27/updated-esxi-sdcard-usb-boot-device-guidance/) — VMware has released an updated version of KB85685 SD card/USB boot device revised guidance (85685). Previous versions of this KB stated that in the next major version of ESXi SD Card / USB boot would be deprecated and unsupported. This has now changed, as the updated version dated 27th of April 2022 states that this will still be supported in the next major version. [2022-04-27 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Patching Dell Optiplex 7090 UFF](https://vninja.net/2022/03/29/patching-dell-optiplex-7090-uff/) — My new lab is based on Dell OptiPlex 7090 UFF hosts and after enabling vSAN on the four node cluster, the first two hosts I set up started having issues, especially with the cache devices. It seems that they just disappear from the host, especially when doing IO-intensive operations like changing the vSAN policy for a few VMs from RAID-1 to RAID-5. Once the host is rebooted, the device is back in place, seemingly without issues until the next time it disappears. Strangely this was not a problem before I configured vSAN, and only used the same devices as local datastores. [2022-03-29 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Installing Tanzu Community Edition on vSphere — Some Quick Notes](https://vninja.net/2022/03/16/tanzu-community-edition-vsphere-notes/) — Installing Tanzu Community Edition (TCE) on vSphere is well documented on the tanzucommunityedition.io site, but I ran into a couple of small quirks when installing it in my home lab. [2022-03-16 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [The Home Lab: 2022 Edition](https://vninja.net/2022/03/07/the-home-lab-2022-edition/) — For years now my homelab has been a single Dell Precision T7500 host, with a total of 24 GB RAM and a few TB of locally attached disks. I also had a small Synology DS216play and a very old HP MicroServer N36L that I ran FreeNAS on. A few months back, the MicroServer decided to call it quits after many, many years of service (it was released in May 2010!). To replace it I got ordered a new Synology DS920+, which again forced me into have a proper look at my entire home lab environment. The conclusion was very clear; My home lab environment was in dire need of a complete overhaul!</p> To make a long story short, I ended up with a pretty odd choice of new hosts for my home lab! [2022-03-07 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [VMware vSphere 7 Update 3c Finally Released](https://vninja.net/2022/01/29/vsphere-7-update-3c-finally-released/) — !vSphere logo Back in November 2021, VMware vSphere Update 3 was released and then ultimately retracted again due to critical issues with the code base and upgrade procedures — For details, see KB article 86398. </p> **As of January 27th, VMware vSphere 7 Update 3c is now available for download!** [2022-01-29 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Caddy 2: A Couple of Simple Use Cases](https://vninja.net/2022/01/28/caddy-a-couple-of-use-cases/) — Heard of Caddy 2? If not, here's a quick intro on how I currently use it. Note that I am barely toucing the surface of what it can do, but after I have a couple of simple, yet very handy use cases for it: <p/> Reverse Proxy and Static File Server. [2022-01-28 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [Casting Home Assistant Dashboards to Google Nest Hub 2nd Gen](https://vninja.net/2022/01/05/homeassistant-google-nest-hub-2nd-gen/) — I recently bought a Google Nest Hub 2nd gen and wanted to use it as a dashboard device for Home Assistant (HA). Now. the Google Nest Hub is not really meant used like this, as there is no real way of installing 3rd party apps on it, such as the Home Assistant app. Thankfully there are ways to get it to display Lovelace Dashboards from HA, and here is how I solved it with local network access only. [2022-01-05 · Christian Mohn · ~1600 words]
- [Combined Pi-Hole Statistics in Home Assistant](https://vninja.net/2021/11/08/combined-pi-hole-stats-in-home-assistant/) — I have been running Pi-Hole since 2018, and I'm still amazed as to how much ads it actually blocks. It's simply incredible, and I often run my VPN client on my phone to connect to my home network, just to get DNS filtering no matter where I am.

Due to some recent changes to my home environment, I have now moved to a dual Pi-Hole setup, utilizing Michael Stanclift's excellent Gravity Sync to keep the Gravity blocklists syncronized between instances.

I am also a heavy user of Home Assistant, so natually I have statistics from Pi-Hole visible in a Dashboard there as well, utilizing the Pi-Hole integration, which works very well. However, with two Pi-Hole instances, I would like to see some combined statistics, instead of them being seperated out by instance. [2021-11-08 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Hot Add NVMe Device Caused PSOD on ESXi](https://vninja.net/2021/09/08/hot-add-nvme-device-caused-psod-on-esxi/) — I recently had a case of <b>“go with your gut”</b> when we added some new NVMe disks to an existing VMware vSAN solution at a customer.</p> <p> Normally I'm very cautious and will put hosts into maintenance mode, no matter how small the hardware change I’m doing is, but against my better judgement this time I decided to hot add some disks (which of course is supported). However, I fumbled and managed to insert it and quickly remove it again before inserting it again, and ended up with a dreaded Purple Screen of Death (PSOD) on the host.</p> <p>Naturally this freaked me out and I was eager to figure out what the problem was. Searching through the KBs at VMware didn’t give me any clues, but a quick Google search took me to the <p>ESXi 7.0u2c Release Notes.</p> [2021-09-08 · Stine Elise Larsen · ~200 words]
- [ESXi SD-Card/USB boot devices unsupported in 7.0u3](https://vninja.net/2021/09/02/esxi-sd-card-usb-boot-device-unsupported-in-7.0u3/) — In the ongoing saga of SD-Card/USB-boot device support in ESXi, VMware has just published a new KB article named <b>Persistent storage warnings when booting ESXi from SD-Card/USB devices (85615)</b> outlining that from 7.0u3 (at the time of writing, not released yet) onward support for such boot devices is deprecated. <p/> They also list the workarounds for this as either install to a non SD/USB device, or to add a persistent storage device. <p/> <b>Note: As of 03. September 2021 the Persistent storage warnings when booting ESXi from SD-Card/USB devices. (85615) KB article has been removed from kb.vmware.com for unknown reasons. Hopefully it will be back soon.</b> <p/> Additional information can also be found in <b>Boot device guidance for low endurance media(vSphere and vSAN) (82515)</b>, which somewhat contradictory states that upgrades will still be supported in 7.x. <p/> Just like everything else, plan accordingly. I do applaud VMware for being transparent about this, and even publishing the new KB article before ESXi 7.0u3 is released. Everyone still running production on SD-Card/USB devices needs to take action as soon as possible to ensure support going forward. [2021-09-02 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Upgrading to ESXi 7.0 build 18426014 U2c. ESXi stuck in Not responding from vCenter](https://vninja.net/2021/08/24/upgrading-to-esxi-7.0-build-18426014-u2c-esxi-stuck-in-not-responding-from-vcenter/) — Well, not directly related to the new ESXi 7 U2c build, BUT if you're one of the lucky ones (like me), you've been experiencing big issues with SD/USB device since ESXi U1/U2, hence the vCenter <> ESXi (at least the configurations, tokens, etc.) has not been working for a while. I mean, last time vCenter talked successfully with my host was back in May 2021, when the USB dropped. That's like four (4!) months ago.
Today, VMware finally released the ESXi 7 U2c, which has included an updated module for the **vmkusb**. Hopefully this will fix the previous experienced SD/USB device issues, but before that - let's talk patching! [2021-08-24 · Espen Ødegaard · ~600 words]
- [On the Line with Cohesity Podcast Episode 42: Back to Travel and VMworld 2021 with Christian Mohn](https://vninja.net/2021/08/04/on-the-line-cohesity-podcast/) — As timings will have it, two podcasts I've been a guest on has been released this week.
This time it is On The Line with Cohesity — Episode 42: Back to Travel and VMworld 2021 with Christian Mohn. [2021-08-04 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [The On-Premise IT Roundtable Podcast: It’s Time to Embrace the Bottlenecks in Storage](https://vninja.net/2021/08/03/the-on-premise-it-roundtable-podcast/) — I've recently had the opportunity to join the The On-Premise IT Roundtable Podcast for a discussion about storage and bottlenecks, titled It’s Time to Embrace the Bottlenecks in Storage. [2021-08-03 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Storage Field Day #22 — Here We Go](https://vninja.net/2021/07/30/sfd22-here-we-go/) — Next week is Storage Field Day 22, and for the first time since Tech Field Day 6 10 years ago I am a delegate!
I am *really* looking forward to hearing from the presenting sponsors, and being part of what looks like a really great group of delegates. [2021-07-30 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vSoup Is Back!](https://vninja.net/2021/06/30/vsoup-is-back/) — After a rather prolonged hiatus, the vSoup Podcast is back! For the first time since March 2017, Ed, Chris and myself got together and recorded an episode [2021-06-30 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [ESXi 7.0 SD Card/USB Drive Issue Temporary Workaround](https://vninja.net/2021/06/01/esxi-7.0-sd-card-issue-temporary-workaround/) — <b>This is a guest post by Espen Ødegaard:</b> As VMware has not released a fix yet (regarding issues with SD card and USB drive), I'm still experiencing issues with ESXi 7.0 U2a Potentially Killing USB and SD drives, running from USB or SD card installs. As previous workaround (copying VMware Tools to RAMDISK with option `ToolsRamdisk`) only worked for 8 days (in my case), I needed something more permanent, to get the ESXi-hosts more stable (e.g. host being able to enter maintenance mode, move VMs around, snapshots/backup, doing CLI-stuff/commands, etc.). [2021-06-01 · Espen Ødegaard · ~600 words]
- [Searching vCenter Tasks and Events via PowerShell and GridView](https://vninja.net/2021/05/19/searching-vcenter-tasks-and-events-via-powershell/) — <b>This is a guest post by Espen Ødegaard:</b> As searching and filtering for events in vCenter Server trough vSphere Client somewhat limited (OK, it really sucks, to be honest), it's usually much faster using PowerCLI, to retrieve, filter & searching events. [2021-05-19 · Espen Ødegaard · ~400 words]
- [ESXi 7.0 U2a Potentially Killing USB and SD drives!](https://vninja.net/2021/05/18/esxi-7.0-u2a-killing-usb-and.sd-drives/) — <b>This is a guest post by Espen Ødegaard:</b> After upgrading my 4-node vSAN-cluster (homelab) to ESXi 7.0 build 17867351 U2a, I detected that ESXi had issues talking to the USB device, where the ESXi was installed. I found a related KB from VMware, outlining issues with the new VMFS-L, which started my baseline for troubleshooting VMFS-L Locker partition corruption on SD cards in ESXi 7.0 (83376)
In short, it says that the VMFS-L partition may have become corrupt, and a re-install is needed. **There is no resolution for the SD card corruption as of the time this article was published** [2021-05-18 · Espen Ødegaard · ~1400 words]
- [ESXi: Error Occurred While Saving Snapshot Msg.changetracker](https://vninja.net/2021/05/18/error-occurred-while-saving-snapshot-msg.changetracker.mirrorcopystatus/) — <b>This is a guest post by Espen Ødegaard:</b> I recently ran into a strange issue in my home lab, **running ESXi 7.0.2, build 17867351**  where Veeam Backup & Replication v10 reported the following error: Failed to create VM snapshot. Error: CreateSnapshot failed, vmRef vm-4013, timeout 1800000, snName VEEAM BACKUP TEMPORARY SNAPSHOT, snDescription Please do not delete this snapshot. It is being used by Veeam Backup., memory False, quiesce False [2021-05-18 · Espen Ødegaard · ~400 words]
- [Creating an Elgato Stream Deck Sleep Button in macOS](https://vninja.net/2021/04/15/elgato-stream-deck-sleep-button/) — I recently got an Elgato Stream Deck for the home office, and I've set it up mostly to control OBS Studio for a couple of projects I'm working on. Since I also have a couple of Key Light Airs, I also use it to control them.
While setting it up, I figured I needed a *sleep* button on it, that basically locks my Macbook and turns off the lights in one fell swoop. Conceptually this seemed like an very easy thing to set up, but it turns out there are some macOS quirks that needs to be addressed for this to work.
By default in macOS High Sierra, or newer, there is a predefined lock screen hotkey: `Command ⌘ + Control ⌃ Q` which works very well. In fact, it works a little to well as it turns out. [2021-04-15 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMware vSAN 7.0 Update 2 Announced](https://vninja.net/2021/03/09/vmware-vsan7u2-announced/) — VMware vSAN 7.0 Update 2 has been made generally available, and what is new this time around? <br/>**Disaggregated HCI, Durable Writes, Enhanced File Services, Efficiency Enhancements, vSAN over RDMA and more!** [2021-03-09 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [VMware vSAN 7.0 Update 2 Videos](https://vninja.net/2021/03/09/vmware-vsan7u2-videos/) — With the vSAN 7.0 Update 2 annnouncement, and availability, a series of videos has been published, and here is a list of the videos I've found so far. [2021-03-09 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 2 Announced](https://vninja.net/2021/03/09/vmware-vsphere7u2-announced/) — VMware has just announced the general availability of the new vSphere 7.0 Update 2 release, which offers a bunch of new features and improvements. This includes both new load balancer options for Tanzu, as well as greatly improved security through encryption, better lifecycle management and improvements on vMotion speeds in high bandwidth networks. [2021-03-09 · Christian Mohn · ~1200 words]
- [VMware vSphere 7.0 Update 2 Videos](https://vninja.net/2021/03/09/vmware-vsphere7u2-videos/) — With the vSphere 7.0 Update 2 annnouncement, and availability, a series of videos has been published, and here is a list of the videos I've found so far. [2021-03-09 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Is Your VMware vCenter Publicly Available?](https://vninja.net/2021/02/27/is-your-vcenter-publicly-available/) — On the 23rd of February 2021 VMware issued the VMSA-2021-0002 security advisory and one of the issues it addresses is **VMware vCenter Server updates address remote code execution vulnerability in the vSphere Client (CVE-2021-21972)**. This is a critical issue, and if left unpatched could land your vSphere estate in big trouble as there is already Proof-of-Concepts available for this vulnerability. So get patching as soon as possible!
Of course, this can only be exploited if you have access to the VMware vCenter Client, so if the managment plane is isolated that helps mitigate the risk. [2021-02-27 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Norwegian vExperts 2021](https://vninja.net/2021/02/12/norwegian-vexperts-2021/) — !vExpert 2021 VMware has just announced the list of vExperts for 2021 and true to tradition here is a list of the Norwegian vExperts for 2021. This year there is a total of 13 Norwegian vExperts, one more than in 2020.

If you want to be included in this list when it opens up again in June 2021, it's time to start plannning. As a vExpert Pro I'm happy to assist anyone who wants help applying! [2021-02-12 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Making a Node-RED Twitter Bot](https://vninja.net/2021/01/20/node-red-twitter-bot/) — I use Node-RED extensively for home automation purposes, in conjunction with Home Assistant. See the Home Automation tag for posts in that series.
This post, however, is for a different use case and not home automation. For years I've been using Zapier to automatically tweet new posts for this site via the @vninjanet account, but that has proven rather inflexible and I wanted a better way to automate this, while adding features that Zapier currently does not support like adding specific hashtags automatically.
I have been using the sites RSS feed as the trigger in Zapier, and wanted to continue doing that, even if moving it to Node-RED. [2021-01-20 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [How I Use Home Assistant: Part 4 — Automatically Enable and Disable Sonos Night Mode with Node-RED](https://vninja.net/2021/01/03/how-i-use-home-assistant-part4/) — Sonos Beam is my main driver for television audio, which is great, but the sound travels between the floors in my house so I want Night Mode to be enabled late at night. I also do not want to manually have to tweak the night mode settings, and figured that doing it on a schedule, from within Home Assistant was the way to go. [2021-01-03 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [How I Use Home Assistant: Part 3 — Morning Coffee](https://vninja.net/2021/01/03/how-i-use-home-assistant-part3/) — I need my caffeine fix. It also needs to be very readily available when I wake up. Before home automation, I used to load my Moccamaster KBGT741 Thermal Coffee Maker with water and ground coffee before bedtime so all I had to do was to hit the power button to get caffeine flowing.
But why not schedule it to before I get up so that there is always fresh coffee available the instant I get up in the morning? Add an IKEA Trådfri Smart Outlet, and I can schedule my fix! Since the coffee maker brews into a insulated carafe, it doesn't get burned if, I sleep in, while at the same time keeping it hot. That's a win-win!
I know, this method doesn't provide the absolute best coffee experience, but as far as I'm concerned availability beats quality in the wee hours of the morning. [2021-01-03 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [How I Use Home Assistant: Part 2 — Light Color Changes for Calendar Based Events with Node-RED](https://vninja.net/2021/01/02/how-i-use-home-assistant-part2/) — In my hallway there are a few Phillips Hue White and Color Ambiance Bulbs that I've had some fun with the last couple of years. Originally automated through IFTTT, they change color if one of my favorite football teams play a match. This has been working well for quite some time, but with IFTTT recently starting to limit the amount of Applets you can create, and the fact that they only run every 15 minutes, I decided to try and emulate the functionality I used with Home Assistant and Node-RED instead. [2021-01-02 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [How I Use Home Assistant: Part 1 — My Setup](https://vninja.net/2021/01/01/how-i-use-home-assistant/) — I've been running Home Asssistant (HA) in my network for well over a year now, and it's primary use case has been connecting devices from different ecosystems into one management interface. Lately I have been migrating a few automations from native HA to Node-RED, which has been a fun exercise, and I'm looking to expand the usage of automations in the time to come. <br/><br/> **My mantra for this setup is that everything that can be automated, should be automated, while at the same time keeping it as simple and unobtrusive as possible for everyone in the household.** [2021-01-01 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Forward Looking Statements: 2021 Edition](https://vninja.net/2020/12/07/forward-looking-statements-2021/) — Misleading title, I know, especially considering most of this post is actually looking back at 2020. It's been a few years since I did one of these posts, and with the havoc of 2020 close to be firmly in the rearview mirror, why not try to pick it up again? <br><br> Since I didn't post a list of goals for 2020, it's hard to review it item by item, but it's safe to say that 2020 has been one hell of a year. A lot of people have been much more adversely affected by the whole COVID-19 pandemic than I have, but being confined to the **Home Office of Isolation™** since March has taken it's toll, at least mentally. <br><br> I'm lucky enough to have my own dedicated office, grown kids that doesn't need home schooling and an employer who facilitates, and embraces, remote work. I know everyone else doesn't have that luxury, given their role, but for those of us who has, it is a blessing. <br><br> **2020 has also shown us who the real heroes are, the front line workers who can't do their job from a comfortable and safe home office. Health care workers, teachers, public transport, shop workers and others who provide crucial services. On behalf of us lucky ones, thank you for beeing there. Thank you for caring, and thank you for making it possible for the rest of us to continue working.** Hopefully 2021 will be better, at least eventually, as the vaccines become available, and we can start to slowly return to a new kind of normal. [2020-12-07 · Christian Mohn · ~1400 words]
- [Automating Elgato Key Lights From macOS Touch Bar](https://vninja.net/2020/12/04/automating-elgato-key-lights-from-touch-bar/) — Since I recently got an Elgato Key Light Air for the Home Office of Isolation™, I've been playing around with how to automate it. I've seen a lot of people using Elgato Stream Decks for automating these lights, but I don't really have the need for a dedicated device for this. At least not yet.
As it turns out, it's actually pretty easy to automate these lights via other means. The light itself runs a http server on port 9123, and via `/elgato/lights` it's possible to connect to it's internal API for remote control.
There is even a Postman Collection available, which makes it very easy to get started with connecting and changing settings around. [2020-12-04 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Using VMware Validated Design Stencils in Draw.io](https://vninja.net/2020/11/30/using-vmware-vvd-stencils-in-draw.io/) — Ryan Johnson who works on VMware Validated Design, has created a GitHub repo for VMware stencils. The repository contains the stencils used for VMware Validated Designs in SVG, Visio and OmniGraffle formats, as well as a very nice Powerpoint presentation that shows how to use the stencils. Great work Ryan, and team! [2020-11-30 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Issues Connecting Elgato Key Light Air to Ubiquiti UniFi Wireless Networks](https://vninja.net/2020/11/30/issues-connecting-elgato-key-light-air-to-ubiquiti-unifi-wireless-networks/) — Happily I ordered the Elgato Key Light Air, as that should provide the light that I was lacking. Assembling and connecting it was very easy, but when it came to adding it to my home WiFi I ran into some unexpected issues. As is customary with this kind of IoT-ish device, the setup is to connect to it's own WiFi through a management app, in this case the Elgato Control Center, and then use that to connect it to the WiFi of your choice. For the life of me, I couldn't get the Key Light to connect to my home WiFi, it just timed out with an *unexpected error*—which is very unhelpful. [2020-11-30 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [vExpert 2021 Applications are now Open!](https://vninja.net/2020/11/24/vexpert-2021.md/) — In case you weren't aware, applications for VMware vExpert 2021 is now open. See the official announcement for details. The applications are open until January 9th 2021, and the announcement of the class of 2021 is scheduled for February 19th 2021. [2020-11-24 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [macOS: Aggregate Device for Teams - Fixing Auto-Adjusting Mic Level](https://vninja.net/2020/11/06/macos-aggregate-device-for-teams.md/) — After working pretty well for many, many months, my external mic, a Blue Yeti, suddenly started having issues in Microsoft Teams on macOS. The issue was isolated to Teams, other video and audio solutions worked fine.
For some reason, Teams had decided to start auto-adjusting the input level on its own, rendering it pretty useless. While some might say it's a blessing that I get auto-muted, seemingly at random, but for me at least it's pretty annoying. [2020-11-06 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMworld 2020: vCommunity Discord](https://vninja.net/2020/09/24/vmworld-2020-vcommunity/) — VMworld 2020 is soon upon us, and due to the current world situation it's an online only event this year. Personally I think this is a big loss, mostly because I usually spend most of my time  at VMworld networking and speaking to people I often only see once a year, something that simply will not happen this year. Thankfully Nick Howell and Jeramiah Dooley took the baton, and has tried to recreate or even re-invent some of the social aspects of the conference experience, on Discord. [2020-09-24 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Photon OS 3.0 Template Gotcha](https://vninja.net/2020/09/23/photon-os-30-template-gotcha/) — Photon OS is VMware's minimal Linux distribution, and in a small project in the lab I thought I should use it for some small lightweight Veeam Backup & Replication v10 Linux proxies. After deploying it, and converting it to a template, I ran into some very frustrating authentication issues after deployment. To make a very long troubleshooting story short, I forgot to ensure that a new unique *machine-id* was created, wrecking havoc with, amongst other things, the DHCP server assignments. [2020-09-23 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMworld 2020: vTrail Map](https://vninja.net/2020/09/22/vtrailmap2020/) — vTrail Map by Yadin Porter de León and the Level Up Project is usually a physical resource that gets handed out at VMworld. Since the world is pretty much in lockdown, and VMworld is a virtual only conference this year, the vTrailmap 2020 has been transformed into an online resource and experience! In short, vTrail Map is a community guide for the virtualization community.
As I'm lucky enough to be a vTrail Map Champion for VMworld 2020, it's really fun to announce that the first virtual vTrail Map is now live! [2020-09-22 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [IT Architect Series: Stories From the Field, Vol. 1](https://vninja.net/2020/09/21/it-architect-series-stories-from-the-field-vol1/) — A new book from the crew behind the IT Architect series of books has finally been released: IT Architect Series: Stories From the Field, Vol. 1. I have been fortunate enough to be able to contribute one of the chapters in this book, alongside quite an all star list of a total of thirty five contributers. I have also contributed as an editor for quite a few of the stories. In my opininion, this is another must have book for all aspiring and existing IT infrastructure architects and fits in really well with the existing books in the IT Architect Series. [2020-09-21 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware Announcements September 2020 — The Resource List](https://vninja.net/2020/09/15/vmware-announcements-september2020/) — Today saw a bunch of announcements from VMware, including **vSphere 7.0 Update 1**, **vSAN 7.0 Update 1**, **VMware Cloud Foundation 4.1** and I thought it might be useful to post a list of some of the resources that has been published. [2020-09-15 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware vSphere 7 Update 1 With Tanzu News](https://vninja.net/2020/09/15/vmware-vsphere7-with-tanzu/) — VMware vSphere 7 Update 1 With Tanzu enables administrators to run Kubernetes clusters in vSphere, without any other requirements! <br/> Not only has VMware with this move adressed the VMware Cloud Foundation requirement for getting started with running modern applications on vSphere, but since there is no requirement for NSX or even vSAN for this to work the entry level point has been dramatically lowered. It's basically Kubernetes infrastructure on vSphere, with your choice of networking, storage and load balancing solutions! [2020-09-15 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [vNinja 10 Years](https://vninja.net/2020/07/21/vninja-10-years/) — 3654 days — 120 months — 10 years — 2010 to 2020 — A decade — That is **a long** time. <br/><br/> A lot has changed in these 10 years, and looking back at my first post on this site makes that very evident — the name even changed, **pre launch!** The original name was ***vmaware*** and I even had the domain registered and configured, but before I made the site live I found out someone else was already using that, but under a different tld. Luckily I caught it, *rookie mistake on my part* — I know, before I launched the site and changed it to ***vNinja*** instead. [2020-07-21 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [macOS: Hiding Menu Bar Icons With Dozer](https://vninja.net/2020/05/27/macos-hiding-menu-bar-icons-with-dozer/) — The macOS Menu Bar tends to get cluttered over time, as applications really like to put an icon up there. I'm aware that you can remove most of them by dragging the icon away from the meenu bar, while holding down command (⌘) but, some times the icon is useful when you need it. It just doesn't have to be in your face all the time. [2020-05-27 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [macOS: Split Tunnel L2TP VPN Routing](https://vninja.net/2020/05/27/macos-split-tunnel-vpn-routing/) — I use my Ubiquiti USG for Remote User VPN Using L2TP, but L2TP does not provide routing information to the client, so I needed a way to automatically create routes when the VPN connection fires. Thankfully, this is pretty easy in macOS (and Linux). The `/etc/ppp/ip-up` file triggers every time a PPP (L2TP is based on PPP) connection is made, thus making it easy to trigger a route command when a connection is made. [2020-05-27 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware Updates Minimum Requirements for vSphere 7 With Kubernetes in VCF](https://vninja.net/2020/05/25/vmware-vsphere7-with-kubernetes-vcf-update/) — VMware has updated the requirements for running Kubernetes workloads on VMware Cloud Foundation, and I'm happy to see that the requirements has been scaled down quite a bit. The news is that it is now supported to enable the Kubernetes Supervisor Control Plane on the management Workload Domain, letting go of the hard requirement of running it in a seperate Workload Domain. [2020-05-25 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware vSphere 7 With Kubernetes and Tanzu Resources](https://vninja.net/2020/05/12/vmware-with-kubernetes-and-tanzu/) — The dust has settled a bit after the big VMware vSphere 7 release, and vSphere 7 with Kubernetes, and there is now some really good resources available for those looking into the details about the various Kubernetes and Tanzu parts of it. [2020-05-12 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [The Problem with VMware vSphere 7 With Kubernetes](https://vninja.net/2020/03/10/vmware-vsphere7-with-kubernetes/) — All in all, **Cloud Foundation 4.0** seems to be a solid version upgrade, with a lot of promise. The tight integration between Cloud Foundation and vSphere with Kubernetes, coupled with the other managementment tools already available from VMware should prove to be a solid foundation (pun intended) for anyone looking to provide both traditional virtualization and container workloads in their on-premises datacenters going forward.
The problem, in my not so humble opinion, with this is that vSphere with Kubernetes is (for now?) only available through **Cloud Foundation 4.0**. That is a very limiting form factor for delivery, and something that might just slow the adoption rate for it considerably. [2020-03-10 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [VMware Cloud Foundation 4.0 Announced](https://vninja.net/2020/03/10/vmware-cloud-foundation-40-announced/) — During todays Online Launch Event App Modernization in a Multi-Cloud World VMware announced the next generation of VMware Cloud Foundation; version 4.0. This release includes support for the new versions of vSphere and vSAN as well as updates to the vRealize Suite and NSX. [2020-03-10 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware vSAN 7 Announced](https://vninja.net/2020/03/10/vmware-vsan7-announced/) — vSAN 7 has finally been announced, and it comes with a good set of new features and improvements, here is a quick rundown of the highlights. [2020-03-10 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [macOS Keeps Asking for SSH Passphrase](https://vninja.net/2020/03/05/macos-asking-for-ssh-passphrase/) — I'm a big fan of Public Key authentication for SSH but I recently ran into an issue after adding my Public Key to a couple of new Linux VMs I use. The problem was that macOS kept asking for the SSH passphrase when connecting to them, which kind of defeats the purpose of using Public Key authentication in the first place.
Thankfully, the solution is pretty simple. [2020-03-05 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Norwegian vExperts 2020](https://vninja.net/2020/02/24/norwegian-vexperts-2020/) — !vExpert 2020 VMware has just announced the list of vExperts for 2020, and I'm honored to be awarded for the tenth year in a row! That being said, I'm happy to see the list of Norwegian vExperts grow! It wasn't that many years ago that we were only two (or for the first couple of years, only one!), now the count is at **12**! [2020-02-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [rPI+Volumio+HiFiBerry=Awesome](https://vninja.net/2020/02/14/using-rpi-volumio-hifiberry/) — My audio setup is a old NAD 326 BEE stereo amplifier with a couple of Dali Blue 5005 speakers. I also have a turntable connected to it, and it sounds *beautiful*.
The solution for enabling streaming to an old (but awesome!) amp, was using the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ I had laying around. I added a HiFiBerry DAC+ HAT to it, and enclosed it in a nice little case that also comes from HifiBerry.  [2020-02-14 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [My Hugo and Visual Studio Code Workflow](https://vninja.net/2020/02/12/my-hugo-workflow/) — Since moving this site over to Hugo back in 2018, I've developed a workflow that seems to work pretty well. Given that I see that a lot of others are also moving over to static site generators, and I wasn't exactly ahead of the curve on it myself, I figured I would try to write up how I work with Hugo and Visual Studio Code on my MacBook to generate content. [2020-02-12 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [macOS: Using Custom DNS Resolvers](https://vninja.net/2020/02/06/macos-custom-dns-resolvers/) — Some times there is a need to use custom DNS servers for some domains, in my case specifically for access to the new lab environment we are building at work (more on that later, this is one beefy lab!)
One way of doing this, is adding custom DNS servers to `/etc/resolv.conf` but in macOS you really shouldn't be editing that file manually, as it often gets overwritten or otherwise edited by VPN clients and such.
Thankfully, there is a better way to create persistent and manageable custom domain specific DNS settings. [2020-02-06 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [macOS: Using and creating Multi-Output Sound Devices](https://vninja.net/2020/02/04/macos-multi-output-devices/) — I recently got a pair of new displays for the office, a couple of lovely *Dell U2719DC's*. These offer USB-C connectivity, which is really nice, and makes it easy to connect my MacBook when I'm in the office.
Connected to one of the displays is a _Logitech Z337_ set of speakers with a sub, since there is no built-in speakers in these displays. The problem I had with that setup, is that macOS doesn't let me easily differenciate between the two as they are named exactly the same, sometimes creating confusion as to which of them should be the sound output to the speakers. [2020-02-04 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [macOS: Catalina Chrome Self-signed Certificate Issues](https://vninja.net/2019/12/03/macos-catalina-chrome-cert-issues/) — Way back in 2017, the CA/Browser Forum voted on Ballot 193 – 825-day Certificate Lifetimes, which passed. In short, this means that CA issued certificates issued after March 1st 2018 can not have a validity period longer than 825 days. macOS Catalina implements this change, as described in Requirements for trusted certificates in iOS 13 and macOS 10.15. So it's been a long time coming, but most of us are just now realizing how this affects us.

**Warning:** This also applies to Self-signed certificates, like the ones issued for VMware vSphere and related solutions, like NSX-T and others, where the default age is 10 years or so. [2019-12-03 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Guide: Creating an Isolated Ubiquiti Unifi IoT Network](https://vninja.net/2019/08/12/unifi-iot-networks/) — As I've covered before, I run my home network mostly on Ubiquiti UniFi hardware. Since this offers a lot of nifty possibilities, I figured I should try to isolate all my "IoT"-devices in a separate network, while still making them accessible. After all, you don't want a security issue on some sensor/automation thing you have in your house to be able to access and encrypt your familiy photos, right?
The thing that sits in the corner and controls the color of your lightbulbs, do not need to have access to the same network as your other data. [2019-08-12 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [Guide: Creating Isolated Networks with Ubiquiti UniFi](https://vninja.net/2019/08/08/creating-isolated-networks-ubiquiti/) — Some times you might need to create an isolated network, while still allowing that network to access the internet. Ubiquity UniFi offers the easy option of creating a guest network for this, but that limits traffic between the devices in the same network as well, which might not be desirable.
My primary use case for creating an isolated network, is to provide my tenant with his own dedicated network, without exposing anything on my own home network — but I still want him to be able to connect his own devices to each other, if he wants to — or even replacing the AP with something else, should he choose to do so.
Another use case might be to create a dedicated network for all of those IoT-devices that keep popping up, like Amazon Echo's, Google Home and Chromecasts as well as Phillips Hue bridges etc. [2019-08-08 · Christian Mohn · ~1200 words]
- [Win a VMworld US 2019 Pass With Veeam](https://vninja.net/2019/08/08/win-a-vmworld-pass-with-veeam/) — If you want to go to VMworld US 2019 in San Francisco, and still don't have a ticket, don't despair.
There is still time, as Veeam is giving away three full conference passes! [2019-08-08 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware Center for Advanced Learning Advanced Architecture Course (CALAAC)](https://vninja.net/2019/07/21/vmware-center-for-advanced-learning-advanced-architecture-course/) — Back in late April I got notified that I had been accepted to attend the **VMware Center for Advanced Learning Advanced Architecture Course**, to be held in Paris, France July 9 - 19, 2019. Now that it is done, I find myself on a train from Paris to Nice, rocking out to Hüsker Dü contemplating just what it is that I have been a part of. First things first — *this is not a class that can be taken lightly*. You can not simply sign up for this, you have to be nominated and either work for VMware or a Partner to be taken into consideration to be accepted. [2019-07-21 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [Guide: Ubiquiti USG Remote User VPN Using L2TP](https://vninja.net/2019/04/10/ubiquiti-usg-remote-user-vpn-using-l2tp/) — I've recently standardized on Ubiquiti equipment in the new house, and so far I am very happy with it. Wireless is working flawlessly, which is more than I could say for my old setup.
A part of the new setup is a UniFi® Security Gateway (USG) that I am using as my gateway/firewall for my fiber connection, so I thought why not use that a my VPN termination as well? [2019-04-10 · Christian Mohn · ~1000 words]
- [Top vBlog 2018 Results](https://vninja.net/2019/03/27/top-vblog-2018-results/) — Top vBlog 2018 Results: I am very happy to see that the site is still ranked in the top 25, clocking in at a very respectable 22nd place, and that also puts it into the 7th spot in the *Independant Blogger* category! [2019-03-27 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Netlify, Slack and IFTTT Webhooks for fun and ... profit?](https://vninja.net/2018/12/13/netlify-webhooks/) — A few months ago I migrated this site from Wordpress to Hugo, hosted by Netlify, and I have been very happy with it since. As mentioned in the previous post, I utilize webhooks from Netlify to send alerts to Slack whenever a new build is triggered. [2018-12-13 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Top vBlog 2018](https://vninja.net/2018/11/19/top-vblog-2018/) — The top vBlog 2018 voting has opened, time to go rock the vote and show your favorite bloggers some love for their hard work and dedication. [2018-11-19 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMworld 2018 NSX Roving Reporter: Eirik Vada](https://vninja.net/2018/11/10/vmworld-2018-nsx-roving-reporter-eirik-vada/) — My good friend, and colleague, Eirik Vada was interviewed by Ather Beg, the NSX Roving Reporter, during VMworld 2018.
Since he doesn't toot his own horn, I decided to do it for him! [2018-11-10 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Headshot-as-a-Service VMworld Europe 2018](https://vninja.net/2018/11/09/headshot-as-a-service-vmworld-2018/) — Headshot-as-a-Service was a success, but I have to say it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted. Finding a proper location was hard, getting the lighting right (which I don't think I did) and without any advertising except my own blog posts and tweets, the turnout wasn't quite what I had expected.
If I'm doing this again, there are some things that needs to be changed in both execution and setup. [2018-11-09 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VeeamON Virtual 2018 — Reserve Your Seat Now](https://vninja.net/2018/11/09/veeamon-virtual-2018-reserve-your-seat/) — Hot on the heels of VMworld Europe 2018, Veeam is hosting its annual virtual conference on december 5th. Just like last year, I will be part of the panel in the Expert Lounge! [2018-11-09 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMworld 2018 Europe Day Two](https://vninja.net/2018/11/07/vmworld-2018-europe-day-two/) — The keynote by Sanjay Poonen on day two continues to drive this message, as well as how we can use technology for good. Robin Matlocks *how do we use our collective talents to ensure we have a better future for everyone* resonates well, and serves as a great for Martha Lane Fox, the **Dot com dinosaur**. Her talk about the early .com-era and how technology today has a reponsibility to be a force for good was great! [2018-11-07 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMworld 2018 Europe Day One](https://vninja.net/2018/11/06/vmworld-2018-europe-day-one/) — The keynotes at VMworld Europe are always interesting, mostly because one always wonders what was left to announce from the US equivalent that is earlier in the year. This year there was a good gap between the US version in August, and the European one in November, unlike last year when it was only a couple of weeks, so my hope was that there would be some real new news and announcements in Barcelona. [2018-11-06 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Headshot Studio@VMworld Details](https://vninja.net/2018/11/05/headshot-studio@vmworld-details/) — As previously announced, I'll be offering headshots for anyone who pops by at the announced times. After having a look at the VMworld layout this yeah, I've found a spot where I can set up everything without causing anyone trouble. <br/><br/> Sadly there was not enough available space at the VMTN and VMware {code} area, but luckily there was some space nearby that I can use! [2018-11-05 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMworld 2018 Europe Day Zero](https://vninja.net/2018/11/05/vmworld-2018-europe-day-zero/) — Day zero started of with the Nordic & Baltic VMware Partner Briefing Brunch at the Hotel W. The parter briefing contained updates on the way forward for VMware Partner Central as well as upcoming updates to the partner model, something I look forward too. In my opinion, and thankfully VMware's too, Partner Central is way overdue a major overhaul, so this is good news! [2018-11-05 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMworld 2018 Europe Day Minus One](https://vninja.net/2018/11/04/vmworld-2018-europe-day-minus-one/) — I got in to Barcelona yesterday, and I have to say it is really nice to have some time before the actual VMworld crazyness starts. With no need to rush anything, we just found the hotel Arrow ECS Norway has booked for us, and relax. [2018-11-04 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMworld 2018 Barcelona — Tips from the Nordics](https://vninja.net/2018/10/30/vmwworld-2018-tips-nordic/) — Liselotte Foverskov, Blogger, vExpert and VMUG.dk extraordinaire has created a great video with VMworld 2018 tips from various Nordic VMworld-veterans, just in time for the event in Barcelona next week. **Check it out!** [2018-10-30 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Headshot Studio@VMworld Agenda and Details](https://vninja.net/2018/10/26/headshot-studio@vmworld-agenda/) — VMworld Europe 2018 is just over a week away, and I figured it would be time to announce some more details surrounding Headshot-as-a-Service. Since I have been unable to secure a permanent location for this at the event, I've decided to have it set up somewhere close to the Bloggers Lounge and vBrownbag in the Social Hub. [2018-10-26 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Nordic VMUG Conference 2019 Announced](https://vninja.net/2018/10/24/nordic-vmug-conference-2019/) — VMUG Denmark yet again is arranging the Nordic VMUG Conference, this time in Copenhagen on January 31st 2019. The agenda is still a work in progress, and is not finalized, but I'll be there! [2018-10-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Veeam Vanguard Summit 2018 - a Recap](https://vninja.net/2018/10/22/veeam-vanguard-summit-2018-recap/) — After decompressing for few days, I’m finally able to wrap my head around the Veeam Vanguard Summit 2018 in Prague. The Veeam team provided loads of great content for us Vanguards, both public, embargoed and NDA rated. [2018-10-22 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vSphere VCSA 6.5 Update 2 to 6.7 Update 1 Upgrade Issues](https://vninja.net/2018/10/17/vsphere-vcsa-6.5u2-to-6.7u1-update-issues/) — Now that vSphere 6.7 Update 1 has been released, I jumped at upgrading one of my lab environments from 6.5 Update 2 (which was not a supported upgrade path until 6.7 Update 1), and I pretty much immediately ran into issues.  [2018-10-17 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Veeam Vanguard Summit 2018 - a Precap](https://vninja.net/2018/10/13/veeam-vanguard-summit-2018/) — For the first time since the Veeam Vanguard program was started, I'll be able to join the Vanguard Summit! This event takes place next week (October 15th to 18th) in lovely Prague, Czechia. [2018-10-13 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS Bionic Beaver Missing Entries in sources.list](https://vninja.net/2018/10/08/ubuntu-18.04.1-lts-bionic-beaver-sources.list/) — While setting up a new Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS Bionic Beaver VM (which will be used for Grafana and InfluxDB), I ran into a small issue where the */etc/apt/sources.list* was close to empty [2018-10-08 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [My Pi-Hole Setup](https://vninja.net/2018/10/08/my-pi-hole-setup/) — After playing around with Pi-Hole for a bit, and configuring some of my local clients to use it, I decided to go all in. I finally settled on an architecture and setup that looks like this. [2018-10-08 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Trouble Installing Pi-Hole on Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS Bionic Beaver](https://vninja.net/2018/10/08/installing-pihole-on-ubuntu-18.04.1/) — Pi-Hole is a nifty little software package that basically acts as a ad and tracking blocking server for your entire network. The installer silently fails on Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS Bionic Beaver, since it can not install dependencies. That's not good, but hey, there is an easy fix! [2018-10-08 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [macOS: Homebrew error in macOS 10.14 Mojave](https://vninja.net/2018/09/25/homebrew-in-mojave/) — How to fix **Error: Git must be installed and in your PATH!** with Homebrew in macOS 10.14 Mojave. [2018-09-25 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMworld Europe 2018 Sessions and Some Advice](https://vninja.net/2018/09/25/vmworld-europe-2018-sessions/) — VMware has opened the session builder for VMworld Europe 2018, and quite a few sessions are already fullly booked. Don't despair though if you session is full, there is still a chance that some sessions will get additional slots, as well as the possibility for walk-ins at the time of the sessions. Odds are that quite a few people who have scheduled a given session doesn't show up and that will open up slots for those waiting at the door. [2018-09-25 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [macOS: Lulu](https://vninja.net/2018/09/12/software-lulu/) — **Software Recommendation:** LuLu is a small, shared-source macOS firewall that's finally reached v1.0. Unlike other macOS firewall solutions, LuLu  is 100% free, with no ads and no trial version. I've been using it on my home Mac Mini for a while, and it works _perfectly_. [2018-09-12 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Headshot Studio @ VMworld Confirmed](https://vninja.net/2018/09/10/headshot-studio@vmworld-confirmed/) — I'm very happy to announce that I can now confirm that **Headshot Studio @ VMworld** will happen! Mainly due to Tom Dodds  and 10ZiG, who has stepped up as a sponsor!  This means I'll be able to set up a small headshot studio, complete with multiple light sources, a background, and softboxes! **Huge thanks to both Tom and 10ZiG!** [2018-09-10 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [IT Architect Series: Designing Risk in IT Infrastructure](https://vninja.net/2018/09/04/designing-risk-in-it-infrastructure/) — Another must-have book for system administrators and architects has been published! Designing Risk in IT Infrastructure By Daemon Behr This book wil help you understand what risk really is, a variety of different risk factors and how to mitigate them. Do you know what risks exist for a given solution, and why?  [2018-09-04 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Headshot Studio @VMworld?](https://vninja.net/2018/09/02/headshot-studio@vmworld/) — Over the last couple of weeks an idea started to form, an idea that would try to combine two of my passions; The vCommunity and photography. In short, the idea is to set up some kind of mini-studio at VMworld Europe, and offer free headshots to those who might be interested. [2018-09-02 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware Cloud on AWS — New Amazon EC2 elastic, bare-metal instance for vSAN](https://vninja.net/2018/08/26/vmware-cloud-on-aws-news/) — VMware Cloud on AWS (vSAN) utilizing Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) is an interesting one. Being able to independently increment storage in the VMC without adding compute nodes is a feature that has been missing, **until now**. [2018-08-26 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware vSAN 6.7u1 — What's New?](https://vninja.net/2018/08/26/vsan67u1-whats-new/) — VMworld 2018 US is upon is, and as per usual this means a lot of new announcements. One of them is vSAN 6.7u1 which comes with a bunch of new and useful features. This release mainly focuses on improved operations and maintenance, with a bunch of nice new additions. [2018-08-26 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMware vSphere 6.7u1 — What's New?](https://vninja.net/2018/08/26/vphere67u1-whats-new/) — Another VMworld, another vSphere announcement. As all new releases, vSphere 6.7u1 comes with a bunch of new features and capabilities — **yay, finally feature complete HTML5 client!** [2018-08-26 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Book Recommendations August 2018](https://vninja.net/2018/08/16/book-recommendations/) — Every now and then new vSphere related must-have books are released, and this month there is no less than two of them, namely the vSphere 6.7 Clustering Deep Dive and VDI Design Guide: A comprehensive guide to help you design VMware Horizon, based on modern standards. [2018-08-16 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Migrating From Wordpress to Hugo](https://vninja.net/2018/07/22/migrating-from-wordpress-to-hugo/) — Migrating From Wordpress to Hugo aka The Long and Winding Road [2018-07-22 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Hello, My Name Is Hugo (Montoya)](https://vninja.net/2018/07/19/hello-my-name-is-hugo/) — Goodbye Wordpress, hello Hugo! vNinja.net has been powered by Wordpress since it was launched back in 2010, and frankly it was time for a change. [2018-07-19 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [I've Complied, I think.](https://vninja.net/rant/ive-complied-i-think/) — Like Sam and Simon over at definit.co.uk I've done a quick GDPR-related overhaul of the site. [2018-05-22 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Keynote: Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones - Simon Wardley](https://vninja.net/awesometalks/crossing-river-feeling-stones/) — This is the third talk I've found worthy of publishing in the Awesome Talks series. Enjoy Simon Wardley's Researcher, Leading Edge Forum, keynote from [KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe [2018-05-09 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Alerting on "Bootbank cannot be found at path ‘/bootbank’" in vRealize Operations](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/bootbank-cannot-be-found-at-path/) — If you boot your ESXi hosts from SD-cards or USB you might have run into this issue. Suddenly your host(s) displays the following under events: **"Bootbank cannot be found at path ‘/bootbank’."** [2018-01-29 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [The Curious Case of the Intel Microcode Part #2 - It Gets Better — Then Worse](https://vninja.net/news/curious-case-intel-microcode-part-2-gets-better-worse/) — This guest post by Bjørn Anders Jørgensen, Senior Systems Consultant Basefarm, first appeared on LinkedIn. [2018-01-14 · bajorgensen · ~2000 words]
- [The Curious Case of the Intel Microcode](https://vninja.net/news/the-curious-case-of-the-intel-microcode/) — This guest post by Bjørn Anders Jørgensen, Senior Systems Consultant Basefarm, first appeared on LinkedIn. [2018-01-09 · bajorgensen · ~1000 words]
- [Evaluating 2017](https://vninja.net/misc/evaluating-2017/) — Keeping up with tradition (you thought I was going to say Kardashians there, didn't you?), it's time to evaluate 2017. [2017-12-18 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Nordic VMUG Conference 2018](https://vninja.net/news/nordic-vmug-conference-2018/) — My good friends, and fellow VMUGgers, in Denmark is once again arranging the largest VMUG event in the Nordics in January 2018. [2017-12-13 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Scott Hanselman - "It's not what you read, it's what you ignore"](https://vninja.net/awesometalks/scott-hanselman-its-not-what-you-read-its-what-you-ignore/) — This is the second recorded talk published in the Awesome Talks series. This time it's Scott Hanselman's "**It's not what you read, it's what you ignore**" talk from Dev Day in Kraków way back in 2012. [2017-11-27 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [macOS: Vanilla](https://vninja.net/osx/macos-vanilla/) — Small, unobtrusive and easy to use. That's a pretty good description for a macOS utility I recently discovered: Vanilla (non-affiliate link). [2017-11-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [LISA17 - "Don't You Know Who I Am?!" The Danger of Celebrity in Tech](https://vninja.net/awesometalks/lisa17-dont-you-know-who-i-am-the-danger-of-celebrity-in-tech/) — This is the first post, in what hopefully will turn into a series of posts, highlighting awesome talks that are freely available. There is a lot of great content out there, both inspirational and funny, and I'll try to publish my favorites when I find them. [2017-11-22 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Webinar: Veeam integration with VMware vSAN, vSphere tags and SPBM policies](https://vninja.net/virtualization/webinar-veeam-integration-with-vmware-vsan-vsphere-tags-and-spbm-policies/) — **Warning: Shameless self promotion ahead!** [2017-11-13 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Mass Converting .svg to .png on macOS](https://vninja.net/osx/mass-converting-svg-to-png-on-macos/) — When playing around with Royal TSX I needed to mass convert the VMware Clarity .svg files to .png files that I could use as icons in Royal TSX. [2017-10-26 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Integrating Pocket with Todoist via IFTTT](https://vninja.net/workflow/integrating-pocket-with-todoist-via-ifttt/) — Myles Gray asked me how I integrate Pocket with Todoist, after my How I use Todoist post, and the answer is very simple: IFTTT. If-This-Then-That lets you connect services, and create rules (or applets) that trigger based on events in those services, luckily both [2017-10-24 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [How I use Todoist](https://vninja.net/workflow/how-i-use-todoist/) — As I've mentioned before, I use Todoist to keep track of my personal to-do list. This is the first to-do manager I've been able to stick with, and I've been using it daily for well over 2 years now. In that two year period I've reorganised it a bit, but for the most part I've been able to keep to the main structure I initially created when [2017-10-24 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VeeamOn Tour Virtual 2017 - Reserve your spot!](https://vninja.net/virtualization/veeamon-tour-virtual-2017-reserve-your-spot/) — Veeam is hosting their VeeamOn Tour Virtual 2017 event on December 5th, and I'll be part of the panel of bloggers in the Expert Lounge! [2017-10-17 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Making Royal TSX Even More Awesome](https://vninja.net/osx/making-royal-tsx-even-more-awesome/) — For those who don't know, Royal TSX is an awesome Remote Management solution, which supports RDP, VNC, SSH, S/FTP and even ESXi and vCenter. I've been using it for years, not just because they offer free licenses for vExperts (and others), but simply because it works really well. Store it's config [2017-10-11 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [PSA: Protect Your Email with DMARC](https://vninja.net/misc/psa-protect-your-email-with-dmarc/) — In the last few months, I've seen an uptick in spoofed emails being sent with my own personal email domain. Not only is this extremely annoying, but more problematic is that recipients receive spam and phishing emails from what seems to be my personal mail account, simply by spoofing the from address. I don't know why domain and email address has been "chosen" for this, but I guess this is [2017-04-15 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [VMware vSAN 6.6 - What's New for Day 2 Operations?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-vsan-6-6-whats-new-for-day-2-operations/) — VMware has just announced vSAN v6.6, with over 20 new features. While new and shiny features are nice I'd like to highlight **a couple** that I think might be undervalued from release feature-set perspective, but highly valuable in day to day operations of a vSAN environment, otherwise known as _Day 2 operations_. [2017-04-11 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Cross vCenter VM Mobility Fling - macOS?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/cross-vcenter-vm-mobility-fling-macos/) — The VMware Cross vCenter VM Mobility - CLI was recently updated so I decided to try it out. In short, this little Java based application allows you to easily move or clone VMs between disparate vCenter environments. [2017-03-28 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [In The Bag #13 - Week 11 2017](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-13-week-11-2017/) — * In-Guest UNMAP Fix in ESXi 6.5 Part I: Window (http://www.codyhosterman.com/2017/03/in-guest-unmap-fix-in-esxi-6-5-patch-1/)& Part II: Linux  Cody Hosterman has tested the UNMAP fixes in ESXi 6.5, with great results. Glad this is back! * High frequency of read operations on VMware Tools image may cause SD card [2017-03-17 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [In The Bag #12 - Week 10 2017](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-12-week-10-2017/) — * **Cloud outages and the couch architects all over the world** — Luca has written a great article about the recent AWS S3 outage, it's sane, articulate and well worth a read. * [**What's New in VMware Validated Design for Software-Defined Data Center [2017-03-10 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [In The Bag #11 - Week 9 2017](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-11-week-9-2017/) — Welcome to the eleventh edition of *In The Bag*! [2017-03-03 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [In The Bag #10 - Week 8 2017](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-10-week-8-2017/) — Welcome to the tenth edition of In The Bag! This one comes a little late, it's (barely) Sunday here, not Friday! Sorry about that, but I was "stuck" in a secure facility all week, doing a vSphere 5.5 til vSphere 6.5 migration. [2017-02-26 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware vSphere 6.5 PSOD: GP Exception 13](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vmware-vsphere-6-5-psod-gp-exception-13/) — While at a customer site, migrating an old vSphere 5.5 environment to 6.5, several hosts suddenly crashed with a PSOD during the migration. Long story short, we got hit by this: [VMware KB 2147958: _ESXi 6.5 host fails with PSOD: GP Exception 13 in multiple VMM world at VmAnon_AllocVmmPages [2017-02-25 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [In The Bag #9 - Week 7 2017](https://vninja.net/virtualization/in-the-bag-9-week-7-2017/) — Welcome to the ninth edition of _In The Bag! _ [2017-02-17 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [In The Bag #8 - Week 6 2017](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-8-week-6-2017/) — Welcome to the eight edition of In The Bag! [2017-02-10 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [In The Bag #7 - Week 5 2017](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-7-week-5-2017/) — Welcome to the seventh edition of In The Bag! [2017-02-03 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [ESXi Snapshot Problems: msg.snapshot.error-QUIESCINGERROR](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/esxi-snapshot-problems-msg-snapshot-error-quiescingerror/) — Just a quick post about something I experienced at a client, with _ESXi 6.0 hosts_, today: [2017-02-01 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [In The Bag #6 - Week 4 2017](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-6-week-4-2017/) — Welcome to the sixth edition of In The Bag! It's been a while since I've posted one of these, but here's giving it a a go in 2017 as well. [2017-01-27 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [2017 — You Better Deliver](https://vninja.net/misc/2017-you-better-deliver/) — Considering it's mid-january 2017 already, it's time to do my annual goal list for the new year. [2017-01-15 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Evaluating 2016](https://vninja.net/misc/evaluating-2016/) — Back in February 2016 I published my goals for 2016, and it's time to review that list: [2016-12-25 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [In The Bag #5 - Week 48](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-5-week-48/) — Welcome to the fifth edition of In The Bag! [2016-12-02 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [In The Bag #4 - Week 47](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-4-week-47/) — Welcome to the fourth edition of In The Bag! [2016-11-25 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [macOS: Spectacle](https://vninja.net/osx/macos-spectacle/) — Working with the keyboard to move resize, focus and arrange your applications is a great productivity tip. When I changed from Windows to macOS a few years ago, I had a pretty convoluted setup based on Slate for managing keyboard shortcuts, especially for moving applications around, but this has since been simplified by using [2016-11-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Facelift](https://vninja.net/news/facelift/) — I have given the site a small facelift, replacing the old theme with a new and cleaner version. For some reason, I get this "theme itch" a couple of times a year, but usually I manage to let it pass without doing many changes. [2016-11-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Got VMware vRealize Log Insight?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/got-vmware-vrealize-log-insight/) — Recent conversations with existing and potential clients made me realize that many are not aware that they most likely are entitled to use VMware vRealize Log Insight in their environment. _For free._ [2016-11-23 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware vSAN: 2016 Edition](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-vsan-2016-edition/) — Both in 2014 and in 2015 I wrote pieces on the current status of VMware vSAN, and it's time to revisit it for 2016. [2016-11-23 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Cohesity: My Initial Impression](https://vninja.net/virtualization/cohesity-my-initial-impression/) — A few weeks back Cohesity gave me access to a lab environment, where I could play around with their HyperConverged Secondary Data solution. For those unaware of their offering entails, it's simply put a solution for managing secondary storage. In this case, secondary storage is really everything that isn't mission critical. It can be your backups, test/dev workloads, file [2016-11-22 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Nordic VMUG UserCon 2016](https://vninja.net/news/nordic-vmug-usercon-2016/) — The 2016 Nordic VMUG UserCon in Copenhagen, Denmark, is just 11 days away, and if you haven't registered already now is the time to do so. [2016-11-19 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [In The Bag #3 - Week 46](https://vninja.net/virtualization/in-the-bag-3-week-46/) — Welcome to the third edition of In The Bag! [2016-11-18 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMworld Dates 2017](https://vninja.net/news/vmworld-dates-2017/) — Now that the seasons have changed, it's time to look at 2017 and start planning the year. First up, when is VMworld 2017, and perhaps most importantly where? There has been a lot of speculation about this, and the perhaps strongest rumour was that it was moving to Berlin. [2016-11-18 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Generating Random Data in Linux](https://vninja.net/virtualization/generating-random-data-in-linux/) — I've been fleshing out a proper Veeam Backup & Replication Demo lab at work, but doing demos on static VMs isn't all that much fun and doesn't really give us much. Doing scheduled backups of non-changing data is really boring. [2016-11-15 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [In The Bag #2 - Week 45](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-2-week-45/) — Welcome to the second edition of In The Bag! [2016-11-11 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VCSA - The default choice. Always.](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vcsa-the-default-choice-always/) — I've been a big proponent of the VMware vCenter Appliance for a long time, I even did a talk called VCS to VCSA Converter or How a Fling Can Be Good for You! on migrating to the VCSA at the Nordic VMUG last year. [2016-11-10 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Using GitBook for Secrets](https://vninja.net/misc/using-gitbook-for-secrets/) — A while ago I decided to try and gather a bunch of non-public information in an easy to write and consume fashion. After a bit of fiddling, and testing different potential solutions, GitBook emerged as the best option. By using MarkDown as the markup language, it’s both cross-platform and easy to manage, as the content is [2016-11-08 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [My vCenter Web Client Customization](https://vninja.net/virtualization/my-vcenter-web-client-customization/) — William Lam has a repository of vCenter Web Client customizations hosted over on GitHub, and I decided to add one of my own. [2016-11-07 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [What's Really in the Bag?](https://vninja.net/misc/whats-really-in-the-bag/) — Since I "launched" my In the Bag series of weekly links yesterday, I figured I should really show what is indeed in the bag. Lifehacker runs a series called Featured Bag and the voyeur in me finds it interesting what other people carry around, and how they organize it. [2016-11-05 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [In The Bag #1 - Week 44](https://vninja.net/inthebag/in-the-bag-1-week-44/) — Inspired by Scott Lowe's Technology Short Takes, Duncan Eppings Recommended Reads and Michael White's [2016-11-04 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Adding Slack Notifications to phpipam](https://vninja.net/virtualization/adding-slack-notifications-to-phpipam/) — As mentioned before, I've kinda turned my home lab into some sort of Slack-Ops deal, where various services in my home lab notify me of events in a private Slack channel. [2016-11-03 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Running telnetlogger on my home IP](https://vninja.net/virtualization/running-telnetlogger-on-my-home-ip/) — Robert Graham of erratasec has created a small honeypot tool called telnetlogger. [2016-11-02 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMworld Europe 2016 - My takeaways](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vmworld-europe-2016-my-takeaways/) — VMworld Europe 2016 in Barcelona is a couple of weeks old now, and most of the dust has settled. Besides the general announcements around vSphere 6.5 and surrounding products, the next big thing might just be Cross-Cloud Architecture and of course VMware Cloud on AWS. The announcements [2016-10-31 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Me too: VMware Cloud™ on AWS](https://vninja.net/news/me-too-vmware-cloud-on-aws/) — After yesterdays announcement of VMware Cloud™ on AWS everyone and their distant relatives have published their opinion pieces on the relevance of the deal, and what who got the short end of the stick in this deal. I guess this is my attempt, or me too post if you will. [2016-10-14 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [macOS: Secure Pipes](https://vninja.net/osx/macos-secure-pipes/) — Since I set up a public jumphost for my homelab/network, I've been looking for an easy way to manage my SSH tunnels. After trying a couple of different managers, I've chosen to use Secure Pipes.![](/img/Screenshot-2016-10-14-11.07.46-300x243.png) [2016-10-14 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Patch those Dell Servers easily!](https://vninja.net/hardware/patch-those-dell-servers-easily/) — Did you know that Dell has a bootable linux ISO with firmware upgrades for their servers available? Neither did I, but luckily I found it today when needing it at a customer site. [2016-10-10 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Logging SSH logins to Slack](https://vninja.net/homelab/logging-ssh-logins-to-slack/) — I'm using Slack to alert and log a few things in my environment, and one of the things I use it for is to alert me if someone logs on via SSH to my public facing Jumphost. [2016-10-06 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [HomeLabOps via Slack](https://vninja.net/homelab/homelabops-via-slack/) — Just like Lior Kamrat I've set up my own private Slack for messaging and alerting from various services running both in my lab and some external facing services. It's only been running a few days, but so far it works brilliantly and helps me keep track. [2016-10-06 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMworld 2016 Europe](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmworld-2016-europe/) — VMworld Europe is just a couple of weeks away now, and I can't wait to spend a week in sunny Barcelona. Last year my trip got cancelled in the last minute, but that will not be the case this year. [2016-10-06 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Goodbye PernixData FVP and Architect](https://vninja.net/news/goodbye-fvp-and-architect/) — As we all know by now, PernixData was gobbled up by Nutanix a while back, and since then there has been a nothing but silence on the future of the FVP and Architect products. Now it seems it's over. The acquisition trigged a bunch of PernixData employees moving elsewhere, and now it's the [2016-09-29 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [CloudFlare Dynamic DNS Update Script (cf-ddns.sh)](https://vninja.net/homelab/cloudflare-dynamic-dns-update-script-cf-ddns-sh/) — As a part of my Homelab project, I've created a proper bash script to provide dynamic DNS updates for external resources, via CloudFlare. More details on the reasoning behind it can be found in Using CloudFlare for Dynamic DNS, but since that was posted I've fleshed the script out quite a bit more. [2016-08-13 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Using CloudFlare for Dynamic DNS](https://vninja.net/homelab/using-cloudflare-for-dynamic-dns/) — In my previous post, I tried to lay out the foundation and reasoning behind requiring a Dynamic DNS Service, and here is how I solved it using CloudFlare. [2016-08-09 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Dynamic DNS Requirements](https://vninja.net/homelab/dynamic-dns-requirements/) — While working on my new Homelab setup, I've been investigating ways to provide hostname based access to several web services located in my DMZ zone. Since my provider doesn't provide static IP addresses, I also need an external Dynamic DNS service, to provide said hostname mappings through the reverse proxy on the inside. [2016-08-09 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Veeam vCenter Migration Utility](https://vninja.net/virtualization/veeam-vcenter-migration-utility/) — Way back in 2013, I published Preserve your Veeam B&R Backups Jobs when Moving vCenter, outlining how to "cheat" (by using a CNAME alias) to preserve your Veeam Backup & Replication jobs if you replace your VMware vCenter. [2016-08-08 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Taking IT too Far](https://vninja.net/news/taking-it-to-far/) — A few days ago I decided to go full-on mad scientist in documenting my new home lab / network setup, and I've even created a GitHub repository for it. [2016-07-19 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Top vBlog 2016: Thank you!](https://vninja.net/news/top-vblog-2016-thank-you/) — While I was away on a two week holiday on the Croatia's sunny Makarska Rivijera, Eric Siebert announced the result of his annual Top vBlog, and much to my surprise **vNinja** did quite the jump from last years 46th spot to this years 27th! Honestly, I thought the site would drop out of the the top [2016-07-09 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vSphere Platform Services Controller (PSC) topology and Omnigraffle](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vsphere-platform-services-controller-psc-topology-and-omnigraffle/) — A little while ago William Lam published a little python script called extract_vsphere_deployment_topology.py that basically lets you export your current vSphere PSC topology as a [DOT (graph description [2016-05-22 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Let's get the kids some RPi's!](https://vninja.net/news/lets-get-the-kids-some-rpis/) — A friend of Mr. Jase McCarty is teaching a class in programming control systems, and is in need of a few Raspberry Pi's. [2016-05-06 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Top vBlog 2016](https://vninja.net/network/top-vblog-2016/) — The top vBlog 2016 voting has opened, go forth and vote for your favourites now - There are **a lot** of them to choose from! [2016-05-03 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [IT Architect: Foundation in the Art of Infrastructure Design: A Practical Guide for IT Architects](https://vninja.net/news/it-architect-foundation-in-the-art-of-infrastructure-design-a-practical-guide-for-it-architects/) — Way back in late 2014 I volunteered to do technical review for a book called **IT Architect: Foundation in the Art of Infrastructure Design: A Practical Guide for IT Architects. **Due to a lot of unforeseen events, the book has been delayed quite a bit, but it's finally available as hardcopy, paperback and eBook! The book is written [2016-04-15 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [My Contribution to the vSphere Design Pocketbook v3](https://vninja.net/news/my-contribution-to-the-vsphere-design-pocketbook-v3/) — PernixData, and Frank Denneman, has released vSphere Design Pocketbook v3. As the title reads, this is the third time PernixData releases one of these books, and I'm honored to be selected amongst the contributors for the [second [2016-04-08 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [I'm honored. And a Bit Scared.](https://vninja.net/network/im-honored-and-a-bit-scared/) — Yesterday was my first real day as a _Senior Solutions Architect_ for Proact, and today I flew to Oslo for on-boarding and some face-to-face time with my new colleagues over there. By the looks of it, there is a lot of exciting things in the pipeline, and it we land the things we have started on this should be interesting. Very interesting indeed. [2016-04-05 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [I Made Something Happen](https://vninja.net/news/i-made-something-happen/) — I think Seth Godin might have been onto something with "Make something happen", so I did. [2016-03-31 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Running a vSAN PoC - Customer reactions](https://vninja.net/virtualization/running-a-vsan-poc-customer-reactions/) — I recently set up a VMware Virtual SAN 6.1 Proof-of-Concept for a customer, configuring a 3-node cluster based on the following setup: [2016-02-24 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vCenter Server Appliance Backups](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vcenter-server-appliance-backups/) — For some time now I've been advocating the usage of VCSA instead of the traditional Microsoft Windows based vCenter. It has feature parity with the Windows version now, it's easier to deploy, gets right-sized out of the box and eliminates the need for an external Microsoft SQL server. [2016-02-18 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Oh wow, it's already 2016.](https://vninja.net/misc/oh-wow-its-already-2016/) — A bit late, considering it's already February, but here it is: [2016-02-03 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [2015: The verdict](https://vninja.net/misc/2015-the-verdict/) — Last year, in January, I posted 2015: Let's DOS IT! and it's time to do some reviewing (again, inspired by Scott Lowe). [2016-01-30 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Running Dockerflix on Ravello Systems](https://vninja.net/virtualization/running-dockerflix-on-ravello-systems/) — ![Ravello 2016-01-14 13-30-40Dockerflix](https://github.com/trick77/dockerflix) is a nice little project that allows you to route your Netflix (and other various streaming services) through a SNI Proxy to access content otherwise geo-blocked. Of course, this requires that you have a VM with for instance an US IP to provide the breakout network, and [2016-01-14 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Todoist: One year later](https://vninja.net/workflow/todoist-one-year-later/) — A little over a year ago I posted Combining Todoist and Evernote, because awesome and I thought it was about time to post a follow up now one year later. [2016-01-06 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [YourDailyTech - Content Stealers](https://vninja.net/news/yourdailytech-content-stealers/) — YourDailyTech was republishing other sites' articles as its own, running ads against the stolen content, then posting a non-apology once called out on Twitter. [2015-12-03 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [VMware VSAN - More than meets the eye.](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-vsan-more-than-meets-the-eye/) — Way back in 2014 I wrote a piece called VSAN – The Unspoken Future, and I think it's about time it got a revision. Of course, lots of things have happened to VSAN since then and even more is on the way, but I think there is more to this than adding features like [erasure coding, [2015-11-13 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [vCenter / SSO unable to retrieve AD-information | Error while extracting local SSO users](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vcenter-sso-unable-to-retrieve-ad-information-error-while-extracting-local-sso-users/) — After deploying a new VCSA 6.0u1 I was seeing some weird errors while trying to retrieve AD- users/groups (or anything from the esod.local domain): [2015-11-10 · Espen Ødegaard · ~0 words]
- [Nordic VMUG UserCon Session](https://vninja.net/virtualization/nordic-vmug-usercon-session/) — VMUG Denmark is arranging the Nordic VMUG UserCon in Copenhagen December 1st 2015, and the agenda went live earlier today. I'm definitely going to be there, and as it turns out I even have my own session lined up: [2015-10-28 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Relax and virtualize it!](https://vninja.net/virtualization/relax-and-virtualize-it/) — This is a guest post from Kristian Wæraas Senior Consultant Datacenter at Datametrix AS VMware VCP3/5, MCTS Hyper-V, Horizon View and Trend Micro Security Expert. [2015-10-15 · kwaeraas · ~800 words]
- [What if it's Just Some Crazy Guy in a Clown Suit?](https://vninja.net/news/what-if-its-just-some-crazy-guy-in-a-clown-suit/) — As a few of you have noticed, I recently changed my title on LinkedIn from **Chief Consultant** to **Cloud Architect** in the newly formed EVRY Cloud Consulting division, but what does that mean and perhaps more importantly, why? [2015-09-08 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware Update Manager: Unsupported Configuration](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vmware-update-manager-unsupported-configuration/) — During an upgrade from vSphere 5.1 to 5.5, I ran into a rather strange issue when trying to utilize VMware Update Manager to perform the ESXi upgrade. [2015-08-28 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Update ESXi Embedded Host Client Fling](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/update-esxi-embedded-host-client-fling/) — The ESXi Embedded Host Client Fling got an upgrade today, and in addition to new features it now works properly on ESXi 5.5. In addition to this, it's also available as an offline bundle so you can distribute it with [2015-08-26 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [ESXi5.5 to 6.0 Upgrade From Local HTTP Daemon](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/esxi5-5-to-6-0-upgrade-from-local-http-daemon/) — I was recently involved with consulting for a Norwegian shipping company who has quite a few remote vSphere installations, most of them with a couple of ESXi hosts, but no vCenter and hence no Update Manager. While looking at methods for managing these installations, in particular how to facilitate patching and upgrading scenarios, I remembered that way back in 2013, I posted [Quick and Dirty [2015-08-26 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [HP Proliant DL380p Gen8 "Decompressed MD5" error](https://vninja.net/virtualization/hp-proliant-dl380p-gen8-decompressed-md5-error/) — This is a guest post from Shane Williford Sr. Systems Engineer, VCAP-DCA/EMCCAe/Pizza Connoisseur and vExpert. [2015-08-13 · shane · ~600 words]
- [ESXi Embedded Host Client](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/esxi-embedded-host-client/) — I almost choked on my coffee this morning when I saw William Lam announcing a new VMware Fling called ESXi Embedded Host Client. Finally the day when we can get a local vSphere Web Client on a standalone host is here, and it's not a moment too soon. [2015-08-12 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Veeam Vanguard 2015](https://vninja.net/virtualization/veeam-vanguard-2015/) — Veeam has been "silently" working on their own global influencer program, and the inaugural list of Veeam Vanguards was published today. I am thrilled to be selected amongst the first 31 people awarded this title, it's quite an exclusive list! [2015-07-27 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [It's Time to End the Add on Insanity](https://vninja.net/rant/time-add-insanity/) — <blockquote>For the third time in a week, researchers have discovered a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe’s Flash Player browser plugin. Like the previous two discoveries, this one came to light only after hackers dumped online huge troves of documents stolen from Hacking Team — an Italian security firm that sells software exploits to governments around the world.</blockquote> [2015-07-13 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Ravello Offers Free Lab Service for all 2015 vExperts](https://vninja.net/virtualization/ravello/) — Ravello!ravello_logo-2 Systems has announced free lab service for all 2015 vExperts, which offers 1,000 _free_ CPU hours per month for personal or home lab use. [2015-06-19 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [The "vCommunity"](https://vninja.net/rant/vcommunity/) — The recent months, and weeks, has made me question the value of the "vCommunity". I'm even questioning if there really is such a thing at all any more. I believe there was such a thing at one point, but it seems to be fading fast into history, only to be replaced by hyperbole of _egonormous_ proportions. Back in the old days, and this might just be me showing my greying of beards moment, the [2015-04-03 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMware Software Manager - Changing Download Directory](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-software-manager-changing-download-directory/) — The new VMware Software Manager, which was released at the same time as vSphere 6, is a great way to get your download ducks in a row, and not manually download all the different vSphere pieces one by one. [2015-03-13 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vVotemageddon 2015](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vvotemageddon-2015/) — As has become a yearly tradition, the vote is on. Pick your favorite VMware & virtualization blogs and give Eric Siebert loads of work. [2015-03-02 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Starting a VMUG](https://vninja.net/virtualization/starting-vmug/) — Last year, in November, the first ever meeting in VMUG Norway took place in my hometown of Bergen, and since then there has been meetings in Oslo, Trondheim and a second one in Bergen as well. [2015-02-27 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Do you ChangeLog?](https://vninja.net/workflow/changelog/) — In my work as a consultant I often have many small tasks to perform for customers, all while completing a bigger project. I have found that an easy way to keep track of all the little and big changes, is to create a ChangeLog. Normally ChangeLog's are referenced in development projects, but it also sense to use it to track of your own, or your team members, changes to an infrastructure [2015-02-18 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [The Real Value of the VCDX Certification](https://vninja.net/virtualization/real-vcdx-certification/) — The VMware Certified Design Expert: **VCDX**. THE certification of certifications, especially if you work with VMware based solutions. It's often regarded as the holy grail of certifications, and rightfully so. [2015-02-11 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [The vSphere 6.0 Launch and The Misinformation Effect](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vsphere-6-0-launch-misinformation-effect/) — Have you ever wondered what happens if you give 10.000 people access to an open-beta that is supposed to be under NDA? [2015-02-10 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Dude, where is my VAIO?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/dude-vaio/) — Alex Jauch, VAIO Product Manager has provided an update on why there there has been so little information available, and when to expect that to change. [2015-02-03 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [A great disturbance in the Force](https://vninja.net/virtualization/great-disturbance-force/) — So, the cat formerly known as vSphere.next is finally out of it's rather big bag, and vSphere 6.0 has been officially announced and will be available some time in Q1 (no date has been announced yet). There is enough of posts going into details on what is new and what has been announced, so I won't be going over that [2015-02-02 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Veeam Backup & Replication 8: RPC error:Access is denied Fix](https://vninja.net/virtualization/veeam-backup-replication-8-rpc-erroraccess-denied-fix/) — I recently set up a new Veeam Backup & Replication v8 demo lab, and my intial small job that consisted of two different Linux VMs and one Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controller was chugging along nicely. I had one minor from the start though, and that was that file indexing consistently failed for the Windows VM. No big deal, [2015-01-18 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [2015: Let's DOS IT!](https://vninja.net/misc/2015-dos-it/) — Inspired by Scott Lowe's Looking Ahead: My 2015 Projects, I've decided to do something similar. [2015-01-16 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Markdown All the Things!](https://vninja.net/virtualization/markdown-things/) — Obviously I'm a bit late to the party here, but I guess late is better than never. It recently dawned on me that mucking about with lots of different file formats, interfaces and ways of doing things is rather counterproductive. [2015-01-12 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Importing vCloud Air SSL Certificate on the vCenter Server Appliance 5.x](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/importing-vcloud-air-ssl-certificate-vcenter-server-appliance-5-x/) — I'm playing around a bit with vCloud Air and Virtual Private Cloud OnDemand, and in order to set up the vCloud Hybrid Service plugin in the vSphere Web Client you need to import the vCloud Air SSL certificate into vCenter. If the certificate isn't present in the vCSA keystore when you try to authenticate with vCloud Air, you get a "**Server Certificate not Verified**" error, and you will be [2014-12-12 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Combining Todoist and Evernote, because awesome](https://vninja.net/workflow/combining-todoist-evernote-awesome/) — A while back I declared Evernote bankruptcy, even if I managed to misspell it while doing so: [2014-12-03 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [EVO:RAIL: Doing the methmath.](https://vninja.net/virtualization/hyperconvergence-meth-math/) — Howard Marks has published a post I've been meaning do myself, but to be honest, I'm glad Howard put it out there. His is way more researched and comprehensive than mine would ever have been. [2014-12-01 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Nordic VMUG Conference 2014](https://vninja.net/virtualization/nordic-vmug-conference-2014/) — Last year I was lucky enough to get to travel to Copenhagen and visit the Nordic VMUG conference. Sadly it doesn't seem like I'll be able to make it this year, but don't let that stop **you!** While we in Norway are still trying to get our local VMUG up and running, more news on that in a very short while, the danish VMUG is really the driving force and [2014-10-22 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Building an Ubuntu 14.04 Appliance with VMware Studio 2.6](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/building-ubuntu-14-04-appliance-vmware-studio-2-6/) — VMware Studio 2.6 was released way back in March 2012, and surprisingly there seems to be no new update in sight. While VMware Studio technically still works, even with newer versions of ESXi and vCenter, the supported operating systems for the appliances it can build is _somewhat_ outdated: [2014-10-07 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Is Hyperconverged the be-all, end-all? No.](https://vninja.net/rant/hyperconverged-be-all-end-all-no/) — First off, this is not meant to be a post negating the value of current hyperconverged solutions available in the market. I think hyperconverged has it's place, and for many use cases it makes perfect sense to go down that route. But the idea that everyone should go hyperconverged and all data should be placed on local drives, even if made redundant inside the chassis and even between chassis, is [2014-09-22 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Need the vSphere Client? VMware Has You Covered.](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vsphere-client-vmware-covered/) — One of the more popular posts, currently in third place, on vNinja.net is my list of vSphere Client direct download links posted back in **March 2012**. [2014-09-17 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [My VCAP-DCA 550 Experience](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vcap-dca-550-experience/) — I finally took the plunge, and sat the VDCA550 exam yesterday. The VCAP5-DCA certification has been on my todo list way to long, and I'm glad I can now tick that box and move on. [2014-09-05 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [VMworld US is over. Now what?](https://vninja.net/rant/vmworld-over-what/) — Another VMworld US is over, with huge attendee numbers and in keeping with tradition lots of new announcements were made. I'm not going to go through them, enough posts have been made about that, the basis of this post is something completely different all together. [2014-09-05 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [It's official EVO:RAIL it is](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/official-evorail/) — VMware has finally announced what I've been speculating about for some time now, EVO:RAIL was announced at VMworld US this morning. Short story; It's a HCIA (**H**yper**C**onverged **I**nfrastructure **A**ppliance), offered through several hardware vendors, with a new integrated management solution. [2014-08-25 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [#AdviceForVMworld](https://vninja.net/rant/adviceforvmworld/) — VMworld US is very soon upon us, and I'm one of the jealous ones left behind not being able to attend. I will hopefully be able to join everyone at VMworld Europe in Barcelona on October though. [2014-08-22 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [It's EVOlution Baby!](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/evolution-baby/) — Finally. I've finally found a way to put two of my favourite things together in a completely non-sensical way, namely VMware Marvin and Pearl Jam. As The Register reported earlier today, odds are that Marvin no longer responds to it's project name, but rather to the new EVO name recently [2014-08-21 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Problems connecting HP Insight Control Storage Module to StoreServ 7200 (3Par)](https://vninja.net/storage-2/problems-connecting-hp-insight-control-storage-module-storeserv-7200-3par/) — A customer of mine, who runs a pure HP environment based on c7000 and StoreServ 7200, wanted to get the HP Insight Control Storage Module for vCenter up and running. The problem was that while we were able to connect to the older MSA array they run for non-production workloads, we were unable to connect to the newer StoreServ 7200. There is full IP [2014-08-21 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Marvin Related VMworld Sessions?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/marvin-related-vmworld-sessions/) — It's been a while since I tried speculating on the _soon-to-be-announced_ VMware Marvin project, but some very recent VMworld US 2014 session additions look really interesting in that regard: [2014-08-20 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [PernixData vSphere Pocketbook Blog Edition](https://vninja.net/virtualization/pernixdata-vsphere-pocketbook-blog-edition/) — Following the success of the first vSphere Design Pocketbook, PernixData has created a new version, this time dubbed _"Blog Edition"_. Where the first book focused on small "tweet sized" design tips, the new one allows for more in-depth articles, lifting the first editions 200 character limit. [2014-08-12 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [This Week in Virtualization](https://vninja.net/virtualization/week-virtualization/) — I was invited by Nick Martin and Tom Walat to join them in this pre-VMworld edition of the podcast, so if you're not bored reading about my Marvin speculations already, you can now listen to them as well over at [This Week in [2014-07-18 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Root Cause of Invalid memory setting: memory reservation (sched.mem.min) should be equal to memsize (memsize)](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/root-invalid-memory-setting-memory-reservation-sched-mem-min-equal-memsize-memsize/) — While working on reconfiguring my home lab setup, and migrating all the vSphere resources into a single cluster I ran into a problem powering on one of the VMs which used to run on a single host. The power on operation yielded the following error message: **Invalid memory setting: memory reservation (sched.mem.min) should be equal to memsize (memsize)** [2014-07-15 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Disaster Recovery using VMware vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager eBook Winners](https://vninja.net/virtualization/disaster-recovery-vmware-vsphere-replication-vcenter-site-recovery-manager-ebook-winners/) — Packt Publishing has picked two winners in the Disaster Recovery using VMware vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager eBook contest. [2014-07-07 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Win a eBook Copy of Disaster Recovery using VMware vSphere Replication and vCenter Site Recovery Manager](https://vninja.net/news/win-ebook-copy-disaster-recovery-vmware-vsphere-replication-vcenter-site-recovery-manager/) — Hot off the heals of the Veeam® Backup & Replication for VMware vSphere giveaway, here is another one for you! [2014-06-20 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Learning Veeam Backup & Replication for VMware vSphere Book Winners](https://vninja.net/news/learning-veeam-backup-replication-vmware-vsphere-book-winners/) — Packt Publishing has picked three lucky winners for the Veeam® Backup & Replication for VMware vSphere book. [2014-06-20 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Is Marvin an Acronym?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/marvin-acronym/) — The recent speculations surrounding Marvin has now hit The Register (to bad they don't link this way, but I guess thats how it is) as well, but one piece is still missing, arguably the [2014-06-10 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [NSX for vSphere 6.0.4 - Documentation and Download?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/nsx-vsphere-6-0-4-documentation-download/) — How long as NSX for vSphere 6.0.4 Documentation been publicly available? I just noticed this, and that the NSX downloads seem to be available via MyVMware - If you are entitled to it that is. [2014-06-10 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Win Free e-copies of Learning Veeam® Backup & Replication for VMware vSphere](https://vninja.net/book/win-free-e-copies-learning-veeam-backup-replication-vmware-vsphere/) — **Update:** _The contest is now closed, and I have forwarded all comments to Packt Publishing, and they will contact the winners directly. Thanks to everyone who entered!_ [2014-06-09 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Some more Marvin Speculation](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/marvin-speculation/) — After close to a full day of Twitter speculations and discussions on what Marvin really is, some thoughts kept stuck with me, and this is my attempt at articulating what I think VMware might be up to. [2014-06-08 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [What is VMware's Mystic Marvin Project?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vmwares-mystic-marvin-project/) — Yesterday Fletcher Cocquyt posted a rather interesting photo on his Twitter account: [2014-06-08 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [And the Chromecast Winner is ...](https://vninja.net/virtualization/chromecast-winner/) — A little over a month ago I announced the Want to Win a Google Chromecast contest and finally the winner has been selected. Since there was a grand total of 5 submissions, and one of them was immediately disqualified for a distinct lack of Ninja-presence, I decided to just do a random draw. [2014-05-08 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware vShield Manager Upgrade - Password Issues](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vmware-vshield-manager-upgrade-password-issues/) — While upgrading a vShield Manager 5.1.1 install to 5.1.4 at a client, I ran into an issue with logging in after a completed upgrade. The username and password used to log in, and subsequently upload the upgrade file, was no longer working after the upgrade finished and the vShield Manager appliance had been rebooted. [2014-04-29 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Want to Win a Google Chromecast?](https://vninja.net/news/win-google-chromecast/) — I have a free Google Chromecast to give a way to one lucky winner. As part of being voted into the top 50 VMware & virtualization blogs I was lucky enough to win one for myself, and as an added bonus I get to give away one to one of my readers too! [2014-04-02 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [2014 Top vBlog Results ](https://vninja.net/virtualization/2014-top-vblog-results/) — **Eric Siebert** has yet again pulled through, and organized his annual top VMware & virtualization blogs vote, and the results are now in. Congratulations to everyone involved, be it bloggers, podcasters or otherwise engaged in making this possible. [2014-03-27 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VSAN - The Unspoken Future](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vsan-unspoken-future/) — This rather _tongue-in-cheek_ title, is a play on Maish recent VSAN - The Unspoken Truth post where he highlights what he thinks is one of the hidden "problems" with the current version of VSAN is it's inherent non-blade compatibility and current lack of "rack based VSAN ready nodes". [2014-03-17 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [It's All Fun and Games Until...](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/fun-games-until/) — Remember, it's all fun and games until someone loses a certification [2014-03-10 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware Certified Professional Recertification](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vmware-certified-professional-recertification/) — VMware has announced a Recertification Policy for it's VMware Certified Professional program, effective as of March 10, 2014. [2014-03-08 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Rock the Vote 2014](https://vninja.net/virtualization/rock-vote-2014/) — Once again, it's time to vote for the top VMware & virtualization blogs. As usual Eric Siebert has opened up the floodgates and set up a voting system, and once again managed to create a lot of work for himself. [2014-02-22 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Configuring VSAN on a Dell PowerEdge VRTX](https://vninja.net/virtualization/configuring-vsan-dell-poweredge-vrtx/) — The Dell PowerEdge VRTX shared infrastructure platform is interesting, and I've been lucky enough to be able to borrow one from Dell for testing purposes. [2014-02-19 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Automatically Name Datastores in vSphere?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/automatically-datastores-vsphere/) — William Lam posted "Why you should rename the default VSAN Datastore name" where he outlines why the default name for VSAN data stores should be changed. Of course, I completely agree with his views on this; _Leaving it at the default might cause confusion down the line._ [2014-02-18 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Random VCDX Tips and Quotes?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/random-vcdx-tips-quotes/) — I needed something to spruce up my desktop environment, and it seems that one of the more popular ways to do that is to display random quotes and such on your desktop. Instead of hooking up to an existing quotes database, I simply made my own. [2014-01-29 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VCDX? Give me a Quote!](https://vninja.net/news/vcdx-give-quote/) — For a tiny project, I need some help from anyone who has completed (successfully or not) the VCDX process. [2014-01-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Fixing "Could not create vFlash cache" error when powering on a VM](https://vninja.net/virtualization/fixing-could-create-vflash-cache-error-powering-vm/) — During some way overdue housekeeping in my HP Microserver-based "Homelab" today, I ran into a rather annoying issue that prevented me from starting one of my more important VMs; namely my home Domain Controller. [2014-01-19 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Importing SSL Certificates to Raspberry Pi Thin Client](https://vninja.net/virtualization/importing-ssl-certificates-raspberry-pi-thin-client/) — When playing around with the Raspberry Pi Thin Client, I ran into an issue with the SSL certificates for the Citrix Receiver client. For some reason it didn't want to play with the certificates installed on the server side, and popped the following error message: [2013-12-05 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Nordic VMUG Conference - My Thoughts](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/nordic-vmug-conference-thoughts/) — On Tuesday, December 3, 2013 VMware User Group Denmark arranged the Nordic VMUG Conference. The event itself can only be described as a mini-VMworld, with over 600 registered attendees, and a speaker list worthy of such a nick-name. [2013-12-04 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Sometimes You Simply Get What You Pay For](https://vninja.net/virtualization/simply-pay/) — Some time during the Podcasting for Cancer fundraiser period I somehow suggested that we should pair it with this years Movember. [2013-12-01 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware VCAP-DCD Boot Camp](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-vcap-dcd-boot-camp/) — A while before VMworld Europe 2013 in Barcelona, I was lucky enough to be asked by John Arrasjid if I wanted to help out reviewing the new [VCAP-DCD](http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrReg/plan.cfm?plan=30484&ui=www_cert&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCoQFjAA&url=http://www.vmware.com/go/vcapdcd&ei=LyaWUsC9CqT3yAPxqYB4&usg=AFQjCNGoY_moU7jFbZNBcKR1eUiAs8BgHg&bvm=bv. [2013-11-27 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Can Microsoft really be Fair and Balanced?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/microsoft-fair-balanced/) — Microsoft has launched Virtualization2, a program to educate VMware administrators on Hyper-V and the System Center suite of tools. In short, these arefree online training sessiosn on November 19th and 20th, that also comes with a voucher for their new Microsoft virtualization certification exam (74-409). [2013-10-29 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Brace Yourselves: Top vBlog 2014 edition is coming](https://vninja.net/virtualization/brace-yourselves-top-vblog-2014-edition-coming/) — Eric Siebert has just announced the preliminary details for next years Top vBlog vote. This time around it is sponsored by Veeam, and there are even prizes to be won, not only the notorious fame and fortune that comes with being voted in the top percentile. [2013-10-28 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Check for OS X Updates Automatically](https://vninja.net/osx/check-os-updates-automatically/) — Yeah, I admit it. I want OS X Mavericks, and I want it now. [2013-10-22 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMworld Europe 2013 - Here I Come](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmworld-europe-2013/) — For the first time since 2010 I will actually be physically attending VMworld Europe! I fly over from the very cold, rainy and generally very autumny Norway to sunny Barcelona on Sunday the 13th. [2013-10-09 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Social Media, Karma and Being a Dick](https://vninja.net/rant/social-media-karma-dick/) — <blockquote>@Acronis sorry, not happening. [2013-10-08 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [vPostgres Database Backup in vCSA 5.5](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vpostgres-database-backup-vcsa-5-5/) — With the new vSphere 5.5 release, the VMware vCenter Appliance (vCSA) has grown up to be a viable alternative to the traditional Microsoft Windows based vCenter deployment scenario. The new vCSA version supports up to 100 hosts and 3000 (with an external Oracle database the values change to 1000/10000) virtual machines, a big improvement from 5 hosts and 50 virtual machines in the previous [2013-10-01 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Upgrading vSphere vCenter Appliance 5.1 to 5.5](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/upgrading-vsphere-vcenter-appliance-5-1-5-5/) — In VMware KB Upgrading vCenter Server Appliance 5.0.x/5.1 to 5.5 (2058441) the procedure for upgrading an existing 5.0/5.1 vSphere vCenter Server Appliance is outlined, walking you through the steps required including deploying a new 5.5 vCSA and transferring the data from the old instance to [2013-09-30 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Can you combine vSphere Host Cache and vFlash on a single SSD?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/combine-vsphere-host-cache-vflash-single-ssd/) — One of the new features in vSphere 5.5 is the vSphere vFlash that enables you to use a SSD/Flash device as a read cache for your storage. Duncan Epping has a series of posts on vSphere Flash Cache that is well worth a read. [2013-09-30 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware vCenter Server Appliance Error: VPXD must be stopped to perform this operation](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vmware-vcenter-server-appliance-error-vpxd-stopped-perform-operation/) — While deploying a fresh vCenter Server 5.5 Appliance, I ran into an issue getting it configured. [2013-09-29 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Quick and Dirty ESXi 5.5 Upgrade](https://vninja.net/virtualization/quick-dirty-esxi-5-5-upgrade/) — As I´ve posted about earlier, you can update your ESXi hosts to a new release from the command line. Now that ESXi 5.5 has been released, the same procedure can [2013-09-23 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Podcasting for Cancer](https://vninja.net/virtualization/podcasting-cancer/) — Some times all it takes is one single tweet to set things in motion: [2013-09-14 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vSphere 5.5 Availability and VSAN Public Beta](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vsphere-5-5-availability-vsan-public-beta/) — As Eric Siebert has pointed out, the VMware vSphere release cycles are shortening. [2013-09-12 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Veeam Webinar & NFR Licenses](https://vninja.net/virtualization/veeam-webinar-nfr-licenses/) — This coming tuesday the first ever Veeam Webinar held in **_Norwegian_** will be held by yours truly. Feel free to sign up now and listen to me speak for an hour or so. [2013-09-05 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [My Slate Setup](https://vninja.net/osx/slate-setup/) — About a year and a half I go, I took the leap from running Microsoft Windows as my main operating system and switched into full "hipster mode", i.e. switched to a Macbook Air and OS X. [2013-07-31 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Monitoring the ESXi Upgrade Process](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/monitoring-esxi-upgrade-process/) — When doing manual host upgrades, either through the direct method or via a locally placed upgrade bundle, there is a distinct lack of progress information available after running the esxcli command. [2013-06-26 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Centrally Disable NAT in VMware Workstation](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/centrally-disable-nat-vmware-workstation/) — A fellow IT-professional, who works with the non-wired flavor of networking, contacted me with the following scenario: [2013-06-25 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Virtual Connect FlexFabric and Direct-Attach FC 3Par Caveat](https://vninja.net/storage-2/virtual-connect-flexfabric-direct-attach-fc-3par-caveat/) — When configuring a new C7000 Blade Enclosure with a couple of FlexFabric 10Gb/24-port modules I ran into a rather annoying issue during setup. [2013-05-30 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Quick and Dirty HTTP Based Deployment](https://vninja.net/virtualization/quick-and-dirty-http-based-deployment/) — A lot of the scripted installation tools that VMware offers allows the usage of a central HTTP based repository for hosting the files. Today I stumbled over a little gem that might just help you create a "quick and dirty" HTTP based deployment scenario by running a simple command in your terminal. By default, this command works on any system that has Python installed on [2013-05-14 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Quick and Dirty ESXi 5.1U1 Upgrade](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/quick-dirty-esxi-5-1u1-upgrade/) — Now that VMware ESXi 5.1 Update 1 has been released I decided to do a quick and dirty upgrade of my home installation. I refuse to call it a lab these days, since it´s one singular host and all it does it contain my home domain controller... [2013-04-26 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Adding a secondary NIC to the vCenter 5.1 Appliance (VCSA)](https://vninja.net/virtualization/adding-secondary-nic-vcenter-5-1-appliance-vcsa/) — While building my lab environment, I ran into a situation where I wanted to have a completely sealed off networking segment that had no outside access. [2013-04-25 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Installing Dell Equallogic Multipathing Extension Module (MEM) in vSphere 5.1](https://vninja.net/virtualization/installing-dell-equallogic-multipathing-extension-module-mem-vsphere-5-1/) — Dell offers a Multipathing Extension Module (MEM) for vSphere, and in this post I´ll highlight how to "manually" install it on a ESXi 5.1 host. _I will not cover the network setup part of the equation, but rather go through the simple steps required to get the MEM installed on the hosts in question._ [2013-04-22 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [It's Not Your Average Data it's vOpenData](https://vninja.net/virtualization/its-average-data-its-vopendata/) — **So, what _is_ the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?** [2013-04-12 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Brilliant idea: VMware Hosted Beta](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/brilliant-idea-vmware-hosted-beta/) — Duncan Epping rather unceremoniously published a blog post "New Beta Program offering: VMware Hosted Beta" yesterday, outlining the availability of the new hosted beta offering that companions some of the current VMware beta programs. [2013-03-27 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Backing up vCenter DB with Veeam B&R 6.5](https://vninja.net/virtualization/backing-up-vcenter-db-with-veeam-br-6-5/) — It´s a well known problem that with Veeam Backup & Recovery Replication 6.5, and earlier, backing up the SQL server that hosts the vCenter DB poses a problem. KB1051 VSS for vCenter outlines the issue well, and provides a workaround. [2013-03-25 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Preserve your Veeam B&R Backups Jobs when Moving vCenter](https://vninja.net/virtualization/preserve-veeam-br-backups-jobs-moving-vcenter/) — This week I´m working at a client site, upgrading their entire existing vSphere 4.1 infrastructure to vSphere 5.1. The customer engagement also includes upgrading Veeam Backup and Replication 6.0 to 6.5, and usually an isolated upgrade of Veeam B&R is a no-brainer _next_, _next_, _next_, _done_ install. [2013-03-19 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Autolab goes Cloudy with a Chance of Free Credits ](https://vninja.net/virtualization/autolab-meets-cloud/) — Autolab, that awesome "little" thing that automagically builds a nested vSphere Lab environment for you, was definitely not put together by Flint Lockwood but by Alastair Cooke [2013-03-14 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Keep Calm And ...](https://vninja.net/virtualization/calm/) — I needed some new wall "art" for my home office, and decided that a couple of small "Keep Calm" posters would do the trick. Naturally I got a bit carried away, and created more than one, and of course, most of them are virtualization related: [2013-03-02 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Want a Free Pass to TechEd 2013?](https://vninja.net/news/free-pass-teched-2013/) — Our sponsor Veeam is giving away a free pass to TechEd 2013 in this months giveaway. [2013-02-26 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Trainsignal: Training as a Service (TaaS)](https://vninja.net/news/trainsignal-training-service-taas/) — Trainsignal has just launched a new Online Training bundle, and for _$49_ a month you can get unlimited access to their **entire** set of training courses and practice exams for Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, Citrix, CompTIA, and VMware. [2013-02-22 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [New Fling from VMware Labs: Makyo](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/fling-vmware-labs-makyo/) — VMware Labs has released a new fling called Makyo (魔境 _makyō_ means “ghost cave” or “devil’s cave.”) which basically is a tool to copy VMs or vApps from one vCenter instance to another. [2013-02-21 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Voting Open for the 2013 Top VMware & Virtualization Blogs ](https://vninja.net/virtualization/voting-open-2013-top-vmware-virtualization-blogs/) — Eric Siebert has yet again gone through the massive job of setting up his yearly Top VMware & Virtualization Blogs Vote. [2013-02-20 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Unsupported Network Configurations in Virtual Appliances](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/unsupported-network-configurations-virtual-appliances/) — My recent experience with setting up vCenter Operations Manager on a standalone ESXi host, and the always excellent William Lam´s post [Automating VCSA Network Configurations For Greenfield [2013-02-19 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Purging the vCenter Operations Manager 5.x Database](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/purging-vcenter-operations-manager-5-x-database/) — A client of mine recently had their vCenter 5.0 appliance replaced with a new vCenter 5.1 appliance, something vCenter Operations Manager did not enjoy. In this case the original vCenter 5.0 Appliance was turned shut down, a new 5.1 Appliance deployed, with the same IP as the old one, and then configured. Naturally the existing hosts were added to the fresh vCenter, clusters recreated and in [2013-02-05 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Goodbye Mr. Herrod](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/goodbye-mr-herrod/) — SearchserverVirtualization published an article today called "Experts weigh in on CTO Herrod's departure, future of VMware" where I have been quoted in regard to Steve Herrod's departure from VMware. [2013-01-23 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vCenter Operations Manager and vCenter Deployment Dependency](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vcenter-operations-manager-vcenter-deployment-dependency/) — In order to be able to deploy vCenter Operations Manager, the ESXi host it is deployed to needs to be managed by a vCenter. At first glance, that seems like a fair and pretty straight forward requirement, right? But, is it? [2013-01-16 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Dell (VKernel) vOPS Server Explorer 6.3 Released](https://vninja.net/virtualization/dell-vkernel-vops-server-explorer-6-3-released/) — Yesterday fellow vExpert Mattias Sundling gave me a little pre-release briefing of the new Dell/VKernel vOPS Server Explorer 6.3 release. [2013-01-14 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Want a VMware Workstation License?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-workstation-license/) — Christopher Kusek, who runs pkguild.com, has just announced that he is running a contest where you can win a VMware Workstation 9 license. [2013-01-10 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Fun and Games with VDR and Snapshots](https://vninja.net/virtualization/fun-games-vdr-snapshots/) — One of the smaller improvements in vSphere 5 was the introduction of the **"Virtual machine disks consolidation is needed"** configuration alert if vSphere determines that there are orphaned snapshots for a given VM. [2013-01-10 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMware Hands-on Lab Online Public Beta Review](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vmware-hands-on-lab-online-review/) — A little while ago VMware announced Project Nee, something I was, and still am, pretty excited about. [2012-12-06 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMware vSphere Health Check - What´s in it for You?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vmware-vsphere-health-checks-wha/) — VMware vSphere Health Check is a service provided by VMware Professional Services, either by their own consultants or by a consultant from a VMware Certified Solution Provider. [2012-12-04 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMware vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 Available](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-vcenter-operations-manager-5-6/) — The new vCenter Operations Manager 5.6 is now generally available, and one of many improvements from v5.5 is the new licensing scheme. [2012-11-30 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Exporting vCenter Events with PowerCLI](https://vninja.net/virtualization/exporting-vcenter-events-powercli/) — One of my clients has recently been having issues with their storage solution, and wanted to export the events from vCenter that show storage performance degradation, to aid in troubleshooting with the vendor. [2012-11-30 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VIP VCP Club 2012](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vip-vcp-club-2012/) — This a new concept by VMware Norway, for certified VMware professionals, where the idea is to gather local certified VMware Professionals for a day of hands-on labs, specialized technical sessions and general community building. [2012-11-15 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Why Did the HP BL460c G8 Lose It's Datastore?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/hp-bl460c-g8-lose-its-datastore/) — Post Update: As per Preetam´s comment, HP has published a [customer advisory regarding the usage of install vs update](http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03603069&jumpid=em_alerts_us-us_Dec12_xbu_all_all_1990986_137282_proliantserversbladesystem_critical_00 [2012-10-29 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [Want Access to the VMworld 2012 Sessions?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/access-vmworld-2012-sessions/) — Fellow vExpert Rick Scherer is giving away a voucher that provides _free access_ to all of the VMworld 2012 sessions, including associated MP3′s and PDF’s. [2012-10-27 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vShield Endpoint Entitlement, not just for vSphere 5.1](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vshield-endpoint-entitlement-vsphere-5-1/) — When VMware vSphere 5.1 and vCloud Networking and Security 5.1 was launched at VMworld US in late August, one of the news items was the change in licensing relating to vShield Endpoint. [2012-10-05 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Getting It Right: VMware Training and Certification](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/right-vmware-training-certification/) — Everyone, and probably their extended family including their mother-in-law, has heard me whine and complain about the VCP training requirements. [2012-10-01 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware ESXi 4 vs ESXi 5 Log File Locations](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-esxi-4-vs-esxi-5-log-file-locations/) — This post is inspired by a tweet from Andrew Storrs, where he pinpoints that the host log file locations have changed between ESXi 4 and ESXi 5. [2012-09-17 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Verifying VMware Downloads](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/verifying-vmware-downloads/) — Now that vSphere 5.1 and assorted products have been released into the wild, how do you check the integrity of your downloaded file? As you might be aware of, VMware publishes both **MD5** and **SHA1** hashes for their files, making it possible to check if the file you just downloaded is identical to the file offered [2012-09-11 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [... and All I Asked for Was a Pin](https://vninja.net/virtualization/all-i-asked-for-was-a-pin/) — Way back in the old days, you know when VMworld 2012 was held in San Francisco, I tweeted that if someone could get hold of a VCP pin for me, I would be very happy. [2012-09-11 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [The Personal Value of Certification](https://vninja.net/rant/personal-certification/) — Fabio Rapposelli´s post "On the Real Value of IT certifications" highlights some of the current problems related to IT certifications in general, and basic "entry level" exams in particular. [2012-09-01 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Shanghai...  we have a problem...](https://vninja.net/virtualization/shanghai-problem/) — My Saturday morning started the same as any other. I checked my emails and my tweets, started a coffee, walked my dog and got into the shower. My iPhone buzzing on the sink caught my attention a few minutes into it. Covered in soap and the rest censored for the public here I answered the call. Without getting into too many details of my organization - my bosses-bossess-boss contacted me reporting [2012-08-20 · eczerwin · ~400 words]
- [VMware launches Public vCloud "Test-Drive"](https://vninja.net/news/vmware-launches-public-vcloud-test-driv/) — VMware Offers vCloud “Test-Drive” with New Evaluation Service. [2012-08-16 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Building End-User Computing Solutions with VMware View Book Available](https://vninja.net/virtualization/building-end-user-computing-solutions-vmware-view-book/) — Mike Laverick and Barry Coombs has released their new book, elegantly titled "Building End-User Computing Solutions with VMware View". [2012-08-03 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Applescript, Desktop Wallpaper and Growl. Automagically.](https://vninja.net/osx/applescript-desktop-wallpaper-growl-automatically/) — I´ve been a Mac and OS X user now for about 7 months, but to be honest I have not been very experimental in my usage of my Macbook Air. Until now, my main focus has been basic usage of the hardware and operating systems, and making it work in my corporate environment. As I feel that I´ve reached mission accomplished status on that initial project, I decided to use some of my "free" vacation time [2012-07-24 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [10 minute lightning Tech Talk at VMworld?](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/techtalks-at-vmworld2012/) — I love it when a plan comes together, especially when someone gets an idea and then someone fires on all cylinders and executes! [2012-07-22 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vSphere 5: Creating a Hardware Version 4 VM](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vsphere-5-creating-hardware-version-4-vm/) — I recently had a need to create a VM for usage on ESX 3.x, but the only thing available to me in my lab was vSphere 5, which naturally creates new VMs with the latest and greatest version 8 virtual hardware. [2012-07-02 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMworld Session Reject Club](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmworld-session-reject-club/) — **VMworld Session Reject Club 1st RULE: You _do_ talk about Reject Club. ** [2012-06-27 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Thinapped vSphere Client Updated to V5.0](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/thinapped-vsphere-client-updated-v5-0/) — The Thinapped vSphere Client has finally been updated to v5.0, and is readily available for download! [2012-05-31 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware Forum 2012 Oslo](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-forum-2012-oslo/) — Just like last year, I got up really early and caught a 06:40 am flight from Bergen to Oslo to attend the VMware Forum. A couple of things have changed since the last time, one of them being the venue. [2012-04-26 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VCDX Wannabe goes live](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vcdx-wannabe-live/) — My little pet project VCDX Wannabe has now (finally) gone live. For now it´s mostly a collection of links and resources, but that will change over time. [2012-03-27 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vCenter Client Download URLs](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vcenter-client-download-urls/) — Since the vCenter Client no longer is bundled with an ESXi host installation, I´ve compiled a quick list of direct download URLs for the most recent clients. [2012-03-12 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [My VCP 5 exam experience](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vcp-5-exam-experience/) — Like many others I was a VCP 4 and needed to upgrade to VCP 5 by Feb 29th to avoid a pricey class and possible ribbing from my peers. I was well aware of this deadline since mid December, however, I procrastinated on studying and was mostly flinging myself around the globe doing implementations and having an all around good time. When Feb 1st came I was sitting on a flight from Saigon to [2012-02-29 · eczerwin · ~600 words]
- [Being Neil Armstrong](https://vninja.net/rant/neil-armstrong/) — Now there is an ambitious post title if there ever was one, but it seems fitting as the next 12 months promises to be my most ambitious professional year to date. [2012-02-26 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware Virtual Customer Labs](https://vninja.net/news/vmware-virtual-customer-labs/) — I´ve mentioned this earlier, VMware hands-in labs going public in 2012, but finally it seems like something is happening in that regard! [2012-02-04 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VCP 5 Certification Requirements Clarification](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/vcp-5-certification-requirement-clarification/) — In a recent article, VCP 5 certification course deadline looms over VMware pros both vNinja.net contributors (Christian and Ed) are quoted in relation to the VCP 5 certification upgrade [2012-02-03 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Vote for the Top VMware & Virtualization Blogs ](https://vninja.net/news/vote-top-vmware-virtualization-blogs/) — Eric Siebert has opened up the voting for the top VMware & virtualization blogs. Head on over and cast your votes! [2012-01-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Iomega IX2 and Time Machine Support](https://vninja.net/osx/iomega-ix2-time-machine-support/) — As Mr. Simon Seagrave has pointed out, there is a fix available to enable OSX Lion Time Machine support for Iomega IX2 and IX4 NAS storage devices. [2012-01-23 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Creating and Using a Virtual Floppy in vSphere](https://vninja.net/virtualization/creating-virtual-floppy-vsphere/) — My new colleague Olav Tvedt asked me if I could test his method of enabling Bitlocker in a VM, on VMware vSphere. Of course, I was happy to oblige. [2012-01-07 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Building The Ultimate vSphere Lab Series](https://vninja.net/news/building-ultimate-vsphere-lab-series/) — Sammy Bogaert has posted a 12 part series called "Building The Ultimate vSphere Lab", which knocks the socks of my previous vSphere 4.x series. [2012-01-03 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Goodbye 2011, you were great](https://vninja.net/news/goodbye-2011-you-were-great/) — Yes, this is YAEotYP, so if you've already read tons of them I apologize. [2011-12-30 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Auto Installation and Configuring of vSphere ESXi 5](https://vninja.net/virtualization/auto-installation-and-configuring-of-vsphere-esxi-5/) — One of the last projects I've been involved with at Seatrans, is to automate the installation and configuration of vSphere ESXi 5 hosts for deployment on vessels. I've talked a bit about this before, both on vSoup and in Setting Up Automated ESXi Deployments where [2011-12-21 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [DaaS or Having Fun with ThinApp](https://vninja.net/virtualization/daas-or-having-fun-with-thinapp/) — While using ThinApp to create a standalone version of TweetDeck 0.38.2, since the newly announced 1.0 version looks, acts and feels like a 0.1 version, I posed the following question on Twitter: [2011-12-09 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Blatant Self Promotion](https://vninja.net/virtualization/blatant-self-promotion/) — As the title says, it's been one of my more "public" weeks ever. Besides my "normal" vSoup engagement, this week I've also been involved with Mike Laverick's VMTN Subscription Movement Miniwags to voice some of my views about the [2011-11-28 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Testing VMware vSphere 5 Swap to Host Cache](https://vninja.net/vmware-2/testing-vmware-vsphere-5-swap-to-host-cache/) — A little while ago I fitted a small 64GB SSD disk to my HP MicroServer just to have a quick look at the new vSphere 5 feature _Swap to Host Cache_, where vSphere 5 reclaims memory by storing the swapped out pages in the host cache on a solid-state drive. Naturally, this is a lot faster than swapping to non-SSD storage, but you will still see a performance hit when this happens. For more details [2011-11-22 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMware Horizon Application Manager Now and Beyond](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-horizon-application-manager-now-and-beyond/) — VMware has announced Horizon Application Manager 1.2, and together with the new ThinApp 4.7 release it promises _"end users access to Windows, SaaS and enterprise web applications across different devices while retaining control and visibility via [2011-11-16 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [VMTN Subscription](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmtn-subscription/) — Mike Laverick has started something of a petition to bring back the VMTN Subscription option, and I could not agree more! [2011-11-05 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Why Can't I Syslog my VMware ESXi Installation?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/why-cant-i-syslog-my-vmware-esxi-installation/) — Juan Manuel Rey's post Monitor ESX 4.x to ESXi 5.0 migration process show how you can watch the progress of an ESX 4 to ESXi 5 upgrade procedure, by looking at the live logs. [2011-11-04 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [My Personal vMotion](https://vninja.net/news/my-personal-vmotion/) — Every ![](http://www.edbergogroup.com/) once in a while an opportunity presents itself that is just too good to pass up and after 8 years at Seatrans AS I've decided to move on and and accept a position as a Senior Consultant in the Infrastructure Consulting division of EDB ErgoGroup. [2011-11-04 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Moving On](https://vninja.net/news/moving-on/) — ```bash if ((Get-date) -gt (Get-date 2012-01-01)) {Get-VM h0bbel | Move-VM -Datastore newEmployer -RunAsync } ``` [2011-09-23 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Network Simulation in VMware Workstation 8](https://vninja.net/virtualization/network-simulation-in-vmware-workstation-8/) — In the new VMware Workstation 8 release, VMware has added a rudimentary network simulation setting where you can tweak bandwidth and packet loss for a given network card. Very useful when testing applications and servers and want to know how they react to network issues, or if you want to simulate a WAN link. I know this was available in Workstation 7 as well, but it used to be a team feature. [2011-09-15 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Backup Academy - Do You Know Your VM backups?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/backup-academy-do-you-know-your-vm-backups/) — The newly opened Backup Academy, by Veeam, aims to educate administrators, and others interested in virtual machine backup, in the required skills to maintain a proper backup strategy for your virtual infrastructure. [2011-09-13 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware Workstation 8 - What's new?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-workstation-8-whats-new/) — <del>VMware is close (still in beta) to releasing the new major release of VMware Workstation.</del> [2011-09-07 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [VMworld Hands-on Labs going public in 2012](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmworld-hands-on-labs-going-public-in-2012/) — VMware Labs now has fixed data centers which means that the VMworld Hands-On labs are going to be publicly available in early 20112! [2011-08-30 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [SCCM 2007 Not a Virtualization Candidate?](https://vninja.net/microsoft-2/sccm-2007-not-a-virtualization-candidate/) — The last couple of days I've been in training class, taking the 6451B Planning, Deploying and Managing Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 course. [2011-08-26 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Poor Man's WSUS](https://vninja.net/microsoft-2/poor-mans-wsus/) — Not that WSUS is expensive, after all it's a "free" addon to the server you're already running if you need it. Of course, running your own Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) infrastructure is preferable in just about every scenario except for some edge cases where bandwidth or latency issues might prevent you from syncing the updates [2011-08-25 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vSphere 5: ESXi Installation Video](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vsphere-5-esxi-installation-video/) — To celebrate vSphere 5 GA release today, I've recorded a quick video of the old school CD/ISO based installation: [2011-08-25 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMFS-5: Block Size Me](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmfs-5-block-size-me/) — The up and coming release of VMware vSphere 5 comes with an upgraded versjon of the VMware vStorage VMFS volume file system. One of the problems with VMFS-3 an earlier is that the block size you define when you format the datastore, determines the maximum size of the VMDK files stored on it. This means that when [2011-08-05 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Dear John](https://vninja.net/virtualization/dear-john/) — No, this is not a farewell post, but rather the opposite. It's Dr. John Troyer's birthday! [2011-07-24 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [SMB Shared Storage Smackdown - Part 1 NFS Performance](https://vninja.net/virtualization/smb-shared-storage-smackdown-part-1-nfs-performance/) — Recently at the office I was given the task to test out some SMB NAS products to use as potential candidates for some of our small branch offices all over the world. I did many tests relating from backup and replication to actually running VMs on them and pounding them with IOmeter. What I will share with you in this series of posts is my vSphere/IOmeter tests for NFS and iSCSI. With these tests [2011-07-17 · eczerwin · ~800 words]
- [vSphere 5 and new licensing - Good or bad?](https://vninja.net/news/vsphere-5-and-new-licensing-good-or-bad/) — As many of you did I watched todays Cloud Infrastructure Forum and the release of vSphere 5 today. I was very excited with many of the features such as Storage Profiling, Storage DRS, VMFS 5 release, and they have blown the top off of the resource limits on VMs to create Monster VMs - just to mention a few. However, one topic I notice causing quite a stir is the new licensing that seemed to be [2011-07-12 · eczerwin · ~400 words]
- [Online Event: Raising the Bar, Part V](https://vninja.net/virtualization/online-event-raising-the-bar-part-v/) — **July 12, 2011 9am-Noon Pacific Time:** Join this online event, and get all the details on "the next generation of cloud infrastructure"! [2011-07-07 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Setting Up Automated ESXi Deployments](https://vninja.net/virtualization/setting-up-automated-esxi-deployments/) — Automating ESXi installs was made much easier after the release of vSphere 4.1 where the Scripted Install feature was added, and by using VMware Auto Deploy from VMware Labs. VMware Auto Deploy requires that you have vCenter and Host Profiles in your environment, and that again requires that you have Enterprise Plus [2011-07-07 · Christian Mohn · ~1200 words]
- [Exchange 2010 SP1 and KB2393802 or How to Have an Interesting Afternoon at the Office](https://vninja.net/microsoft-2/exchange-2010-sp1-and-kb2393802-or-how-to-have-an-interesting-afternoon-at-the-office/) — Let me start this post out with a little story. I am normally a hardcore virtualization and storage guy. Sometimes my career in this sector brings me into working with stuff I haven't worked with before because virtualization encompasses so much. As I continue to work with other teams I learn more and more about what they do everyday. I usually find myself involved in every performance [2011-07-06 · eczerwin · ~1000 words]
- [vExpert 2011](https://vninja.net/news/vexpert-2011/) — A short, image-only post marking being named a VMware vExpert for 2011. [2011-07-01 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Zerto: Or What I Learned at Tech Field Day #6!](https://vninja.net/virtualization/zerto-or-what-i-learned-at-tfd-6/) — The last day of Tech Field Day #6 myself and all the other delegates were lucky enough to get a sneak peek at stealth startup 'Zerto'. We weren't allowed to talk about it until the 22nd and I know I am a little slow on the punch but I currently haven't seen a lot of coverage. Just for an initial disclosure statement my trip to Tech Field [2011-06-27 · eczerwin · ~400 words]
- [7 Expert Tips for Managing Your Remote vSphere Infrastructure](https://vninja.net/news/7-expert-tips-for-managing-your-remote-vsphere-infrastructure/) — Now there is a catchy title if I ever saw one. Only "problem" is that it's a whitepaper that I have written for Veeam. In reality this is the first published article I have ever written, that I didn't publish on my own. I'm excited about it, yet strangely nervous about how it will be received by the people who download it. If you happen to do so, make sure to let me know [2011-06-20 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Multi-Hypervisor Management and the Future](https://vninja.net/news/multi-hypervisor-management-and-the-future/) — In a previous post, vCenter Integration Mantra, I made the point that vSphere vAdmins wants the 3rd party modules to integrate into the vCenter client and show their delicious addon-value there, and not in their own management interface. Give the vAdmins the info they need, where they do most, if not all their work. Open up the admin client [2011-06-12 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [vCenter Integration Mantra](https://vninja.net/news/vcenter-integration-mantra/) — During Tech Field Day #6 in Boston one particular general feature request has become increasingly prominent; [2011-06-10 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Tech Field Day #6 - Arriving in Boston](https://vninja.net/news/tech-field-day-6-arriving-in-boston/) — Yesterday I arrived at Logan International for Tech Field Day #6 in the greater Boston area. Christopher Wells had already arrived earlier in the day, and I was lucky enough to be picked up by Stephen Foskett at the airport and chauffeured to the [Sheraton Framingham Hotel and [2011-06-08 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vSoup and Tech Field Day #6](https://vninja.net/news/vsoup-and-tech-field-day-6/) — vSoup Episode #10 is finally released, this time with Stuart Radnidge (blog) as our guest. This episode is a bit unusual, as we didn't really have a set agenda before starting the recording, so we jump around all of the place covering a pretty wide area of topics. Be sure to check it out! [2011-06-01 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Tech Field Day #6 - Delegate I Am](https://vninja.net/news/tech-field-day-6-delegate-i-am/) — A while ago I got a surprising email, stating the following: [2011-05-16 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMworld 2011 Session Voting](https://vninja.net/news/vmworld-2011-session-voting/) — VMware has opened the public voting for the VMworld 2011 sessions. Personally I haven't submitted anything, but I do see a lot of familiar names in the voting application. [2011-05-09 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vCenter Update Manager - A Feature Request](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vcenter-update-manager-a-feature-request/) — Way back in August 24 2010 I wrote a post called vCenter Update Manager to lose it’s fat. I'm still very happy that VMware has decided to drop OS patching from the product, and I still mean that can only be a good thing. In fact, that article prompted Beth Pariseau Senior News Writer [2011-04-22 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Installing and running VMware Compliance Checker for vSphere](https://vninja.net/news/installing-and-running-vmware-compliance-checker-for-vsphere/) — The first version of the new VMware Compliance Checker for vSphere tool is now available for download. [2011-04-20 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vNinja enables HA](https://vninja.net/news/vninja-enables-h/) — I'm happy to announce that my fellow vSoup Podcast co-host Ed Czerwin is on board as blogger here on vNinja.net! This means that from now on you won't just have to put up with the content of one virtualization admin, but two! [2011-04-13 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware Forum 2011 Oslo ](https://vninja.net/news/vmware-forum-2011-oslo/) — Yesterday I attended VMware Forum 2011 in Oslo (Norwegian). [2011-04-08 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Digital Ship Magazine April 2011](https://vninja.net/news/digital-ship-magazine-april-2011/) — Back in February 2011 I was invited, along with my IT Manager, to do a presentation at Digital Ship Scandinavia 2011. [2011-04-01 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vSoup Episode #7 and VMware Podcast Directory](https://vninja.net/news/vsoup-episode-7-and-vmware-podcast-directory/) — vSoup Episode #7 "Everything is better with Bacon" is now available for your listening "pleasure". With Sean Clark as our guest, we get into quite a few topics like storage and SQL virtualization. Be sure to check it out! [2011-03-28 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vNinja.net available also on vNinja.com](https://vninja.net/news/vninja-net-available-also-on-vninja-com/) — Thanks to the generosity of Todd Wright vNinja.net is now also available via vNinja.com. Todd came out of nowhere and offered to redirect his vNinja.com domain to vNinja.net, since he didn't have time to do anything with it himself. [2011-03-21 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Installing and configuring VMware vCenter Operations](https://vninja.net/virtualization/installing-and-configuring-vmware-vcenter-operations/) — VMware vCenter Operations was released to the general public a week or so ago and is available for download right now. As usual you can download a 60 day trial, and get started immediately. [2011-03-21 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [vSphere iPad Client](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vsphere-ipad-client/) — Like everyone else in the _vUniverse_, I've had a play with the very recently released free vSphere Client for iPad. Since everyone, and their mother, has already blogged and reviewed it I don't see much value in me doing the same. [2011-03-18 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Custom Dictionary Syncronization with Dropbox](https://vninja.net/howto/custom-dictionary-syncronization-with-dropbox/) — In the last couple of weeks I've been using Microsoft Word 2010 a lot more than I've previously done, and at the same time I've been switching computers a lot making it somewhat of an annoyance that a lot of the words I use in my documents are not recognized and marked with a wiggly red line underneath it. [2011-03-13 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Using rsync to Distribute Patches to a Remote vMA ](https://vninja.net/virtualization/using-rsync-to-distribute-patches-to-remote-a-vma/) — I recently posted Using vMA as a local vSphere Patch Repository, where I outlined how you can use your vMA instances as local file repositories for updates. [2011-03-08 · Christian Mohn · ~800 words]
- [Using vMA as a local vSphere Patch Repository](https://vninja.net/virtualization/using-vma-as-a-local-vsphere-patch-repository/) — I like using http as the transport protocol when patching my vSphere hosts. It's easy to use and in most cases immediately available over most networks. Since I want to use http as the transport, we need to make vMA work as a http server. [2011-03-07 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Installing vSphere Management Assistant (vMA)](https://vninja.net/virtualization/installing-vsphere-management-assistant-vma/) — The _vMA_ is a Virtual Appliance that you can download from VMware. It's primary function is to enable command line based management of your ESX/ESXi systems. [2011-02-28 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Passion in IT](https://vninja.net/rant/passion-in-modern-it-organizations/) — Bob Plankers, aka The Lone Sysadmin, has posted a series of posts on "the blame game" in modern IT organizations (Blame, Understanding Blame and Preventing Blame). [2011-02-20 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [vSoup Episode #4 now available](https://vninja.net/news/vsoup-episode-4-now-available/) — The fourth edition (Big Fat Pipes with Bob) of the vSoup podcast is now available. This time we had the honor of having Bob Plankers as a guest. Bob runs The Lone Sysadmin, where his recent post "Blame" [2011-02-10 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vSoup Episode #3 now available](https://vninja.net/news/vsoup-episode-3-now-available/) — The third episode of vSoup has been spotted in the wild. Head on over to vSoup.net to grab it while it's still warm. Or, you can frantically refresh your iTunes feed until it pops up there. [2011-01-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan) + Powershell = Win](https://vninja.net/howto/remote-desktop-connection-manager-rdcman-powershell-win/) — Remote Desktop Connection Manager is a great tool from Microsoft which enables you to keep track of all your RDP sessions and targets in a nice GUI. One of the things it's lacking though, is some sort of Active Directory connection that allows you to import all your server objects directly, and not manually add/remove the serves as your [2011-01-20 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Powershell: Scripting Best Practices Analyzer remotely](https://vninja.net/windows/powershell-scripting-best-practices-analyzer-remotely/) — Jan Egil Ring over at blog.powershell.no has created a great PowerShell script that lets you run the Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer on remote Windows Server 2008 R2 machines. [2011-01-18 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vSoup Episode #2 now available](https://vninja.net/news/vsoup-episode-2-now-available/) — The second episode of vSoup is now available. Head on over to vSoup.net to get your fix. [2011-01-17 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) article](https://vninja.net/news/volume-activation-management-tool-vamt-article/) — I've had another article posted on Petri IT Knowledgebase! [2011-01-16 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Migrating from Watchguard Firebox X to XTM Series Firewalls](https://vninja.net/network/migrating-from-watchguard-firebox-x-to-xtm-series-firewalls/) — Watchguard has recently retired their X series of firewalls and replaced them with their new lineup of XTM boxes. [2011-01-07 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [So, what is this vSoup thing?](https://vninja.net/news/so-what-is-this-vsoup-thing/) — Some times things just happen, and before you know it you're sitting in your in-laws living room talking to an Englishman and an American via Skype. And to top it of; it's all being recorded. And to make matters even worse, we decided to try and make it a regular thing. The recordings that is, not the "in your in-laws living room" thing, that was a one-off for sure. [2011-01-04 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [State of the vNinja: 2010](https://vninja.net/news/state-of-the-vninja-2010/) — Is 2010 over already? I guess it's true that time flies when your having fun! 2010 has been a great year for me, both personally and professionally. I won't bore you to death with personal issues, but as far as professionally goes you'll just have to bare with me. [2010-12-30 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Installing and Configuring WANem Virtual Appliance](https://vninja.net/virtualization/installing-and-configuring-wanem-virtual-appliance/) — In a previous post, Using the WANem WAN Emulator Virtual Appliance, I've talked about how I've successfully used WANem to emulate different WAN scenarios. [2010-12-29 · Christian Mohn · ~1000 words]
- [vNinja used by VMware](https://vninja.net/news/vninja-used-by-vmware/) — Thanks to Maish Saidel-Keesing, vExpert 2010 and blogger over at Technodrone I have been made aware that VMware has used one of my posts here on vNinja in their internal presentation material. [2010-12-27 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Virtual Admins - Virtual Pirates?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/virtual-admins-virtual-pirates/) — When Rich Brambley posted "A Pirate Invented Server Virtualization" today, it reminded me of a little story from my own production environment. [2010-12-23 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Developer meets PowerCLI - awesomeness ensues](https://vninja.net/virtualization/developer-meets-powercli-awesomeness-ensues/) — A couple of days ago, while I was at VMworld Europe I got the following tweet from Asbjørn A. Mikkelsen (@neslekkim) (translated from norwegian): [2010-10-15 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [VMworld.next - a couple of suggestions](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmworld-next-a-couple-of-suggestions/) — Now that the VMworld events are over for 2010, I'm still trying to digest a lot of the impressions I've had over the past few days. [2010-10-15 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMworld Europe 2010 – The aftermath](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmworld-europe-2010the-aftermath/) — I’m back home again, after spending the better part of this week in Copenhagen, attending VMworld Europe 2010. [2010-10-15 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Extending VMworld Labs](https://vninja.net/virtualization/extending-vmworld-labs/) — Undoubtedly one of the most popular "features" of VMworld 2010, both in the US and in EU, are the labs. These hands-on exercises in configuring and using various VMware products lets you play around without the need for lab equipment or licenses installed locally. [![VMworld Labs - Cloud [2010-10-13 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMworld Europe 2010 Contest Over](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmworld-europe-2010-contest-over/) — They found me! Well, not they, but Duco Jaspars (@vConsult) found me straight after the keynote and was promptly handed the Trainsignal VMware vSphere Pro Series Training Vol. 2. training kit. [2010-10-12 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMworld Europe 2010 Pictures](https://vninja.net/news/vmworld-europe-2010-pictures/) — View slideshow with larger photos [2010-10-12 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMworld Europe 2010](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmworld-europe-2010/) — VMworld Europe 2010 is close. Very close. In fact, lots of people are already in place in Copenhagen, personally I don’t get until tomorrow evening (the 11th). [2010-10-10 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vCenter 4.1 Database Recovery Model Defaults](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vcenter-4-1-database-recovery-model-defaults/) — Sometimes leaving the defaults in place might just come back and bite you, hard. [2010-10-04 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Going to VMworld Europe 2010 Contest: Where is Christian?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/going-to-vmworld-europe-2010-contest-where-is-christian/) — Today I finally got word that I will indeed be going to VMworld Europe 2010 in Copenhagen! [2010-09-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [VMware vSphere Hypervisor Licensing and Cost](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vmware-vsphere-hypervisor-licensing-and-cost/) — We all know, and **love**, the fact that vSphere Hypervisor is free of charge. The free version doesn't come with all the bells and whistles of the fully licensed product, but it's still very usable in many scenarios. [2010-09-22 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [P2V a Domain Controller? Why would you?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/p2v-a-domain-controller-why-would-you/) — Some topics seem to pop up at random intervals, one of them being virtualizing Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller servers. The question is often either "_Should I virtualize my Domain Controllers, and if so should I virtualize all of them?_" or "_Should I do a P2V (Physical 2 Virtual) conversion of my existing Domain Controllers, or create new ones?_" [2010-09-21 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Redesigning the vCenter Client?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/redesigning-the-vcenter-client/) — In fresh blog post, called "Resource pools and simultaneous vMotions" by Frank Denneman prompted a quick Twitter discussion regarding the vCenter client (and perhaps even vCenter itself). A simple [2010-09-20 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [HP ProLiant MicroServer - Not Quite There Yet?](https://vninja.net/news/hp-proliant-microserver-not-quite-there-yet/) — When HP announced their new ProLiant MicroServer, I really hoped that it would be the perfect answer to a specific use case I've been looking at lately. [2010-09-09 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Using the WANem WAN Emulator Virtual Appliance](https://vninja.net/network/using-the-wanem-wan-emulator-virtual-appliance/) — During preparation and preliminary information gathering for a new internal project, I had a need to emulate various networking conditions and scenarios. More specifically I'm looking at the possibility of running the vCenter Client over high latency satellite links, with varying bandwidth availability and even packet loss scenarios. [2010-08-26 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [SolarWinds VM Console](https://vninja.net/virtualization/solarwinds-vm-console/) — SolarWinds has released a new free vSphere tool called SolarWinds VM Console. [2010-08-25 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [vCenter Update Manager to lose it's fat](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vcenter-update-manager-to-lose-its-fat/) — Dwayne Lessner who runs IT Blood Pressure, has written a guest post on GestaltIT called Is My Favourite VSphere Tool Is Going Away? [2010-08-24 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [vCenter Server 4.1 Performance and Best Practices](https://vninja.net/virtualization/vcenter-server-4-1-performance-and-best-practices/) — VMware has published a new whitepaper called VMware vCenter Server Performance and Best Practices. [2010-08-24 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]
- [Where in the world is VMware Server?](https://vninja.net/virtualization/where-in-the-world-is-vmware-server/) — Over at PlanetVM Wil van Antwerpen posted The Future of VMware Server back in May 2010. Wil makes the argument that it seems like VMware is indeed abandoning VMware Server as a product, leaving us with VMware Workstation and VMware Player as the two Windows installable virtualization solutions from the company. [2010-08-13 · Christian Mohn · ~200 words]
- [Using USB Pass-through in vSphere 4.1](https://vninja.net/virtualization/using-usb-pass-through-in-vsphere-4-1/) — Finally USB pass-through is possible on ESX hosts with the new vSphere 4.1 release! This feature ha been available in VMware Workstation/Fusion and Player for quite a while. The freshly added feature in vSphere 4.1 even works if you vMotion the guest from one host to another, which is in itself pretty amazing functionality! [2010-07-22 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Scheduling vCenter Backups](https://vninja.net/virtualization/scheduling-vcenter-backups/) — If you run your vCenter on SQL Server Express 2005, you are missing the ability to set up scheduled backup jobs with SQL Maintenance Plans, a feature available in the full version of SQL Server. [2010-07-22 · Christian Mohn · ~600 words]
- [Migrating your vCenter from 32bit to 64bit](https://vninja.net/virtualization/migrating-your-vcenter-from-32bit-to-64bit/) — As you may or may not know, the new vCenter 4.1 requires that the host it runs on is 64 bit. As 4.0 and previous versions weren't supported on 64 bit at all, this probably means that when you upgrade you will need to move your existing database to a new host. [2010-07-21 · Christian Mohn · ~400 words]
- [Welcome to vNinja!](https://vninja.net/news/welcome-to-vninja/) — Welcome to my new playground. I used to post quite a lot over at my old site, h0bbel.p0ggel.org but given it's weird domain name and it's long history I've decided to start fresh. [2010-07-21 · Christian Mohn · ~0 words]


## Authors

- [Bjørn A. Jørgensen](https://vninja.net/authors/bajorgensen/)
- [Christian Mohn](https://vninja.net/authors/christian/)
- [Ed Czerwin](https://vninja.net/authors/eczerwin/)
- [Espen Ødegaard](https://vninja.net/authors/esod/)
- [Kristian Wæraas](https://vninja.net/authors/kwaeraas/)
- [Shane Williford](https://vninja.net/authors/shane/)
- [Stine Elise Larsen](https://vninja.net/authors/stine/)


## Pages

- [Disclosure](https://vninja.net/disclaimer/)
- [Privacy Policy](https://vninja.net/about/privacy-policy/)
- [](https://vninja.net/guest-authors/)
- [Hey there! I'm Stine!](https://vninja.net/about/stine-elise-larsen/)
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