Mike Tabor

How to shadow a VMware Horizon View desktop

October 21, 2013October 21, 2013 VMware

Ever work on a View 5.x Desktop issue and needed access to the desktop it self while in use? While not a feature that is easily enabled say via the vmTools or the View Administrator console – it can however be easily enabled via Group Policy, similar to some other settings that I mention in the Windows 7 Optimization Guide.

Enable PCoIP Shadowing

Import the pcoip.adm GPO Template.
Navigate to: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Classic Administrative Templates (ADM) > PCoIP Session Variables.
Enable “Enable access to PCoIP session from a vSphere console”.
Link the GPO to the OU where your View Desktops reside.

VMware Horizon View 5.3 has been announced

October 16, 2013 VMware

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Horizon View 5.2 is receiving an update to 5.3! Doesn’t sound like much, but in that tiny dot number increase VMware has in fact brought a number improvements and features to Horizon View.

In a nut shell, some features Horizon View 5.3 brings is the ability to connect to a virtual desktop from any HTML5 capable web browser (yes, even Chromebook!), ability to bring full workstation class user experience with 3D graphics, deploy Windows Server 2008 as a desktop, as well as completely rewritten the Windows client with support for Windows 8.1 and a new iOS7 client too.

In more detail, Horizon View 5.3 brings…

Setup Synology Syslog server for VMware ESXi

October 14, 2013March 6, 2017 Home Lab

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After performing my home lab upgrade, ESXi now runs from a USB stick and because of that vSphere would complain that the system logs where on non-persistent storage:

ESXi syslog error

If I wanted I could have ran the vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) as it comes with it’s own syslog server, or I could have used something like KIWI or Splunk to be my syslog server. I instead went the route of my Synology NAS as it too has the ability to act as a syslog server and these are the steps I performed to setting it up.

Become a VMware Certified Associate for FREE!

October 3, 2013October 25, 2013 VMware

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During the San Francisco VMworld 2013, VMware announced the start of their new VMware Certified Associate certifications.

There’s no training class requirement for the new exams although VMware offers a free self-paced e-learning course which is recommended to help you prepare for the exams. The exams normally run $120.00 but VMware is currently running a $60.00 discount for those who take the exam in 2013. NTPRO.nl has an additional coupon code (VCA13ICS) to take the remaining $60.00 off making the exam FREE!

The VCA13ICS coupon code expires on October 30, 2013!

Update:
Global Knowledge also has a coupon code (VCA13GKN) which does not expire until January 31, 2014. Limit one free exam per individual!

VMware vSphere Client Download

September 26, 2013March 2, 2016 VMware

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vmware vsphere client download

So VMware hasn’t exactly made it easy to locate the vSphere client download and given the clients importance in managing your VMware environment I’ve compiled a list of the direct download links for both old and new vSphere clients.

Easy ESXi 5.5 upgrade via command line

September 23, 2013March 13, 2014 VMware

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ESXi 5.5 was just released general availability (GA) on Sunday (9/22) and I’m itching to upgrade the home lab to run the latest version with all it’s goodies. I wanted to try upgrading my hosts without having to go through the same process that I followed setting up ESXi on the NUC in the first place, injecting custom NIC drivers, etc.

Enter the command line…

Move all VM’s from the host and then put the host into Maintenance Mode.
Go to the Configuration tab > Security Profile and Enable SSH under Services.
Under Firewall, enable httpClient (outbound http).
Open PuTTY (or other SSH client) and SSH into your host.

VMware ESXi 5 home lab upgrade

September 10, 2013May 22, 2016 Home Lab, VMware

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In the past I’ve been using a single server to run my VMware ESXi home lab. it was slow, old, big and loud. I’ve been meaning to upgrade my home lab for a while and just never got around to it, until now! When looking for new hardware I wanted the servers to be as compact as possible, quiet, and low energy usage as possible while still having some horsepower.

I debated on going the whitebox solution as I build all my own desktops anyway, I also looked at several other solutions such as the HP ML310e server, Shuttle XH61V barebones machine, but ultimately decided to go with two Intel NUC i5’s.

Intel NUC i5 and 16GB ram

Intel NUC i5 DC53427HYE Features:

Uses very little energy
Completely quiet
Supports up to 16GB RAM
A dual core CPU that scores nearly 3,600 in PassMark benchmarking
Includes vPro which allows me to easily run both NUC’s headless
Extremely small, nearly 4 1/2″ inch square footprint

ESXi 5.5 free edition removes 32GB memory limit

August 30, 2013August 30, 2013 VMware

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There have been a ton of exciting announcements coming out of VMword 2013, one of which is vSphere 5.5 and all of it’s improvements and additions. Along that note, VMware has changed ESXi 5.5 free version to remove the physical RAM limit which was limited to only 32GB in version 5.1.

The new virtual hardware, version 10, we can now grow our home labs into more powerful VM’s as most all configuration maximums have been doubled:

Horizon View Events Notifier Tool

August 19, 2013August 19, 2013 Tools

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Chris Halstead (@chrisdhalsted), just made every Horizon View administrators job just a little bit easier by releasing a free tool that will allow you to setup alerts and notifications for events in View such as Warnings and Audit failures. The Horizon View Events Notifier tool uses SMTP and allows you to add multiple addresses in the alert recipients field.

view events config

Install ESXi 5.1 from a USB Flash Drive

August 15, 2013 VMware

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Many servers already come with a DVD/CD-ROM drive or some kind of ability to virtually mount an ISO image from a network share onto your server to then install ESXi. However, not all do or you just want to have your ESXi image readily available. Here’s a quick step by step instructions on how to use a USB flash drive to install ESXi.

Download ESXi 5.1 from VMware (if you haven’t already) as well as UNettbootin.
Plug in your USB Flash Drive.
Open UNetbootin and select “Diskimage”, set Type to “USB Drive”, select Drive letter of your USB flash drive, and set the path of your ESXi 5.1 ISO image. Then click on “OK”.