Tools - Mike Tabor

How to fix Veeam Backup after installing vCenter 6.7 Update 1

November 1, 2018January 23, 2019 Tools

After upgrading vCenter 6.7 to vCenter 6.7 Update 1 in one of my environments, it was noticed that Veeam backups where failing with the error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

I’m running Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5 U3a and after doing some digging around, it seems there is an API change in vSphere 6.7 Update 1 that is causing the backups to fail.

While Veeam plans to resolve this issue with their new Update 4 version coming out soon, there is a very simple work around thanks to this forum post.

Altaro VM Backup 7.6 in review

April 3, 2018April 3, 2018 Tools

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Since it’s release date last month, I’ve been running Altaro VM Backup 7.6 in my home lab and one thing is for sure – Altaro VM Backup has certainly come a long way since the last time I did a Altaro VM Backup review.

Altaro is an easy to use, policy driven backup solution that is affordable for the small and medium sized businesses. VM Backup supports both Hyper-V and VMware environments and with the release of Altaro VM Backup 7.6 comes several new features that we’ll look at below.

Defrag to improve Synology BTRFS performance

January 8, 2018August 12, 2019 Tools

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My Synology NAS gets a lot of use at home. Not only is the Synology NAS a central point for my VMware home lab, but all my PCs are connected to it for document, photo, and ISO storage.

In order to keep things as optimized as possible I try to defrag the drives every once in a while. Depending on how fragmented the drives are, this could help improve performance in sequential read and random IOPS.

In this post I’ll show how it easy it is to kick off the task. Just keep in mind you will want to do this during low usage as the defrag task will certainly impact performance while it’s running.

How to install Centmin Mod with Let’s Encrypt and CloudFlare

December 1, 2017June 28, 2019 Tools

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I run several web servers for the many sites I own, like MikeTabor.com or for the sites I help run, such as LexVMUG.com. In the past these servers have always ran a traditional LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, PHP) either installed manually or through WHM/cPanel.

For my last couple projects I’ve been using Centmin Mod instead. Centmin Mod has several benefits, the first being it installs a LEMP stack (Linux, NGINX, MySQL/MariaDB, PHP), then optimizes the installs, and secures the server. Even on the smallest of servers the LEMP stack has been amazing and FAST!

Using PowerShell to Unblock multiple files

October 31, 2017March 13, 2018 Tools

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If you’ve ever downloaded a PowerShell script from the internet and tried running it you’ve probably seen the warning message “Run only scripts that you trust. While scripts from the internet can be useful, this script can potentially harm your computer.”

In my case I noticed the following tweet from Alan Renouf about the vCheck dev branch.

Dev branch on #vCheck has been updated to the new @VMwareClarity theme https://t.co/DBRCSm4jWI pic.twitter.com/6Nr4N4wwUJ

— Alan Renouf (@alanrenouf) October 7, 2017

Microsoft Hyper-V Failover Clusters now supported in NAKIVO 7.1

May 30, 2017July 9, 2020 Tools

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Just a few months ago NAKIVO released version 7, a major release that added several new features, one of which was the support for Hyper-V backup. Today NAKIVO has released version 7.1 which builds upon that feature set by adding support for Hyper-V failover clusters!

Install PowerShell on Linux Mint

August 22, 2016January 2, 2019 Tools

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It’s almost hard to believe, but Microsoft has made PowerShell open source and is now available for users to install Powershell on Linux and Mac OS X machines. In this quick post I’ll show how you can easily install PowerShell on Linux Mint 18.

First look at NAKIVO Backup and Replication v6.1

August 15, 2016November 30, 2017 Tools

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Earlier this month NAKIVO released version 6.1 of their Backup and Replication application which only adds to their popular 6.0 version adding features like Microsoft Exchange instant object recovery and log truncation as well as other features. As part of the VMware vExpert program NAKIVO has given me a NFR license to try NAKIVO Backup and Replication v6.1 in my home lab and I want to share my initial thoughts about this new version that I’ve had running for the last couple weeks.

Altaro VM Backup Setup Step-by-Step

June 27, 2016June 30, 2016 Tools

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Altaro VM Backup

Altaro VM Backup is a company who offers a backup solution for small to medium sized businesses and have been around for a while that started out offering backup software for Hyper-V, but has now expanded to VMware as well. Altaro asked if I would be interested in trying for free as part of the vExpert program in my home lab.

I help out a few small companies here in town so having another backup solution to possibly suggest certainly wouldn’t hurt, so I decided to give it a try and below are my steps to setting it up and thoughts about the software so far.

How to install VisualEsxtop

November 13, 2013November 18, 2013 Tools

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If you haven’t already heard, VisualEsxtop is a Fling developed by a few VMware Engineers that provides a java based GUI to the every useful ESXTOP. As an added bonus provides a description of each counter, multiple windows, the ability to sort metrics, and even provide basic graphs. Oh and it’s FREE!

Setup and install on Windows 7 is pretty easy as well:

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