Hardware & HomeLab on Wojciech Marusiak IT Blog

vExpert Gift Review - NX6412 Maxtang EHL30

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 20:00:56 +0100

I finally found some time to built and test the vExpert Gift which I received at VMware Explore 2022. The unit is quite small, compact and is completely fanless set. Let’s dive into the review.

Prerequisites

In order to run this box we need RAM and Storage. If you wish to run VMware ESXi there is a need to have USB based NIC. Unfortunately, VMware doesn’t support Realtek based chipsets.

However, there is a VMware Fling. What are VMware Flings? Flings are apps and tools built by our engineers and community that are intended to be explored. as per VMware Fling website. tl;dr - use on your own risk because it may simply not work. It is available for VMware ESXI starting from version 6.7 up to 8. You can download it from VMware Fling website VMware USB Fling

I bought following hardware for my box:

Not yet assembled unit.

Technical specification

Fortunately for use we have quite detailed specification of the hardware on both Intel and Maxtang website. The device is quite versatile as it has many USB ports, two NICs, is completely fanless and looks very heavy duty.

NX6412 Specification on Intel Website

NX6412 Specification on Maxtang Website

Technical specification	Component
Processor	CPU J6412
Processor Base Frequency	2.00GHz
Processor Burst Frequency	2.60GHz
Processor Cache	1.5MB L2
Processor TDP	10W
Memory Type	Dual Channel SO-DIMM DDR4
Memory Max. Capacity	32GB
Display	GPU Intel® UHD Graphics for 10th Gen Intel® Processors
Display via	2xHDMI2.0
Ethernet Speed	10/100/1000 Mbps
Ethernet Controller	RTL8111H
Ethernet Interface	2x RJ45
Ethernet Wake on LAN	Yes
Audio	Audio Codec Realtek HD
Audio Interface	2-in-1 Audio Jack, Mic-in+Line-out
Storage	M.2 1xM.2 for 2242/2280 SSD (SATA ONLY) or 4G
Storage	SATA Optional
Expansion	M.2 1x M.2 for WiFi
Expansion	SIM 1
I/O	LAN x2
I/O	USB2.0 x2
I/O	USB3.2 x2
I/O	USB Type-C x1
I/O	HDMI2.0 x2
Dimension	Size 127mm x 127mm x 37mm
Power	Standard Port 12V DC-in
Temperature	Operating Temp. - 20°C to 60°C
Storage	Temp. - 40°C to 80°C
Cooling Method	Passive

ESXi Installation

ESXi installation is quite straightforward. However, as mentioned about networking part we need to use USB NIC adapter. those drivers aren’t included in the ESXi ISO and you need to integrate the drivers into the ISO. Fortunately for us, on the webpage https://www.virten.net/2020/09/tips-for-using-usb-network-adapters-with-vmware-esxi/ it is written how can we create custom ISO.

Things that work

So pretty much once the vUSB Fling is installed we can use the box pretty much without any issues. Let’s move to the things which doesn’t work.

Things that work but are problematic

In my opinion some of the things which doesn’t work well can be challenging.

TPM - UEFI Secure Boot

First thing which I had to spent some time on wast TPM. Although in BIOS we can configure TPM from time to time the device hang at the screen.

You simply can’t do anything than go to BIOS and reset TPM. Normally I wouldn’t bother but in my case the device is located in a hanging server rack it can be a bit troublesome.

Unfortunately there is no remote management like iLO or DRAC.

vUSB Fling

At the time of the installation ~ mid November vUSB Fling didn’t work with ESXi 7.0.3 and I had to install ESXI 7.0.2. Minor thing but still. In my opinion this is “the price” we must pay for the inconvinience. As the vUSB Fling got ESXi 8.0.0 support we may expect longer supportability but we can’t take things for granted.

EVC Mode

When joining the device into existing cluster you must EVC Mode. In this case we would have to lower down EVC Mode to Intel Haswell generation. As I had in my main box Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU D-1518 Processor, to make both of them work in a cluster I would need to put them both into new EVC enabled cluster.

Processor

Comparing to my 7 Years Xeon, this processor is very slow. I tried to run the same VM on the Maxtang and boot process was much slower.

Summary

I would like to thank again VMware and Cohesity for the gift. I was so happy that I received it and I couldn’t wait to assemble the unit. After few days of using I’ve decided to install ESXi and test it.

Will the unit stay in my homelab? That is a big YES, but… It will be reinstalled and I will install Ubuntu on it and use it as a single node Kubernetes by using https://microk8s.io/.

Super Silent Supermicro SuperServer E300 8D

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 20:26:55 +0200

In 2017 I wrote about my new My HomeLab purchase. If you want to take a look on my HomeLab details use link Supermicro SuperServer E300-8D. It costs me a lot because I upgraded it to maximum capacity in terms of RAM and I was very happy about it. I installed my whole VMware environment and I was kind of using it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t use it as much as I wanted. Under heavy load it was extremely loud. You cannot use it 24/7/365 at Home in normal environment.

Finally, I started to read in the Internet on different forums that some folks successfully replaced the fans on other different Supermicro Motherboards marked as X10SDV-TP8F. Following that lead, I purchased three Noctua NF-A4x20 PWM (4 PIN) fans and I replaced the stock ones.

Stock Fan replacement on SYS-E300-8D

In first phase I tried to replace the fans and mount them using rubber Noctua mounter.

As you see on this photo they look very nice.

Mounted to the chassis they didn’t fit. I had to revert to screws.

Noctua use some kind of weird screws so bear in mind that you need some angle when using screwdriver.

Temperature results

		CPU Temperature	Fan 1 (RPM)	Fan 2 (RPM)	Fan 3 (RPM)	CPU Fan (RPM)	Noise (dB)
Stock Fans	Boot	48	4700	5000	4500	N/A	69

	Idle	44	5200	5100	5600	N/A	53

	Full 3 min	60	6300	6200	6700	N/A	61

	Full 10 min	61	6300	6200	6700	N/A	61

Noctua NF-A4x20	Boot	56	1100	1200	1300	N/A	35

	Idle	61	2000	2100	2000	N/A	36

	Full 3 min	84	4300	4400	4300	N/A	41

	Full 10 min	88	4700	4800	4700	N/A	45

Conclusion

Replacing stock fans really pays of! If you have X10SDV-TP8F based Supermicro server do it. It is totally worth it. Although you have to accept much higher temperatures.

Replacing Stock SYS-E300-8D Heatsink

I didn’t stop there and I wanted to try out if replacing stock heatsink will help lower down temperatures. I purchased SNK-C0057A4L without knowing if it fits 100% on my server. Although Paul Braren from TinkerTry tested many Supermicro servers, he didn’t test Supermicro E300-8D with active CPU cooler SNK-C0057A4L. Without much to loose (only return shipment to the store if it wouldn’t work :) ) I replaced stock CPU heatsink with new active CPU cooler.

Heatsink removal

I suggest to heat a CPU a bit to make it easier for you to remove old heatsink. You can do it with hairdresser or as I did. I started my HomeLab for a few minutes, quick shutdown and after removing screws I was able to remove it without issues.

In package there is as well backplate which was supposed to be installed on the motherboard. In my case I skipped it.

I cleaned up the processor and without any issues I installed new CPU cooler.

Temperature Results

Boot	59	2200	2100	2200	4100	43

Idle	56	2400	2400	2400	4300	39

Full 3 min	73	3400	3400	3500	5400	44

Full 10 min	75	4000	3900	6000	3900	48

As you see, processor temperature decreased significantly, especially under full load from 88° to 75°.

BIOS settings

Almost at the end of the test I forgot to check what kind of settings I configured in BIOS 🤦‍♂️. Generally speaking all test were conducted on Set Fan to Optimal Speed settings. I realized that if I change the BIOS fan setting to Set Fan to PUE2(Power Utilization Effectiveness) Speed.

Power Utilization Effectiveness BIOS settings

Boot	56	1300	1200	1200	3200	38

Idle	59	2200	2100	2100	4100	38

Full 3 min	76	3200	3100	3100	4800	42

Full 10 min	78	3400	3200	3200	5200	44

With that setting in BIOS configured I finally found the sweet spot between noise and decibel level. 44 dB is ideal for my living room and it generates less noise than my Ubiqiti switch.

My new Home Lab

Thu, 14 Sep 2017 19:31:45 +0000

Working at VMware provides many fantastic possibilities. One of it is a possibility to use vCloud Director based environment where you can spin up any lab you want (of course with per-user limits 😉 ). This environment has some limits and I decided to purchase new Home Lab.

After long considerations, I decided to buy well known in VMware community Supermicro E300-8D. It has amazing hardware combined with very small chassis.

Main components:


CPU	Intel Xeon D-1518 2,2Ghz
Cores/Threads	4 Cores / 8 Threads
Memory	128 GB (4x 32GB) 2133Mhz DDR4 ECC RDIMM
Network	6x 1Gbe (RJ45) + 2x 10Gb (SFP+)
Disks	4x SATA3 1x M.2 – M key 2242/2280/22110 – PCI-E 3.0 x4 1x mSATA (Mini PCI-E) – PCI-E 2.0 x1
Peripheral	2x USB 3.0
Expansion	2x PCI-E 3.0 x8
SATADOM	2x Satadom
VGA	1x VGA
IPMI	Yes
Form factor	Mini-1U
I’ve decided that for maximum performance I will use all-flash vSAN. Below you will find the list of components I used in my setup:

RAM - 4 x 32GB Samsung DDR4-2133 regECC DIMM CL15
ESXi local storage - 32GB Delock SATADOM Module SATA 6Gb/ MLC
vSAN:
- Flash Tier - WD Black 256GB SSD M.2 PCI-Express
- Capacity Tier - Crucial MX300 2TB SATA

At the moment I am not using any managed switches (I plan to do so in the nearest future) and my lab will be entirely nested. I am in a process of building the environment and after some time I will share my thoughts how this server suits for the home lab.

I certainly recommend to read more about the Supermicro server:

https://michaelryom.dk/nuc-killer-supermicro-superserver-e300-8d/- this is fantastic article comparing Supermicro Server and Intel NUCs
https://michaelryom.dk/part-2-supermicro-superserver-e300-8d-deep-dive/- detailed overview of the Supermicro Server
https://tinkertry.com/compare - I think most comprehensive source of knowledge about Supermicro Servers

20 Years Anniversary of …

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 20:13:50 +0000

Yesterday - 27.06.2017 I had very special anniversary. This is very special anniversary because it structured myself as a person and had incredible influence of my future.

After mysterious introduction I will tell what happened 20 Years ago. At that day I went with my whole Family to local PC store called “System X” where after finishing School with very good grades together with my brother we got our first PC.

The PC back then was very powerful - we even “influenced” parents to got 3Dfx Voodoo 😉 I will share the technical specs later (to the best of my memory), but I wanted to share with you why I remember that date so good. Back then together with brother we were cruising through our town to gather all flyers from all PC stores and we were building our dream PC without any budget limitation. That was the power of imagination 😀

First night with beloved PC

Right after we got PC, Windows 95 was installed and naturally we got as well our beloved game Diablo. I was playing with my brother till about 1 AM and we got to bed since we were tired. Right in about hour or so our parents started to shout because whole apartment was flooded. There was some pipe broken in Toilet resulting flooding all apartments till 1st floor. Thanks to god we had insurance 😉

PC specification

Processor

Pentium 2 233 MMX - I remember friends were saying “Don’t buy it, because you will never use its power”.

Motherboard

I am not sure but we might got some motherboard on Intel 440BX chipset. I am not sure if it was Asus P2B or something different.

RAM

I don’t remember how much RAM we got back then, but I do remember it was SDRAM 133MHz

Hard Drive

Quantum Fireball 5.25 4,3 or 6.4 GB - I don’t remember exactly. What I do remember is that it was very loud. In one of the PC stores there was instructional video for kids stating that, when you hear noise from HDD it doesn’t mean that PC is talking to you.

Graphic Card

It was S3 ViRGE DX 4MB.

Accelerator

We convinced our parents that having 3Dfx accelerator will allow us to better learn from educational software. So we got our 3Dfx and we were first in our neighborhood to use it. I remember colleagues who saw Quake or Turok with nice textures.

Monitor

If I remember correctly it was Daewoo 518b. It served us for very long time and back then it was good piece of hardware.

Final words

As I mentioned before, this date is very important for me - it brings a lot of memories. As I stated at the beginning - if I wouldn’t get that PC back then I wouldn’t be the person who I am now and I wouldn’t be in the place I am now.

How to install Apple macOS in VMware Workstation on Windows

Fri, 16 Jun 2017 07:00:48 +0000

macOS is a quite popular operating system. I never had an opportunity to work with it prior joining to VMware. From my point of view, Apple makes brilliant hardware and software (with one exception of Finder in macOS). At the moment I am running Windows 10 as a Bootcamp and I am quite happy how it performs. However, there are situations when one would like to evaluate the different operating system. Let it be any Linux flavor or an even exotic system like BSD you can all run them in VMware Workstation. What about the Apple macOS? Unfortunately in VMware Workstation running on Windows by default you can’t run Apple macOS.

Today I will show you how to install Apple macOS in VMware Workstation on Windows.

Before doing any changes please make a backup and remember that changes done aren’t supported by VMware.

In order to run macOS in VMware Workstation on Windows, we will need two things: macOS iso and VMware Workstation Unlocker.

How to convert macOS dmg to iso

To convert macOS dmg file under Windows we will need a tool dmg2img.

Copy macOS dmg file to dmg2img folder.
Open command prompt and type

`1`	`dmg2img macOSfilename.dmg desiredISOname.iso`

That’s it 🙂

Install VMware Workstation Unlocker

VMware Workstation Unlocker fixes/improves few of missing features in VMware Workstation on Windows:

Fix vmware-vmx and derivatives to allow Mac OS X to bootFix vmwarebase .dll or .so to allow Apple to be selected during VM creation
Fix vmwarebase .dll or .so to allow Apple to be selected during VM creation
Fix libvmkctl.so on ESXi 6 to allow use with vCenter
Download a copy of the latest VMware Tools for OS

Probably there are some reasons whyVMware decided to remove macOS compatibility in Windows VMware Workstation. Anyway, let’s **enhance **our VMware Workstation with new capabilities.

Download VMware Workstation Unlocker from GitHub https://github.com/DrDonk/unlocker.
Once downloaded extract it.
Run command prompt with administrative privileges.
Run win-install.bat script.
After few seconds VMware Workstation will be patched.
When you will create new virtual machine macOS will be available.
We must edit virtual machine configuration file vmx and add following entry smc.version = "0".
Once added we can run macOS in VMware Workstation in Windows.

Summary

In Today post I showed you how to install Apple macOS in VMware Workstation on Windows. The process isn’t that complicated and certainly will help some people out there who might want to try out Apple macOS.

How to disable LED’s in Asus AC3200 on Tomato

Wed, 03 May 2017 09:13:01 +0000

This is post is quite different than you usually find on my blog. It is going to be about How to disable LED’s in Asus AC3200 on Tomato.

Asus AC3200 is a very powerful router. I bought it because I wanted to have better bandwidth control (QoS). I chose AC3200 due to the fact that it has three separate wireless interfaces. Last selection factor is that it supports alternative firmware called Tomato. I used tomato on my very old and still working Linksys WRT54G.

How to install Tomato on Asus AC3200 router?

A procedure is very easy. My router originally came with following firmware FW 3.0.0.4.380_3479-g683f27. When I tried to upload Tomato firmware I received immediately this warning: Firmware upgrade unsuccessful. This may result from incorrect image or error transmission. Please check the version of firmware and try again. This is because Asus blocked firmware upgrade.

To skip this I downgraded Asus firmware to WRT-AC3200_30043789529 using ASUS Firmware Restoration utility. Once downgraded flashing Tomato firmware was possible.

How to disable LEDs on Asus AC3200 router?

To disable the LEDs (both wireless interfaces plus all LAN) simply enter following commands via SSH.

et robowr 0x00 0x18 0x1e0
et robowr 0x00 0x1a 0x1e0
wl -i eth1 leddc 1
wl -i eth2 leddc 1
gpio enable 12
gpio enable 15

To enable LEDs enter following commands via SSH.

et robowr 0x00 0x18 0x1ff
et robowr 0x00 0x1a 0x1ff
wl -i eth1 leddc 0
wl -i eth2 leddc 0
gpio disable 12
gpio disable 15

Once enabled they will stay in defined state.

How to schedule LEDs change on Asus AC3200 router?

In Tomato go to Administration / Scheduler and configure scheduler according to your needs. I disable all LEDs at 10PM and enable them at 8 AM.

Summary

I hope this post will be informative for you. If you wish to learn about Asus AC3200 router specification visit this page https://www.asus.com/Networking/RTAC3200/specifications/.

Installing signed SSL certificates in HP c7000 enclosure

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 07:00:15 +0000

Installing signed SSL certificate in HP c7000 enclosure isnt’ difficult thing to do. From my experience most of the time you will spend is to setup Certificate Authority. If you work in bigger company most likely you already have working Certificate Authority. If you don’t have it you certainly can create it.

Here you can find some guides how to install Certificate Authority:

Linux based Certificate Authority https://jamielinux.com/docs/openssl-certificate-authority/
Windows based Certificate Authority http://www.rickroetenberg.com/install-certificate-authority/

Installing signed SSL certificates in HP c7000 enclosure

In my particular setup I used Certificate Authority which use certificate-signing request (CSR). You can read more in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_signing_request.

Generating certificate-signing request in HP c7000 enclosure

Login to enclosure and go to Enclosure Information, expand Active Onboard Administrator and select Certificate Administration. You will see details about your old self signed certificate.
As I mentioned at the beginning we will use CSR request with Certificate Authority. I will not go through CSR signing itself. Switch to Certificate Request tab and select Generate a certificate-signing request (CSR). You need to fill in mandatory fields with asterisk *****.
Country (C)
State or Provice (ST)
City or Locality (L)
Organization Name (O)
Common Name (CN)
Again - if your CA supports additional optional information than by all means use it. Some Certificate Authorities simply strip certificates from that information - it depends how is it configured.
Once you filled all information click Apply and CSR will be generated.
As you can see on picture below CSR is generated.
Once you will upload CSR to your CA and generate certificate from it export it to Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER) format.
Last thing we have to do is to import certificate into Onboard Administrator. Navigate to Certificate Upload, paste your signed certificate and click Upload.
Once certificate is uploaded you will be signed out and SSL certificate will be replaced.
Onboard Administrator is uploading certificate.
Wait until your sessions is reloaded.
As you see my certificate is replaced and valid.

Summary

As you see procedure is fairly simple (besides Certificate Authority itself). What you need to do next is replace standby Onboard Administrator certificate.

HP OneView SSL certificate replacement

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 08:56:35 +0000

In my previous post we configured HP OneView to manage HP c7000 enclosure. Today I will show you how to replace self signed certificate with one from trusted Certificate Authority.

Login to your appliance and in main menu click **Settings.
In Actions menu click Create certificate signing request.
In Certificate Signing Request section fill necessary field - Country, State or province, City. Common name will be taken from appliance settings. Fill only fields which are relevant and used by your Certificate Authority.
Once you fill all fields click OK and you will see base64 encoded certificate request.
Go through certificate approval process and once it is done you can upload signed certificate to your appliance.
In Actions menu click Import Certificate.
Paste base64 encoded certificate into field and click OK.
Wait for certificate import.
Once it is imported click in main Setting menu Certificate.
You will see in your browser that certificate is valid (trusted) and you can view details of you certificate.

This concludes how to install signed SSL Certificate in HP OneView.

VMware vFlash Read Cache configuration and performance test

Tue, 24 Mar 2015 15:30:26 +0000

In previous post I showed you how to configure MLC IO Accelerator from HP (it is basically Fusion IO product branded by HP). Today I will show you how can we use it with VMware vFlash Read Cache.

Benefits of using vFlash Read Cache

Virtual Flash allows you to accelerate virtual machine performance through the use of local SSD disks, which serve flash memory cache to chosen virtual machines running on the ESXi host. Virtual Flash Read Cache can supply low latency for extreme latency sensitive applications, thus enabling the virtualization of some computer systems/applications previously considered too I/O intensive and, therefore, impossible/implausible.

In this picture you can see architecture overview.

vFlash Read Cache configuration

Whole configuration is done using vSphere Web Client.

Navigate to host and click Manage then Settings and Virtual Flash Resource Management and click Add Capacity.
Select your local SSD device - in my case Fusion IO / HP MLC IO Accelerator and click ok.
Once you click Ok you will see it available for virtual Flash Read Cache.

Enable vFlash Read Cache on Virtual Machine

Virtual Flash Read Cache can be configured only using vSphere Web Client. Before you can do it you have to move virtual machine to host which is configured for virtual Flash Read Cache.

Select Virtual Machine you want to accelerate and click Edit.
Select Hard disk you want to accelerate with VMware vFlash Read Cache and expand it.
Click **Advanced **and select:
- Enable virtual Flash Read Cache
- Select desired amount of flash in MB or GB
- Choose block size
Click OK and finish with editing of Virtual Machine.

Virtual Machine preparation

Before we will start any tests I installed Virtual Machine with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2. Here are details about Virtual Machine:

Operating System: Windows Server 2012 R2
vCPU: 1
vRAM: 4GB
SCSI Controller: LSI Logic SAS
Virtual Disk: 40GB Thick Provisioned Eager Zeroed
Virtual Machine Hardware Version: vmx-10
Virtual Flash Read Cache size: 40GB

Performance tests

If you want to heave some meaningful data to analyse we need to do some baseline performance tests.

Performance baseline - test with SQLIO

You can download SQLIO performance tool using this link http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20163.

I installed SQLIO in default directory on my Windows Server system. Open command prompt as Administrator in SQLIO folder and execute command **sqlio -help **to see various options you can specify during test.

I started with changing file param.txt by setting testfile.dat size from 8MB to 39,8GB.

`1`	`E:\testfile.dat 2 0x0 40800`

Next step is to simply create batch file with various parameters to find sweet spot between IOPS and MB/s.

Sequential read SQLIO test

Here is content of batch file:

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o8 -fsequential -b8 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o8 -fsequential -b32 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o8 -fsequential -b64 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o8 -fsequential -b128 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o32 -fsequential -b8 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o32 -fsequential -b32 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o32 -fsequential -b64 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o32 -fsequential -b128 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o64 -fsequential -b8 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o64 -fsequential -b32 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o64 -fsequential -b64 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o64 -fsequential -b128 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o128 -fsequential -b8 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o128 -fsequential -b32 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o128 -fsequential -b64 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o128 -fsequential -b128 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

I started batch file by executing command: sequential_read.bat > sequential_read_results_180.txt. After few minutes we got results to analyze.

Sequential read SQLIO test results

To analyze results I used PowerShell script from Jonathan Kehayias which does pretty nice parsing to Excel file with charts.

Results from Excel:

Chart from data.

ESXi performance chart.

As we clearly see best performance is achieved by using IO size 128 KB, with 32 pending IO. We achieved 526.34 MB per second with average latency 14 ms and 210.76 IOPS.

Random read SQLIO test

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o8 -frandom -b8 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o8 -frandom -b32 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o8 -frandom -b64 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o8 -frandom -b128 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o32 -frandom -b8 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o32 -frandom -b32 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o32 -frandom -b64 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o32 -frandom -b128 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o64 -frandom -b8 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o64 -frandom -b32 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o64 -frandom -b64 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o64 -frandom -b128 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o128 -frandom -b8 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o128 -frandom -b32 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o128 -frandom -b64 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat
  
sqlio -Fparam.txt -kR -t8 -s180 -o128 -frandom -b128 -BH -LS E:\Testfile.dat

Random read SQLIO test results

Results from Excel.

Chart from data.

ESXi performance chart.

As we clearly see best performance is achieved by using IO size 128 KB, with 128 pending IO. We achieved 695.99 MB per second with average latency 45 ms and 5567.95 IOPS.

Performance test with SQLIO accelerated with vFlash Read Cache

I ran the same tests to check what kind of performance boost I will get.

Sequential read SQLIO test results accelerated

Results from Excel.

Chart from data.

ESXi performance chart shows quite strange results.

I checked as well vFlash Cache statistics.

As we clearly see best performance is achieved by using IO size 128 KB, with 128 pending IO. We achieved 828.02 MB per second with average latency 38 ms and 6624.17 IOPS.

Random read SQLIO test results accelerated

Results from Excel.

Chart from data.

ESXi performance chart shows quite strange results.

I checked as well vFlash Cache statistics.

As we clearly see best performance is achieved by using IO size 128 KB, with 8 pending IO. We achieved 821.62 MB per second with average latency 1 ms and 6572.98 IOPS.

Performance results - cached vs no cached

For better view on charts I decided to split results.

Average latency results - sequential read test

Average megabytes per second results - random read test

Average IOPS results - sequential read test

Average latency results - random read test

Average megabytes per second results - random read test

Average IOPS results - random read test

Performance results conclusions

After really long test I can clearly say that I am happy with achieved results. As you see I have quite fast underlying Fibre Channel storage. In my case you see improvement with cached solution pretty much from the beginning of tests in all areas. If your storage is quite slow you will see much better performance increase than me. I hope this post was informative for you and you will test vFlash Read Cache as well with same good results as me.

How to generate new self-signed certificate in HP c7000 enclosure

Mon, 09 Mar 2015 14:36:04 +0000

For a period of days I am working on replacing self-signed certificates in my environment and I found one issue with my enclosure. My certificate authority supports only 2048 Bits Certificate Signing Requests and in my case enclosure had 1024 Bits certificate. I found solution how to quickly fix problem and replace self-signed certificate.

Hardware details:

HP c7000 enclosure

Onboard Administrator: 4.30

How to generate 2048 Bits certificate

Procedure itself is really simple. According to HP documentation http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c03659074 if you reset Onboard Administrator then new key will be generated.

HP info

To switch from 1024-bit to 2048-bit keys you needed to first reset the OA configuration to factory defaults which would cause the generation of new keys.

Certificate generation

Starting from Onboard Administrator version 3.56 you can do it easier.

Simply login to Onboard Administrator using SSH and execute this command

`1`	`generate key all 2048`

You will be asked if you want to regenerate private keys. Answer yes and Onboard Administrator will be restarted.

After restart you will have new fresh 2048 Bits certificate.

Repeat same step for second Onboard Administrator.

HP OneView overview and installation

Wed, 11 Feb 2015 09:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I have worked with HP Hardware (rack and blade servers) for more than five Years. I think that blades and HP enclosure is fantastic product and has wonderful capabilities.

However when your business grows it happens as well with your infrastructure - more and more enclosures are purchased and more blades are deployed. Managing all that stuff starts being difficult. Where is this blade? Do I have same VLAN’s in enclosures? What kind of firmware version I have in enclosure A and in enclosure B?

You probably have same experience as I have so you will really like when I will tell you a bit more about HP OneView. I promise I will not bother you with marketing bullshit but my impression of the tool and some core functions.

The Idea

I believe HP overslept when Cisco announced its blades technology. For me Cisco did perfect thing - in one fabric interconnect you can have up to 320 blades which translates into 40 enclosures you can manage from single UI! This is AWESOME!

HP of courses allowed you to use Enclosure Linked Mode or Virtual Connect Multi Stacking but this is completely different idea introduced in HP OneView. In HP OneView you can connect up to 40 enclosures which gives you maximum of 640 blades you can manage from one single interface!

Features

Pure HTML5 interface
RESTful APIs
Integration with VMware vCenter Server
Server Profiles where you control: firmware, BIOS settings, network connectivity, boot order, iLO settings
Native integration with HP 3PAR storage which allows you to
Templates for components:
- Enclosures - you keep the same configuration across enclosures
- Logical Interconnect group
- Uplink Set
- Network set
One place to monitor up to 40 Enclosures
One place to manage all of your servers
Data center visualization
Asset location
Management and configuration of HP ProLiant servers
SSO to iLO and Onboard Administrator

Licensing and Pricing

HP OneView comes with two licensing models:

HP OneView Standard - used for inventory purposes, health monitoring, alerting and reporting. It supports the following generation of Blades - G6, G7, G8 and G9.
HP OneView Advanced - additional purchase and is licensed per physical server. Can be used free of charge for 60 days.

Support and Compatibility Matrix

One of most important things in corporate environments is support. I recommend to view HP Support Matrix you can view here: HP OneView Support Matrix. In this document you can see as well:

Appliance requirements
Supported hardware
Configuration Maximus

Appliance requirements

HP OneView is delivered as virtual appliance. It requires the following amount of resources:

VMware vSphere 5.*
2 vCPU
10GB of RAM
160GB of disk space

Minimum supported firmware to be able to use OneView:

HP Virtual Connect - 3.15
HP Onboard Administrator -3 .0
HP iLO 3 - 1.2
HP iLO 4 - 1.01

HP OneView installation

Once you downloaded it from HP website you should install OneView, adjust your network settings to existing environment and then you can power on Virtual Machine.

Please refer to one of my earlier post how to deploy OVF Template https://www.wojcieh.net/deploying-ovf-template-using-vsphere-client-and-vsphere-web-client/.

HP OneView startup takes a lot of time so be patient. Once it is up and running we start with accepting HP OneView License.
You can enable Application Support. Basically it allows HP Support to get access to your system through system console to fix issues you reported. Choose appropriate setting and clock OK.
Login to HP OneView using credentials. Username - Administrator, password - admin and click OK.
You will be asked to change default password to new one. Do it and click OK.

HP OneView initial configuration

Once we finished we need to provide several details to complete initial configuration.

Choose FQDN name for HP OneView.
Provide either Manual or DHCP IP address.
Enter Preffered DNS server and alternate DNS server.
Select IPv6 configuration.
In Time and Language section choose right time synchronization setting. You can synchronize time with VM host or use time server.
Select default language and locale settings from the list.
After we finished with initial configuration click OK and wait for HP OneView configuration.
Once your configuration is saved and validated you can login to HP OneView via Browser.

Summary

As I mentioned at the beginning - HP overslept a bit with their management tools. I strongly believe that HP OneView is the tool you will really like to use in your environment. From my side it is pity that it doesn’t support G6 Blades fully - just monitoring purposes. The problem is with mixed environments where you still have some old crappy Unix/Linux production servers nobody want’s to touch and migrate to never hardware.

I like the tool very much and I am using it more and more by daily basis.

Great Job HP!

HP c7000 Blade Enclosure Configuration

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 09:00:33 +0000

Managing you blade infrastructure might be sometimes challenging. I decided to guide you through components of HP c7000 Enclosure and components you can use. After short introduction I went through initial configuration and additional settings which I thing are quite useful.

HP c7000 Enclosure overview

The HP BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure goes beyond just Blade servers. It consolidates server, storage, networking and power management into a single solution that can be managed as a unified environment.

The BladeSystem c7000 enclosure provides all the power, cooling, and I/O infrastructure needed to support modular server, interconnect, and storage components today and throughout the next several years. The enclosure is 10U high and holds up to 16 server and/or storage blades plus optional redundant network and storage interconnect modules.

Intelligent Infrastructure support: Power Discovery Services allows BladeSystem enclosures to communicate information to HP Intelligent PDUs that automatically track enclosure power connections to the specific iPDU outlet to help ensure redundancy and prevent downtime. Location Discovery Services allows the c7000 to automatically record its exact location in HP Intelligent Series Racks, eliminating time-consuming manual asset tracking.

HP BladeSystem Onboard Administrator is the built-in enclosure management processor, subsystem, and firmware base used to support the HP BladeSystem c-Class enclosures and all the managed devices contained within them. Onboard Administrator provides a single point from which to perform management tasks on server blades or switches within the enclosure.

Together with the enclosure’s HP Insight Display, the Onboard Administrator was designed for both local and remote HP BladeSystem c-Class administration.

This module and its firmware provide:

Wizards for simple, fast setup and configuration
Highly available and secure local or remote access to the HP BladeSystem infrastructure
Security roles for server, network, and storage administrators
Automated power and cooling of the enclosure
Agentless device health and status
Power and cooling information and control

Each enclosure ships with an Onboard Administrator module/firmware. HP BladeSystem Platinum Enclosures can be configured with redundant Onboard Administrator modules to provide uninterrupted manageability of the entire enclosure and blades. When two Onboard Administrator modules are present, they work in an active-standby mode, assuring full redundancy of the enclosure’s integrated management.

HP c7000 Enclosure specification

Technical features

System fan features

10 Active Cool 200 Fans

Form factor

8 Full Height Blades/16 Half-Height Blades
Mixed configurations supported

BladeSystems supported

HP ProLiant, Integrity and Storage blades in either mixed or homogenous configurations

Management features

OneView (OV) software License

Power availability

2400W (6) 1 phase Platinum power supply kits

What’s included

(1) HP BLc7000, (6) Power Supplies, (10) Fans, (1) Onboard Administrator with KVM, and, (16) ROHS Full Licenses OneView

Product differentiator

1 Phase 6 Pwr Supplies 10 Fans ROHS 16 OV Lic

Warranty

3/3/3 (parts-labor-onsite)

Dimensions and weight

Dimensions (W x D x H)

75.89 x 60.65 x 101.29 cm (29.88 x 23.88 x 39.88 in)

Weight

136.08 kg (300 lb)

HP c7000 Enclosure interconnects

HP Virtual Connect

HP Virtual Connect is an essential building block for any virtualized or cloud-ready environment. This innovative, wire-once HP connection management simplifies server connectivity, making it possible to add, move, and change servers in minutes vs. hours or days. Virtual Connect is the simplest way to connect servers to any network and reduces network sprawl at the edge by up to 95 percent.

Main two types Virtual Connect modules used by customers are HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric and HP Virtual Connect Flex-10.

HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric

In short word first one act as pass-thru device and is compatible with all other NPIV standards-based switch products. Any changes to the server are transparent to its associated network, cleanly separating the servers from SAN and relieving SAN Administrators from server maintenance.

QuickSpecs

Performance

(8) 2/4/8Gb Auto-negotiating Fibre Channel uplinks connected to external SAN switches
(2) Fibre Channel SFP+ Transceivers included with the Virtual Connect Fibre Channel Module
(16) 1/2/4/8Gb Auto-negotiating Fibre Channel downlink ports provide maximum HBA performance
HBA Aggregation on uplinks ports using ANSI T11 standards-based N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) technology
Allows up to 255 virtual machines running on the same physical server to access separate storage resources
Extremely low latency throughput provides switch-like performance.

Management

Storage management is no longer constrained to a single physical HBA on a server blade
Managed with the Virtual Connect Ethernet Module
Does not add to SAN switch domains or require traditional SAN management
Appears as a pass-thru device to the SAN Manager

Virtual server profiles

Provisioned storage resource is associated directly to a specific virtual machine - even if the virtual server is re-allocated within the BladeSystem
Ability to pre-configure server I/O connections
Ability to move, add, or change servers on the fly
Once defined, SAN Administrators don’t have to be involved in server changes

HP Virtual Connect Flex-10/10D

Performance

16 x 10Gb downlinks to server NICs
Each 10Gb downlink supports up to 4 FlexNICs or 3 FlexNICs and 1 iSCSI FlexHBA
Each iSCSI FlexHBA can be configured to transport Accelerated iSCSI protocol.
Each FlexNIC and iSCSI FlexHBA is recognized by the server as a PCI-e physical function device with adjustable speeds from 100Mb to 10Gb in 100Mb increments when connected to a HP NC553i 10Gb 2-port FlexFabric Converged Network Adapter or any Flex-10 NIC and from 1Gb to 10Gb in 100Mb increments when connected to a NC551i Dual Port FlexFabric 10Gb Converged Network Adapter or NC551m Dual Port FlexFabric 10Gb Converged Network Adapter including NC554FLB Dual Port FlexFabric Adapter
4 x 10Gb cross connects for redundancy and stacking
10 x 10Gb SR, LR, or LRM fiber and copper SFP+ uplinks
Supports up to 4 FlexNICs per 10Gb server connections.
Each FlexNIC is recognized by the server as a PCI-e physical function device with customizable speeds from 100Mb to 10Gb.
Line Rate, full-duplex 600 Gbps bridging fabric
1.0 μs latency
MTU up to 9216 Bytes - Jumbo Frames
Supports up to 128K MAC addresses and 1K IGMP groups
VLAN Tagging, Pass-Thru and Link Aggregation supported on all uplinks
In tunneled VLAN mode, up to 4,096 networks are supported per network uplink and server downlink. In mapped VLAN mode, up to 1,000 networks are supported on network uplinks per Share Uplink Set, domain or module and on server downlinks up to 162 networks are supported per 10Gb physical port (VC v3.30 or later).
Stack multiple Virtual Connect Flex-10/10D modules with other VC Flex-10/10D, VC FlexFabric or VC Flex-10 across up to 4 BladeSystem enclosures allowing any server Ethernet port to connect to any Ethernet uplink

Management

Virtual Connect Manager is included with every module
HTTPS and a secure, scriptable CLI interface is ready out of the box. Easy setup and management via the Onboard Administrator interface
SNMP v.1, v.2 and v.3, provide ease of administration and maintenance.
Port Mirroring on any uplink provides network troubleshooting support with Network Analyzers
IGMP Snooping optimizes network traffic and reduces bandwidth for multicast applications such as streaming applications
Role-based security for network and server administration with LDAP, TACACS+ and RADIUS compatibility
Remotely update Virtual Connect firmware on multiple modules using Virtual Connect Support Utility 1.10.1 or greater
CLI auto-filling with TAB key
GUI and CLI session timeout for security
QoS configurable based on DOT1P and DSCP
Configurable filtering of multicast traffic
sFlow monitoring

Virtual Connect Server Profiles

Create up to 4 individual FlexNICs with their own dedicated, customized bandwidth per 10Gb downlink connection.
Set FlexNIC speeds from 100Mb to 10Gb per connection
Allows setup of server connectivity prior to server installation for easy deployment
Ability to move, add, or change server network connections on the fly
Once defined, LAN and SAN administrators don’t have to be involved in server changes

Fibre Channel Switches

Brocade 8Gb SAN Switch

Advanced Fabric Services

Hardware Enforced Zoning (included)
Dynamic Path Selection (included)
WebTools (included)
Enhanced Group Management (EGM)
Power Pack+ fabric services software bundle (optional)
- Fabric Vision
- ISL Trunking
- Fabric Watch
- Extended Fabrics
- Advanced Performance Monitoring
Secure Fabric OS (included in base FOS)
SAN Network Advisor (optional)

Manageability

WebTools (included)
Enhanced Group Management (EGM)
Advanced Performance Monitoring (optional Power Pack+ upgrade)
HP OnBoard Administrator (included with HP BladeSystem)
HP Systems Insight Manager (included with HP BladeSystem)
HP Storage Essentials (optional)
API
SNMP

Interoperability

Brocade Access Gateway enables Brocade embedded SAN switches to interoperate with other SAN fabrics running supported firmware. While in Brocade Access Gateway mode, the device must also be connected to an NPIV-enabled edge switch or director. Supported edge environments are listed in the Brocade Fabric OS® release notes.

HP c7000 Enclosure configuration

HP c7000 Enclosure configuration - Insight Display

First step to configure enclosure is IP address configuration using Insight Display.

Navigate to Enclosure Settings
Navigate to Active OA and click OK.
Navigate to Active IPv4 and click OK.
Choose proper value - static IP configuration or DHCP and click OK.
Interface will direct you to Accept button. Click OK.
Now you can enter your IP address. It takes a while and after setting IP address go to Accept.
Do the same with second Onboard Administrator module and now we can switch to web based configuration.

HP c7000 Enclosure configuration - First Time Setup Wizard

After you successfully login to enclosure you will be welcome by First Time Setup Wizard. We will go through it since it configure majority of settings.

Check Do not automatically show this wizard again if you don’t want to be bothered again by this wizard. Click Next.
On the next screen you can choose to enable FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) which is in simple words set of standard cryptographic modules. Select it according to your needs.
Select your enclosure and click Next.
If you have previously saved configuration file you can use it to set up enclosure.
Configure Rack Name, Enclosure Name and Date and Time. I suggest to use NTP server to have always up to date time and date settings.
You can change password for Administrator and enable PIN protection before using the enclosure’s Insight Display. Click Next.
In next section we can create additional Local User Accounts. Let us create one just to show you how do we do it. Click New.
Provide User Name, password and Privilege Level. On the right part of the screen choose where user should have access. At the end click Add User.
On the next screen we will configure EBIPA - Enclosure Bay IP Addressing. EBIPA is internal DHCP scope for Blades iLO and devices in enclosure bays (HP Virtual Connect or HP Access Gateway). Click Next.
We need to fill in First EBIPA Address, Subnet Mask, Gateway, Domain and DNS Servers. Next step is to click button Autofill which will fill in whole range.
We do the same for Interconnect Bays and click Next.
You can configure IPv6 in the same way. I skipped this and I moved ahead to next step.
Next step is to configure Directory Groups.
Click New and add Group Name, set privilege level and gave group necessary permissions. After that click Add Group.
Click Next and we will setup Directory Settings.
Select Enable LDAP Authentication and Use NT Account Name Mapping (DOMAIN\username). Provide following settings:
- Directory Server Address.
- Directory Server SSL Port.
- Search Context.
Click Next and we will go ahead to Network Settings.
Provide settings for both Onboard Administrator modules:
- DNS Host Name
- IP Address
- Subnet Mask
- Gateway
- DNS Server 1
- DNS Server 2
Click Next ( I skipped IPv6 configuration) and we will go ahead with next wizard setting.
Almost at the end you can configure SNMP Settings. In my wizard I skipped it.
Last step is to set Power Management settings.
- Power Mode - select AC Redundant, Power Supply Redundant or Not Redundant.
- AC Redundant - In this configuration N power supplies are used to provide power and N are used to provide redundancy.
- Power Supply Redundant: Up to 6 power supplies can be installed with one power supply always reserved to provide redundancy.
- Not Redundant: No power redundancy rules are enforced and power redundancy warnings will not be given.
Dynamic Power - This mode is off by default since the high-efficiency power supplies save power in the majority of situations. When enabled, Dynamic Power attempts to save power by running the required power supplies at a higher rate of utilization and putting unneeded power supplies in standby mode.
Power Limit - Power Limit AC Input Watts over this set limit.
Click Next and you will finish First Time Setup Wizard.

HP c7000 Enclosure configuration - Additional Settings

HP c7000 Enclosure additional settings - Directory Settings

In order to use Active Directory authentication we need to import domain controller certificate into enclosure.

Go to Users/Authentication expand Local Users and click to Directory Settings.
Click on Certificate Upload, paste your certificate and click Upload.
Last step is to test settings. Navigate to Test Settings tab. In order to do it give username and password and click test settings.
After you click Test Settings you have to wait a while for test result.
If everything is set up correctly you should see success. In my case I don’t have Passed in all cases because I can’t ping domain controller, but authentication works.

HP c7000 Enclosure additional settings - Enclosure IP Mode

Similar to Virtual Connect Module, Onboard Administrator support “virtual IP mode”. In simple words it means that by accessing OA you will be always redirected to active OA in enclosure. In order to enable it go to Enclosure Settings click Enclosure TCP/IP Settings and you will find setting in IPv4 Settings tab. Select Enclosure IP Mode and click Apply.

HP c7000 Enclosure additional settings - Onboard Administrator Active/Standby Transition

Another quite useful feature in Onboard Administrator is possibility to switch between Active and Standby OA. In order to switch you simply need to click Transition Active to Standby in Enclosure Settings, Active to Standby.

HP c7000 Enclosure additional settings - Link Loss Failover

Link Loss Failover allows monitoring of network link status of the Active Module. If we enable this function in case Active OA loose network automatic failover to Standby OA will happen. To enable it navigate to Enclosure Settings and click Link Loss Failover. Select Enable Link Loss Failover, provide Failover Interval in seconds and lick Apply.

Summary

This concludes HP c7000 Enclosure configuration. I hope you will find it useful and you enjoyed it.

HP c7000 Onboard Administrator firmware update

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 09:00:27 +0000

Keeping you hardware and software up to date is very important in every environment. Today I will guide you through firmware update in HP c7000 Enclosures.

Onboard Administrator firmware update

The procedure itself is straight forward and there shouldn’t be any problems by executing it.

Login to Onboard Administrator.
Navigate to Active Onboard Administrator and click Firmware Update.
Click Browse and provide path to firmware. Click Upload.
You will see alert that updating Onboard Administrator firmware will cause reboot. Click OK.
Wait for firmware update.
When firmware update is completed Onboard Administrator will be reset.
Flashing takes about 3-5 minutes which is not that long. Onboard Administrator reset takes about the same time. Please remember to clear your browser cache.
After successful flashing firmware will be upgraded.

Onboard Administrator firmware release notes

It is very important to not blindly update firmware and therefore I suggest to read firmware release notes. For example for version 4.30 of Onboard Administrator you can find what has been fixed or what kind of new features are added.

HP Firmware Compatibility Matrix

It is also good to check firmware compatibility matrix. Below you will find current compatibility matrix.

HP Firmware Compatibility Matrix

HP Virtual Connect Module Configuration – Part2

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 08:00:40 +0000

In the second post I will guide you through configuration of networks and providing network connectivity to Blade Servers.

Virtual Connect configuration - Connections

After quite long introduction and setup it is time to setup some networking.

Virtual Connect Connections - Shared Uplink Sets

We start our Virtual Connect Module networking configuration in Shared Uplink Sets section.

Click Add and in next section we have to provide some additional information

Give Uplink Set meaningful name and select ports where you have connected uplinks.

Select LACP Timer - best idea would be to discuss this setting with networking team. Remember that settings configured in Virtual Connect have to cooperate with existing networking infrastructure.

Virtual Connect Connections - Ethernet Networks

Next step is to add VLAN tagged networks in uplink set.

Click Add and provide following information:

Network Name - human friendly network name. For example - Production
VLAN ID: correct VLAN number
Optional: Color and Label
Native - Identifying an associated network as the native VLAN causes all untagged incoming Ethernet packets to be placed onto this network. Only one associated network can be designated as the native VLAN. All outgoing Ethernet packets are VLAN tagged.
Smart Link - Enabling Smart Link configures the network so that if all external links lose their link to external switches, Virtual Connect drops the Ethernet link on all local server blade Ethernet ports connected to that network. This feature can be useful when using certain server network teaming (bonding) configurations.
Private Network - The Private Networks option provides extra networking security. When checked, the network is configured so that all server ports connected to it cannot communicate with each other within the Virtual Connect domain. All packets from servers are sent through the VC domain and out the uplink ports only. Servers on the network can only communicate with each other through an external Layer 3 router that redirects the traffic back to the VC domain.

Virtual Connect Connections - Server Profiles

The last thing to provide networking connectivity to servers we need to create server profile which will have desired networks. In order to do it navigate to Server Profiles and click icon to create new profile.

Next window will open where you can configure networking for blade. Below you see empty profile without any settings.

Server Profile with one network per NIC

Here is sample profile where one network adapter is assigned to one Ethernet network. Simply click **Select a network **and pick it from previously created networks.

I entered following settings:

Profile Name: Your friendly name for profile

Hide Unused FlexNICs: selected

Ethernet Adapter Connections: Select as many networks as required. In my example I have eight network adapters.

Port Speed Type: You can select it according to your needs.

If the speed type is “Auto”, the maximum port speed is determined by the maximum configured speed for the network. If the speed type is “Preferred”, the speed of the network is the same as the preferred speed of the network to which the connection is associated. If no preferred speed is configured for a network, it defaults to “Auto”.

Last thing you have to select is Assign Profile to Server Bay.

Server Profile with multiple networks per NIC

In order to have multiple networks in NIC select **Multiple Networks **and select desired networks from the list.

The last thing to do is select speed for NIC.

And here you can see how complete profile looks like.

Please bare in mind that even though you configured speed for your network connections you will not see it in profile until you power on your server.

Additional resources

In the last section of this post I would like to share with you some interesting links to documentation and guides.

Technical white paper Overview of HP Virtual Connect technologies
HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 10Gb Ethernet Module for BladeSystem
c-Class - overview
HP Virtual Connect for c-Class BladeSystem Setup and Installation Guide
HP Virtual Connect for c-Class BladeSystem User Guide
Virtual Connect for Dummies

HP Virtual Connect Module Configuration – Part1

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 08:00:22 +0000

Welcome to first post about HP Virtual Connect Module configuration. In first post we will focus on initial Virtual Connect Module configuration and some additional settings which are important from my point of view.

What is HP Virtual Connect?

HP developed Virtual Connect technology to simplify networking configuration for the server administrator using an HP BladeSystem c-Class environment. The baseline Virtual Connect technology virtualizes the connections between the server and the LAN and SAN network infrastructure. Virtual Connect adds a hardware abstraction layer that removes the direct coupling between the LAN and SAN. Server administrators can physically wire the uplinks from the enclosure to its network connections once, and then manage the network addresses and uplink paths through Virtual Connect software.

Virtual Connect interconnect modules provide the following capabilities:

Reduces the number of cables required for an enclosure, compared to using pass-thru modules.
Reduces the number of edge switches that LAN and SAN administrators must manage.
Allows pre-provisioning of the network, so server administrators can add, replace, or upgrade servers without requiring immediate involvement from the LAN or SAN administrators.
Enables a flatter, less hierarchical network, which reduces equipment and administration costs, reduces latency, and improves performance.
Delivers direct server-to-server connectivity within the BladeSystem enclosure. This is an ideal way to optimize for east/west traffic flow, which is becoming more prevalent at the server edge with the growth of server virtualization, cloud computing, and distributed applications.
Provides direct-attach SAN and dual-hop Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) capabilities to extend cost benefits further into the storage network.

Configuration prerequisites

I assume that you have:

existing HP enclosure configured with Onboard Administrator
EBIPA is configured so you can access Virtual Connect module
you have local Administrator password for Virtual Connect module

Virtual Connect configuration - initial Wizard

Once you login to Virtual Connect you will see Virtual Connect Manager Domain Setup Wizard. I will guide you through wizard and I will show you additional steps to configure it completely.

On initial screen click Next.
In the next step we have possibility to import previously exported enclosure - or simply its configuration. We skip this step and click next.
Next step is to import enclosure. In the initial configuration Local Enclosure is already pre-selected, we need to provide username and password.
Click Next and wait for enclosure import.
Virtual Connect import is done and now you are ready to create Virtual Connect domain.
In my case I inserted previously used Virtual Connect in other enclosure and I have possibility to use locally discovered domain configuration. However we will create completely new domain.
On confirmation page click Yes.
Wait for import and after a while import will be successful.
It might take up to five minutes to import enclosure and click Next.
Provide name of Virtual Connect Domain and click Next.
If needed create additional Local User Accounts. We will skip this because we will configure Virtual Connect with Active Directory.
Last step in Wizard is the possibility to go through Network Setup Wizard. We will skip this section for now because it will be covered later on.

Virtual Connect configuration - Domain Settings

After clicking Finish you will be redirected to Virtual Connect Manager webpage. In this section we will focus on additional settings.

Virtual Connect Domain Settings - IP Address

In the IP Address section I use Virtual Connect Domain IPV4 Address. In short words this is virtual IP address used to manage both Virtual Connect Modules. If you will use this setting there is no longer need to use per VCM module IP but to use one IP.

Go to Domain Settings and click IP Address. Select Use Virtual Connect Domain IPv4 Address or IPv6. Provide IPv4 or IPv6 address, Subnet Mask and Gateway (for IPv4) and Gateway for IPv6. Click Apply.

You will be logged out and redirected to virtual IP Address you configured.

Virtual Connect Domain Settings - Backup/Restore

Another quite important section is **Backup/Restore. **In here you can backup you entire Domain configuration with encryption key or restore previously configured domain. ,

In my opinion there are two interesting check boxes in restore section:

Ignore enclosure serial number in restored configuration file

Selecting this check box will allow you to restore configuration of entire domain from another Virtual Connect module.
Ignore firmware version in restored configuration file

Selecting this check box will allow you to ignore firmware version during import. Imagine you received new Virtual Connect module with never firmware and you want to have same configuration as the other enclosures.

Virtual Connect configuration - Users/Authentication

Another section I recommend to focus on is Users/Authentication Item. Whenever I can I use Active Directory integrated authentication. Virtual Connect Module is capable of having local and use Active Directory users/groups.

Virtual Connect Users/Authentication - Local User Accounts

If in your environment you can’t use Active Directory authentication local user accounts have to be used.

From the settings above I suggest to use policy **Require Strong Passwords **with minimum 8 characters in passwords. From the usability point of view you might extend session timeout to bigger value than 15 minutes. Besides that you can assign specific user to specific role - for example user A can update firmware and user B can configure domain.

Virtual Connect Users/Authentication - LDAP Settings

In order to use Active Directory authentication you need to provide some information.

LDAP Server Address: provide IP or FQDN to your domain controller or for example Active Directory Load Balancer.

LDAP Server SSL Port: by default LDAPS is using port 636, if changed enter it.

Search Context. You need to provide distinguished name in format: CN=Group Name,OU=OU Name,DC=your domain name,DC=dot something

Use Windows NT Account Name Mapping: If you select this check box you can login to VCM using this format: domain\user. In case you don’t select it you will have to login using this format user@domain.something

Virtual Connect Users/Authentication - LDAP Groups

In this section we need to add new group.

Click add and provide Group Name.

Virtual Connect Users/Authentication - LDAP Certificate

The last thing we need to do is to upload X.509 certificate. You can do it from URL or paste it. Once you have it in click Upload and wait.

After configuration of following setting you will be able to use Active Directory authentication with Virtual Connect Module.

Virtual Connect Users/Authentication - SSL Cerificate Administration

If in your infrastructure you have exisiting PKI infrastructure it is possible to replace self signed SSL Virtual Connect certificate. In order to do it you need to upload it into Certificate Upload tab.

Virtual Connect Users/Authentication - SSH Administration

If you prefer to configure Virtual Connect Module through SSH you can secure it a bit more and use SSH Keys. In section SSH Administration you can paste or download SSH Keys from URL.

In this post we configured our Virtual Connect Module by creating domain and configuring base settings. In next post we will configure network connections and we will provide network connectivity to blades.

HP Virtual Connect firmware upgrade

Sun, 30 Nov 2014 10:52:03 +0000

One of my recent tasks was to upgrade firmware version of virtual connect. I would like to share with you procedure how to do it.

In order to do that you need two things:

Virtual Connect Support Utility. You can download it from HP website: http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c04264271
Virtual Connect Firmware

Backup your domain configuration

I strongly recommend to take backup of your domain / configuration if you will have some problems. In order to do it login to Virtual Connect Manager.

Click Backup / Restore and then click button Backup Configuration.
Wait for the backup file to be generated and save on the disk.

Upgrading firmware

Virtual Connect Support Utility can be installed on Windows or Linux operating system. In my case I have it installed on Windows and I will use it in this post.

To upgrade firmware first you need to download it and then start VCSU utility. For convenience I put firmware into VCSU folder.

Navigate to directory where is it installed and double click vcsu.exe.
Enter update.
Provide Onboard AdministratorIP Address.
Provide Onboard Administrator Administrator username.
Provide Onboard Administrator Administrator password.
Put location of firmware.
Click enter twice and when you are asked about activation order proceed with default order(odd-even) or select manually how do you want to do it.
If you have VCM with Fibre Channel take same approach like you did before about activation order according to your needs.
Please enter time in minutes between activating and rebooting VC modules. I suggest to have at least 5 to 10 minutes between flashing modules.
Do the same for Fibre Channel modules.
You will be asked for Virtual Connect Module administrative credentials. Provide username and password and click enter.
You will see summary of your existing configuration. Confirm upgrade by entering Yes.
Process will take some time so be patient and wait.
In my case it took 51 minutes to perform update.
After update your browser session will be disconnected and you need to login again.

HP MLC IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class installation and configuration

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 11:54:15 +0000

One of my recent tasks at work was to test **HP 365GB MLC IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class **in order to accelerate Database workloads on Virtual Machines.

HP MLC IO Accelerator for BladeSystem c-Class overview

A few words at the beginning why do we want to accelerate anything. It is taken from HP website because they wrote it nice and it is easy to understand.

Solid State Storage Technology can provide customer benefits in several different areas and with different architecture implementations. It offers high performance and reliability with no moving parts, low power and cooling requirements and improved environmental tolerance.

Use cases for IO acceleration:

Databases that historically were run in memory or across many disk spindles for performance reasons
Seismic data processing
Business Intelligence and Data mining
Real-time financial data processing and verification
Content caching for near-static data for file/web servers
3D animation/rendering
CAD/CAM
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution
Hypervisor running a large number of virtual machines

Quickspecs about IO Accelerator itself can be viewed using this link http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=c04128314

In my opinion, IO accelerators are very useful when you have to accelerate mission critical applications. The biggest advantage over traditional Solid State Drives (SSD) is that they are placed very close to CPU and RAM so latency is decreased from milliseconds to microseconds.

Driver downloads

In order to download correct driver select you device and follow links on HP website. As the time of writing of this post, I used a driver called scsi-iomemory-vsl-55L-3.2.6.1219-offline_bundle-1377365.zip and libvsl-1.0.0-550-offline-bundle.3.2.6.1219.zip.

Driver installation

In order to install the driver, we need to copy the driver to local storage and install it from there. You can do it by browsing datastore and uploading driver or copy it using SCP.

After drivers are copied we execute installation command:

1
2

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/ESXi01/scsi-iomemory-vsl-55L-3.2.6.1219-offline_bundle-1377365.zip
esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/ESXi01/libvsl-1.0.0-550-offline-bundle.3.2.6.1219.zip

After installation ESXi host has to be rebooted. In order to verify if VIB is installed execute the fio-status command.

Fusion IO configuration

Final steps before we can use it:

First, we need to detach it by executing command fio-detach /dev/fct0
We need to format it by executing command fio-format /dev/fct0
We attach it by executing command fio-attach /dev/fct0

After that, your Fusion IO accelerator is accessible by your host.

In the next post, I will show the configuration of VMware vFlash Read Cache and how to use it with Virtual Machines.

How to fix Hardware Status Add-in Card 10 35-GPU warning

Wed, 22 Oct 2014 08:52:15 +0000

Issue

Today I found that several of my ESXi servers running on HP Blade bl460c G8 had warning in Hardware Status tab in vSphere client.

Followed by alert hostname.local Alert Host IPMI System Event Log status 10/22/20143:12:51 AM.

I checked enclosure and Blade IML log and there was no problem at all. I was a bit puzzled and I tried to clear warning by resetting sensors, but it didn’t help.

Fortunately for me, I found a way how to fix it.

Solution

In order to fix issue there are several ways to fix / clear issue:

Go to Configuration/ Security Profile/ Services / Properties and restart CIM Server Daemon. In my case, I received time out to do it so I simply did it again and it worked.

Login using SSH to your ESXi server and execute the following command /etc/init.d/sfcbd-watchdog restart
Reboot server

After restarting service you just need to reset sensors in Hardware Status tab and all will return to normal state.

Virtual Home Lab Upgrade

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 20:19:53 +0000

Since almost a month I am very happy user of new hardware. Finally after 5 years my previous PC was replaced. All equipment I bought was

Processor: Intel Core i5 4670
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme6
Memory: Corsair DDR3-1866 CL10 Vengeance 32GB
GPU - Built in HD 4600
Hard Drive: Samsung 840 Pro Series 512GB

On top of it I use Windows 8 Pro which I bought as upgrade and for virtualization I use VMware Workstation 9. Windows is deployed on wickedly fast Samsung SSD (Windows boots in 4-6 seconds) and I also have other “older” HDD which later one will be used as iSCSI storage for VM’s running on storage (I will implement storage tiers(Gold, Silver, Bronze)).

Usage

Pretty simple - ESXi hosts with nested VM’s, I will use VLAN’s, I will test LACP, storage tiers, stateless ESXi, SRM and many other things.

If you are interested in any specific design or software to test just drop me email.

HP c7000 Onboard Administrator LDAP Active Directory authentication

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 20:54:32 +0000

Since quite a long time I have a pleasure to work with HP Enclosures c7000 and c3000. HP Blades with enclosures is the really great enterprise solution. Over the years I found difficult to manage multiple enclosures with local users and this is where integration with Active Directory makes your life simpler. In few steps, I will guide you how to integrate Onboard Administrator with Active Directory LDAP.

Prerequisites:

Active Directory group with users is created
Domain Controller network traffic (LDAP over SSL) is allowed
Domain Controller Computer certificate is valid,

In order to configure Active Directory LDAP authentication login to Onboard Administrator with local username and password and navigate to Users/Authentication and click Directory Settings.
Please fill fields with following settings: Directory Server SSL Port: 636 Search Context:CN=OA Administrators,OU=Administrator Groups,OU=Administrators,DC=yourdomain,DC=whatever,DC=itis You need to provide OU where Active Directory group is created. For example ? group OA Administrators is located in yourdomain.whatever.itis/Administrators/Administrator Groups/ OU and search context for this group will be). If you don’t know how to find it just run simple dsquery from command line: dsquery group -samid “Group Name”
Search Context 2-6: You can provide up to six groups Search Context if needed.
Select Enable LDAP Authentication
Select Use NT Account Name Mapping (DOMAINusername) - if you will not select this field you will have to login to Onboard Administrator using username@domain format instead of DOMAINusername
Next step is Domain Controller certificate upload. First you need to obtain it from Domain Controller. You can obtain it using following ways:
In browser type https://Domain Controller:636, then view the certificate and select Copy to File and export it to .CER Base-64 encoded X.509 format.
The second way to obtain the certificate is to login to Domain Controller and start mmc and select Certificates Personal for Local Computer and open it. Next, go to Details tab and select Copy to File and export it to.CER Base-64 encoded X.509 format.
After the certificate is exported, open it with notepad and copy file content to clipboard. Navigate to Certificate Upload tab and paste it to field and press Upload button.
In order to check if Active Directory authentication will work go to Test Settings tab and provide domain credentials and press Test Settings.
If test sare passed then Active Directory authentication is configured correctly.:

Directory Server IP Address
Connect to Directory Server
Connect using SSL
Certificate of Directory Server

Next step is to create Directory Groups. The group should reflect Active Directory group created before. In order to create it go to Users/Authentication Directory Groups and create the group. Assign the group to desired bays in the enclosure.
Test if LDAP authentication works.

How to see hidden adapter IP settings in Windows

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:04:40 +0000

Have you ever lost something and found it in last place where you expect to find it? Well it happened to me as well several times (I even tried to pray to Saint Anthony - patron of lost things) and it is true that some things are lost as well in IT world.

Few days ago I found out, that some of my VM’s are version 4 and they should be version 7. I powered them off quickly and then upgraded Virtual Machine hardware to version 7. Piece of cake - vCenter Server informed me that VMware Tools are outdated (I didn’t knew that they are from ESX 3.5) and I confirmed that I want to do upgrade. What could go wrong huh?

Well, VM’s started fine - no big deal. Next day ticket came to me that VM’s lost its IP configuration. Damn, I am busted - this is because of this HW upgrade. I thought no big deal - setting new IP is no big deal, and I thought I will remove flexible adapter with proper VMXNET3. That part was easy, but no one had old IP configuration of VM’s.

Microsoft KB http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315539 is helpful when you want to remove old network adapter (don’t do it yet) but it doesn’t say how to find old IP configuration.

Here is hint how you can find it.

Start regedit and then navigate to key located in HKEY\LOCAL\MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces and find your Interface with configuration.

Then you can easily set your missing NIC IP settings.

Servers memory configuration tool

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:26:45 +0000

Did you ever have a problem with memory modules which are laying in you stock? Or perhaps you had requirement from customer to fill server with not standard amount of RAM? If yes you are lucky one because major server suppliers provide documentation and some useful tools.

One of this tool (besides official documentation) is online memory configuration. It is very easy to use, you just need to follow steps explained in details and you will get what you need.

I was looking for information if it is possible to mix memory for HP Blade BL460c G6 and yes you can do it. My google skills are pretty much amazing so after several minutes I found what I was looking for.

Below you can find memory configuration tools for major brands:

HPE - http://h22195.www2.hpe.com/DDR4memoryconfig/Home/LEGAL
IBM - It is gone :(
Dell - http://www.poweredgecpumemory.com/

All of those tools are pretty much the same. You can provide CPU count, desired RAM size, current memory configuration and so on. All of them will summarize server configuration with memory placement instruction which might be helpful for not so experienced administrators.

I suggest testing tools with “not standard” amount of RAM - for example 140GB. Results are pretty interesting.

Let me know what you think about those tools and if they helped you a bit.

Dell Vostro 3350 – wrażenia po dwóch miesiącach użytkowania

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:56:29 +0000

Dell Vostro 3350 to laptop który mam dzisiaj przyjemność opisać. Kupiłem go w zasadzie dla swojej żony bo jej stary laptop nie dawał już rady nawet z kilkoma stronami w Firefoxie. Laptop którego szukałem miał być nieduży, lecz zapewniać przyzwoitą wydajność nawet w prostych grach - oczywiście to założenie dla mnie.

Po przeglądnięciu zasobów wyszukiwarek i allegro zdecydowałem się na ww. model.

Oto krótka charakterystyka podzespołów ułożona według priorytetów:

matowa matryca LED o rozmiarze 13,3″ i rozdzielczości 1360 x 768
pamięć RAM 8GB DDR3 1333 MHz
procesor Intel Core i5-2450M
grafika ATI 6490M 1GB RAM
500GB dysk 7200 RPM
aluminiowa obudowa
klawiatura odporna na zalanie
wydajna rozszerzona bateria

Dokładna specyfikacja znajduje się oczywiście na stronie Dell Vostro 3350.

Jakie są moje wrażenia z użytkowania tego laptopa? Postaram się na to pytanie odpowiedzieć w kilku zdaniach.

Obudowa

Wykonana jest z aluminium i sprawia wrażenie solidnej. Po dłuższym użytkowaniu stwierdzam, że rzeczywiście tak jest ale prawdziwą opinię będę mógł wydać po co najmniej rocznym użytkowaniu laptopa. Obudowa nie trzeszczy ani nie skrzypi, górna pokrywa zamyka się lekko i nie trzeba się siłować by ja otworzyć. Jedną z wielkich zalet obudowy jest to, że nie widać na niej każdego odcisku palca - pod tym względem jest świetnie.

Dużą uwagę przykładałem do zawiasów - w poprzednim laptopie żony dwa razy zostały one urwane. W Vostro porusza się jedynie klapa co mam nadzieję zminimalizuje ryzyku uszkodzeń. Gdy poruszamy klapą jest małe wrażenie bezwładności, lekkiego chybotania - ciężko mi to opisać. Z pewnością zawiasy nie są zrobione tak idealnie jak w moim poprzednim firmowym laptopie: Lenovo ThinkPad 410 te zawiasy będę wspominał bardzo mile.

Ekran

Jak już pisałem wcześniej laptop ma wielkość ekranu 13,3’ i potrzeba kilku dni aby przyzwyczaić się do mniejszego ekranu. Obraz nie jest jakość specjalnie jasny - widziałem i używałem jaśniejsze - tu można by matrycę poprawić. Co do kątów widzenia to nie zauważyłem jakichś specjalnych problemów.

Kolory są w porządku jednak na moim stacjonarnym dość leciwym już monitorze z matrycą IPS NEC 20WGX2 jest zdecydowanie ładniejszy.

Nie mogę się jednak przyzwyczaić do widoczności pikseli - jak dla mnie są widoczne - czyżby zbyt słabo upakowane?

Codzienne użytkowanie

Laptop posiada dosyć żwawy procesor Intel Core i5 i 8GB ramu. W połączeniu z dosyć żwawym dyskiem dostajemy całkiem wydajnego laptopa. System operacyjny (zainstalowany Windows 7 x64) startuje szybko i bardzo szybko przechodzimy do ekranu logowania. Laptop dosyć dobrze radzi sobie z wieloma kartami otwartymi w Chrome czy Firefox.

Świetnie natomiast działa i wygląda klawiatura. Jest to typ wyspowy z podświetleniem - są trzy tryby podświetlenia (wyłączone, podświetlnenie słabe, podświetlenie mocne). Działa ono również bardzo intuicyjnie - gdy nieużywamy chwilę laptopa wyłącza się, gdy tylko dotkniemy klawisz od razu podświetla się.

Minusem natomiast jest dosyć częste właczanie się wiatraka - nawet podczas przeglądania stron www.

Gry

Jak sami wiecie mobilne karty graficzne nie są demonami szybkości - jednakże na ATI 6490M z 1GB RAM można zagrać w najniższych detalach w gry komputerowe. Osobiście miałem przyjemność grać w: Cywilizację 5, Diablo 3 i Torchlight 2. Cywilizacja trochę przymulała ale dało się grać, w Diablo 3 jak najbardziej można grać natomiast Torchlight 2 można odpalić na maksymalnych ustawieniach.

Multimedia

W stacjonarnym komputerze mam kartę graficzną Nvidia i bałem się trochę romansu z ATI. Obawy okazały się prawdziwe - odtwarzanie filmów i seriali w formacie avi i mkv było problematyczne. Oczywiście winny okazał się odtwarzacz - finalnie wszystko najlepiej odtwarzane jest w KMPlayer. Poprzednie programy (VLC i Media Player Classic) okropnie zamulały odtwarzany materiał. Po zmianie odtwarzacza na KMPlayer wszystkie materiały, nawet 1080p odtwarzane są płynnie.

Bardzo fajną sprawą jest połączenie HDMI i karty graficznej, natychmiast po podłączeniu komputera do telewizora dźwięk jest do niego transmitowany. Upraszcza to zdecydowanie użytkowanie i konfigurację.

Bateria

W opisywanym laptopie zastosowana jest powiększona ośmiokomorowa bateria o pojemności 80Wh. Przy włączonym trybie zarządzania energią **Balanced **laptop wytrzymuje około 4 godzin (www, Youtube). Nie sprawdzałem jeszcze wytrzymałości przy graniu.

Podsumowanie

Laptopa kupiłem za 2749 -5% cashback z Alior Sync czyli za ~ 2611 zł co jest bardzo dobrą ceną. Z laptopa jestem zadowolony i zdecydowanie kupiłbym go jeszcze raz.

Poniżej kilka zdjęć ze strony Dell.

Zarzadzanie hasłami w środowisku korporacyjnym

Tue, 29 May 2012 09:49:16 +0000

W dobie wszechobecnych problemów z bezpieczeństwem sami wiecie, że długie i złożone hasła są bardzo ważne.

W dzisiejszym wpisie chciałbym przedstawić Wam komercyjne rozwiązanie jakim jest produkt firmy Thycotic Secret Server.

Jak to działa?

Secret Server zainstalować można zainstalować na następujących systemach operacyjnych:

Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003 R2
Windows XP
Windows Server 2008 32 i 64 bitowe
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Vista Business / Ultimate
Windows 7 Professional / Ultimate

Do działania wykorzystywana jest baza sql oraz IIS instalowany w systemie operacyjnym. Wszystkie dane są szyfrowane algorytmem AES 256 i haszowane SHA512 - produkt spełnia również normy FIPS 140-2.

Demo

Krótkie demo produktu zobaczyć można pod tym adresem http://www.thycotic.com/secretserver_movie.html.

Czy jest to produkt dla mnie?

Produkt ten nie jest dla “zwykłego śmiertelnika” - zdecydowanie jest przeznaczony dla większych firm i korporacji. W dużych firmach gdzie administratorzy zarządzają dużą ilością serwerów dosyć często pojawia się problem haseł.

kto zna hasło do danego systemu?
kiedy ostatnio hasło było zmieniane?
złożoność hasła
znajomość haseł przez osoby niepowołane

Są to oczywiście jedynie wybrane przeze mnie zagrożenia jednak według mnie jedne z ważniejszych.

Dlaczego wybrałbym Secret Server?

Przede wszystkim polecam zapoznanie się z licencjonowaniem i zalecam wybranie edycji od wersji Professional. Wersja ta posiada integrację z Active Directory co w środowisku korporacyjnym jest niezwykle ważne (integracja z Active Directory pozwala pozbyć się lokalnych użytkowników). Bardzo ciekawie prezentuje się zarządzanie dostępem do haseł - możemy tworzyć foldery, dodawać role użytkowników do konkretnych folderów.

Kolejną z ciekawych funkcji jest możliwość uruchamiania konsoli SSH (np. PuTTY) czy RDP bezpośrednio do danego systemu z oprogramowania. Bardzo podoba mi się możliwość wymuszenia automatycznej zmiany haseł do systemów (urządzenie / system powinien mieć dostęp przez telnet lub ssh) oraz możliwość tworzenia skryptów.

Wspierane systemy do automatycznej zmiany haseł to:

Windows Local admin
Active Directory
UNIX/Linux/Mac (incl. root)
MS SQL Server
Oracle
Sybase
MySQL
VMware ESX
DSEE
Cisco
Juniper
Enterasys
WatchGuard
Check Point
Dell DRAC
HP iLO
OpenLDAP
SSH / Telnet

Przykładowa zmiana hasła na urządzeniu Cisco http://support.thycotic.com/KB/a251/heartbeat-and-remote-password-changing-for-cisco-accounts.aspx?KBSearchID=22719.

Produkt posiada również wiele innych funkcji, których nie będę wymieniał - link do wszystkich funkcji http://www.thycotic.com/products_secretserver_featurelist.html

Zachęcam Was do testów programu (bądź innych programów tego typu) gdyż może on rozwiązać wiele problemów przy niewielkim nakładzie kosztów.

HP BladeSystem Administration: c-Class – wrażenia po szkoleniu

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:00:45 +0000

W ostatnim tygodniu miałem przyjemność uczestniczyć w szkoleniu HP BladeSystem Administration: c-Class przeprowadzanym w Centrum Edukacyjnym HP w Warszawie.

W tym roku miałem dosyć ciężki wybór szkolenia ponieważ Compendium i Combidata wprowadziły szkolenia z tabletami. Niestety w Compendium szkolenia HP nie łapały się na tablet. Biorąc pod uwagę swój rozwój wybrałem jednak szkolenie HP BladeSystem Administration: c-Class.

Na szkoleniu chciałem przede wszystkim poznać serwery Blade i usystematyzować posiadaną już wiedzę.

Samo szkolenie poruszało tematy serwerów z serii ML, Blade, obudowy c3000 i c7000, serwery pełne i połówkowe, konfiguracja Onboard Administratora, iLO i wiele wiele innych. Plan szkolenia można zobaczyć tutaj http://h41156.www4.hp.com/education/details.aspx?cc=pl&ll=pl&id=8700.

Szkolenie mogę ocenić dobrze, jest dobrze napisane i dla osoby, która nie miała styczności z serwerami HP Blade jak najbardziej się przyda. Dla osób, które miały już do czynienia z Blade szkolenie może okazać się za proste i mogą być niezadowolone. Dla tych osób ciekawszym szkoleniem może być Implementing HP ProLiant ML/DL/SL & HP BladeSystem.

Minusy szkolenia w mojej opinii to:

w ogóle nie przygotowane laboratorium wirtualne - pomieszane IP, nie działające połaczenia
brak ćwiczeń na serwerach fizycznych - niestety takie są trendy

Plusy szkolenia:

prowadzacy zrobił z nami dodatkowy moduł i ćwiczenia z Virtual Connecta - super sprawa

iLO2 dodanie nowego użytkownika

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:07:08 +0000

W poprzednim wpisie o iLO2 pisałem jak zresetować hasło administratora https://www.wojcieh.net/reset-hasla-ilo2/. Jeżeli w jakiś sposób nie udaje Ci się reset hasła administratora, to można spróbować dodać nowego użytkownika, którym możemy normalnie zarządzać serwerem. Oto w jaki sposób można tego dokonać:

Utwórz plik add_user.xml w folderze C:Program FilesHPhponcfg
Wklej poniższy tekst do pliku gdzie super_seret_password! to nowe hasło

<RIBCL VERSION="2.0">
<LOGIN USER_LOGIN="Dontcare" PASSWORD="UsingAutologin">
 <USER_INFO MODE="write">
   <ADD_USER
     USER_NAME="newuser"
     USER_LOGIN="newuser"
     PASSWORD="super_seret_password!">
     <ADMIN_PRIV value ="Yes"/>
     <REMOTE_CONS_PRIV value ="Yes"/>
     <RESET_SERVER_PRIV value ="No"/>
     <VIRTUAL_MEDIA_PRIV value ="Yes"/>
     <CONFIG_ILO_PRIV value="Yes"/>
   </ADD_USER>
 </USER_INFO>
 </LOGIN>
</RIBCL>

Otwórz linię poleceń i zmień katalog na C:Program FilesHPhponcfg
Uruchom polecenie HPONCFG.exe /f add_user.xml /l log.txt > output.txt
Ciesz się nowym użytkownikiem

Źródło

Reset hasła iLO2

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:30:42 +0000

Witam,

dzisiejszy wpis jest krótki, lecz treściwy.

Potrzebowałem zresetować hasło do iLO (Integrated Lights-Out) na serwerze HP do którego hasło niestety się zapodziało.

Po chwili szukania w sieci udało znaleźć się działający przepis:

Utwórz plik password_reset.xml w folderze C:Program FilesHPhponcfg
Wklej poniższy tekst do pliku gdzie newpass to nowe hasło

<RIBCL VERSION="2.0">
  <LOGIN USER_LOGIN="Administrator" PASSWORD="unknown">
    <USER_INFO MODE="write">
      <MOD_USER USER_LOGIN="Administrator">
        <PASSWORD value="newpass"/>
      </MOD_USER>
    </USER_INFO>
  </LOGIN>
</RIBCL>

Otwórz linię poleceń i zmień katalog na C:Program FilesHPhponcfg
Uruchom polecenie HPONCFG.exe /f password_reset.xml /l log.txt > output.txt
Ciesz się nowm hasłem 🙂

Podświetlana klawiatura A4Tech KL-126 BLACK – opinia i wrażenia

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:00:37 +0000

Pierwszy wpis w roku 2011 zacznę od opisu klawiatury A4Tech KL-126 BLACK , którą niedawno zakupiłem.

Wstęp

Poszukiwania klawiatury w moim przypadku trwały dosyć długo. Początkowo skłaniałem się ku klawiaturom w stylu Apple - jest to tak zwany układ wyspowy. Klawisze w charakterystyczny sposób wystają z klawiatury.

Jednakże po obejrzeniu klawiatury Razer Marauder zachorowałem na klawiaturę z podświetleniem. Niestety produkt Razera jest stanowczo za drogi (ponad 300 zł) zacząłem poszukiwania rozwiązania ekonomicznego. Tak oto znalazłem w sieci dwa produkty A4Tech KL-126 BLACK oraz Tracer Exclusive Shine. Z tych dwóch firm wybrałem A4Tech bo miałem wcześniej do czynienia z produktami tej firmy a Tracer nie przemawia do mnie jakością.

Wygląd i układ klawiszy

Klawiatura posiada standardowy układ klawiszy. Po prawej stronie nad blokiem numerycznym posiada przycisk włączania i wyłączania podświetlenia. Z innych klawiszy, które posiada klawiatura to przycisk hibernacji nad klawiszem Escape (mógłby być zamieniony z klawiszem do podświetlenia - czasem w ferworze walki można niechcący zhibernować sobie komputer) oraz cztery klawisze multimedialne (następny utwór, poprzedni utwór,stop pause /play). Klawiatura jest dosyć niska ale nie powinien to być dla nikogo problem.

Podświetlenie

Podświetlenie ma ciekawy (oczywiście rzecz gustu) niebieski kolor. Nie jest zbyt krzykliwe i nie przeszkadza w używaniu klawiatury. Jedyny mankament do, którego mógłbym się przyczepić to jego nierównomierność.

Jakość i wykonanie

Wykonanie, jak na klawiaturę za około 60zł nie jest złe. Klawisze mają krótki skok - podobny do laptopowych klawiatur. Pisze się na niej przyjemnie i nie odnotowałem żadnych przykrych niespodzianek podczas jej użytkowania. Jedynie czasami lewy klawisz shift i spacja nie reagują na wciśnięcia (może wciskam za lekko) ale kolejne mocniejsze wciśnięcie już działa ok.

Podsumowanie

Podsumowując klawiatura warta jest swojej ceny i jestem z niej zadowolony.

System nie wykrywa poprawnie pendrive – rozwiązanie problemu

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 15:52:57 +0000

W dniu dzisiejszym dostałem od kolegi na pendrive materiały do nauki. Nie byłoby w tym wydarzeniu nic szczególnego poza jednym małym faktem. Otóż kolega używa systemu firmy Apple Mac OS X i musiał sformatować mojego pendriva, który miał format plików NTFS do FAT.

Po szybkim formacie już w domu gdy przyszedłem po całkiem pracowitej niedzieli okazało się, że system nie rozpoznaje pendrive. Byłem bardzo zdziwiony bo takich problemów nie powinno być. Nie dbając zbytnio o materiały na pendrive chciałem go sformatować ale pojawił się pewien problem. Otóż podawany rozmiar przez Windowsa to 200MB co jest nieprawdą bo pendrive ma 16GB.

Na pierwszy rzut poszedł Windowsowy manager dysków - tutaj pierwsza porażka. Kolejnym krokiem była próba użycia diskpart. Niestety diskpart również nie poradził sobie z usunięciem partycji na pendrive. Mając na czarną godzinę zachowany obraz Ubuntu wrzuciłem go szybko na maszyne wirtualną i próbowałem naprawić błąd. Co prawda przy użyciu gparted udało mi się usunąć partycje jednak każda próba utworzenia nowej nie udawała się.

Byłem już trochę wkurzony bo przecież nie robiłem z pendrivem jakichś dziwnych czynności. Ale na szczęście udało się znaleźć rozwiązanie.

Rozwiązaniem problemu okazał się program HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool do ściągniecią możliwy np stąd.

Program jest bardzo prosty jednakże w 100% rozwiązuje problem.

Program ten bez żadnych ceregieli naprawił partycje na pendrive i dzięki temu dalej mogę się cieszyć swoim sprzętem.