The problem Today I wanted to kick off a ‘Product Inventory Sync’ of my global environment in Lifecycle Manager before performing some upgrades. But, after a few minutes it failed. The error message suggested that I check to see if the root password had expired. When I logged...
If you just want the script without the reading, download it here Integrating Ansible into vRA is a fantastic feature and not that hard to setup. VMware document the process themselves, and there are other numerous blog posts covering it as well, like this one or this one....
Recently I needed to create a connection to a Windows server and perform some operations on it. From there I wanted to run commands on the Windows server itself, and I didn’t want to have to worry about double hop WinRM issues from PowerShell. I wanted something flexible...
Whilst working with a customer to provide extensibility through ABX actions, I came across a documented issue that I wasn’t previously aware of. Whilst testing an ABX action I received the following error message: abx-service [host=’abx-service-app-5c578445f7-j2w6m’ thread=’parallel-47′ user=” org=” trace=” component=’GatewayActionProvider’ method=’convertExceptions:437′ actionRunI d=’8a7480a179b68ffb0179e552568b1e1a’ context=’87aad62e-0d90-4a61-b265-8b3720239a00′ tokenId=’8eb4435a-be1f-4921-9ca3-d809625dce4c’ parentTokenId=’8bdaa86c-1a01-4714-8c8f-9b1d41a5d98f’] c.v.a.a.p.i.g.Gate...
I have been playing around with vra8 actions for a while now and whilst it is a handy function, I have found some issues with the PowerShell implementation. However, Python based actions seem to execute just fine. Whilst playing around I came across what looked like a really...
Introduction In this post I will be providing you with a Code Stream pipeline that is capable of exporting all pipelines in your Code Stream instance, committing them into a GitHub repository and pushing the commits back to GitHub. Assumptions I have made a few assumptions that...
Introduction In this post I will be providing an example of how to make REST API calls from Code Stream obtain an API token from the vRA 8.3 REST api obtain a list of Cloud Accounts registered with vRA filter for a specific Cloud Account on vRA ...
Introduction In this post I will be detailing a simple Code Stream pipeline that will build a new Centos7 template using Packer. The key points to this blog post are as follows: Use of Code Stream pipelines to organise sequential and parallel tasks Use of Packer to create...
Having installed Puppet Enterprise in my home lab I decided I should hook it up to my vRA 8.3 installation using the native integration feature. Doing a quick Google search yielded a clear and simple blog post that outlined how to configure it for vRA 8.1. Following this...
Recently I have been having some fun and games with vRA 8.2, in particular, with the extensibility capabilities. With the introduction of PowerShell support for vRA actions, I thought I would have a little play and see what I could break. I’m On A MetaData Hunt.. Ok, so...
After deploying the NSX-T manager in my lab (I have a project coming up which will require me to automate some of the NSX-T configuration) I found that appliance had not installed properly. The services were not started correctly, no web UI and errors in the console about...
Whilst working on creating a new Packer deployment set with version 1.6.2, I had some strange issues whereby the Windows Server 2019 ISO on my vSphere datastore would randomly not connect. I admit I did scratch my head a bit on this one. Through some ‘Google-Fu’ I found...
Of late I have been playing with Terraform and the vRA 8 provider. Although I have found quite a few bugs with the provider (I’ll log those soon) it certainly is a great start! I have captured a quick demo below where I configure settings on a brand...
Puppet provide a really great learning experience free of charge for everyone in the form of the Puppet Learning VM. The VM includes Puppet Enterprise, Puppet Server, Bolt and a bunch of virtual clients (thanks to incorporating Docker) for you to use to become more familiar with the...
Attached to this post you will find a JSON file that can be imported into Postman. The import will give you a collection called ‘AutomationPro-vRA8’ which contains 19 example requests for using against a VMware vRA 8 install. Although there are many more requests that can be made,...
Since the announcement of VMware vRealize 8, migration has been a popular topic. I don’t mean deployment of vRA8 itself; that is handled [editor: very nicely I might add] by the new version of VMware Lifecycle Manager. Follow the wizard and sooner rather than later you will have...
VMware vRealize Automation 8 is a leap forwards and certainly a far cry from what we all knew as vRealize Automation 7.x. A new code base with a new look, if you have any familiarity with VMware vRealize Automation Cloud (formerly Cloud Automation Services) software as a service...
Like most I need ‘something’ of a home lab for learning, testing and developing solutions on. My requirements are pretty straightforward. I mainly need a simple vSphere setup with vRA, vRO and a Windows Domain Controller providing Active Directory, DNS and DHCP. I had been running various VMs...
Recently I have been working with a financial industry customer who is all in on Automation, however it became apparent quite early on that they haven’t standardised their processes. Now, in day to day running’s and operations of a business – particularly IT – this might not be...
I thought I would share two videos [editor: very basic, excuse the quality!] showing the use of Terraform to manipulate vSphere infrastructure. I recommend watching both videos ‘full screen’ for best effect [editor: and with popcorn if you have any, preferably sweet] Video1 – vSphere Infrastructure...
