My Favorites Visual Studio Code Plugins

When i begon with scripting using PowerShell ISE for Coding.

PowerShell ISE and Visual Studio Code are free coding tools from Microsoft.

But when Visual Studio Code was released back in 2015 i was switching to that. Powershell ISE i still use on a daily base for some basic tasks.

But with de Extenions list for Visual Studio Code getting better and better scripting is much faster and without errors and easyer to read.

The list with favo extensions is getting bigger en bigger.
Which makes my live a little easyer and helpfull.

So the list of my Favorites:
Prettier – Code Formatter
TODO Highlight
Code Spell Checker
Dutch – Code Spell Checker
Code Snap
Error Lens
Hashicorp HCL
HashiCorp Terraform

Because AI is hot I ám currently testing the following plugins
ChatGPT
GitHub CoPilot
GitHub CoPilot Chat

Using the ChatGPT/CoPilot plugins makes scripting even faster

Updated ouut-of-band (OOB) updates are released for March 2024 for Windows Server Domain Controllers

Microsoft has identified an issue that affects Windows Server domain controllers (DCs), and has expedited a resolution that can be applied to affected devices. Out-of-band (OOB) updates have been released for some versions of Windows today, March 22, 2024, to addresses this issue related to a memory leak in the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS). This occurs when on-premises and cloud-based Active Directory domain controllers service Kerberos authentication requests.

This issue is not expected to impact Home users, as it is only observed in some versions of Windows Server. Domain controllers are not commonly used in personal and home devices.

Updates are available on the Microsoft Update Catalog only. These are cumulative updates, so you do not need to apply any previous update before installing them, and they supersede all previous updates for affected versions. If your organization uses the affected server platforms as DCs and you haven’t deployed the March 2024 security updated yet, we recommend you apply this OOB update instead. For more information and instructions on how to install this update on your device, consult the below resources for your version of Windows:

  • Windows Server 2022: KB5037422
  • Windows Server 2019: Available soon
  • Windows Server 2016: KB5037423
  • Windows Server 2012 R2: KB5037426

Note: The OOB release for Windows Server 2019 will be released in near term.

Windows Server 2025 “Preview” deployment with Packer

As Windows Server 2025 Preview is officially released, I wanted to test a  automated build of the Windows Server 2025 Preview release. So that I can deploy this in my home lab and going to test the new features if I can find the time….

About Hashicorp Packer

Hashicorp Packer is a self-contained executable producing quick and easy operating system builds across multiple platforms. Using Packer and a couple of HCL2 files, you can quickly create fully automated template(s) with latest Windows Updates en VMware Tools. When you schedule a fresh builds after patch Tuesday  you have always an up-to-date and fully secured template.

When using VMware customization tools. You can spin up vm’s in minutes.

Automated Windows Server 2025 “Preview” Build

Files you need?
The files and versions I am using at the time of this writing are as follows:

Outside of downloading both Packer and Windows Server 2022 Preview build, you will need the following files:

  • windowsserver2025.auto.pkrvars.hcl – houses the variable values you want to define.
  • windows2025.json.pkr.hcl – the Packer build file
  • Answer file – Generated with Windows System Image Manager (SIM) you can download the file below
  • Custom script file(s) – optional

Other considerations and tasks you will need to complete:

  • Copy the Windows Server 2025 ISO file to a vSphere datastore

Windows Server 2025 unattend Answer file for the automated Packer Build

Like other automated approaches to installing Windows Server, the automated Windows Server 2025 Packer build requires an answer file to provide answers to the GUI automatically and other installation prompts that you normally see in a manual installation of Windows Server.

You will find the scripts here: https://github.com/WardVissers/Packer-Win2025

The only problem that I had was: Switching from Nic from Public to Private

# Set network connections profile to Private mode.

Write-Output ‘Setting the network connection profiles to Private…’

do {

    $connectionProfile = Get-NetConnectionProfile

    Start-Sleep -Seconds 10

} while ($connectionProfile.Name -eq ‘Identifying…’)

Set-NetConnectionProfile -Name $connectionProfile.Name -NetworkCategory Private

Windows Server 2025 Preview (Build: Canary 26052)

I had some time to check out the new version of Server 2025.

For the full upcomming features check: https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/f3901190-1154-45e3-9726-d2498c26c2c9?source=sessions

Download Server 2025 Preview: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windowsinsiderpreviewserver

Server 2025 will come with a lot of features (My Top 20+):

  • General – Server 2022 upgrade to .vNext (Controled bij GPO)
  • Hot Patching (Arc Enabled, Monthly Subscription)
  • Active Directory – 32k page
  • Active Directory – Numa
  • Active Directory – LDAP TLS 1.3
  • Active Directory – Improved Security for Confidential Attributes
  • Active Directory – Active Directory LDAP prefers Encryption bij Default
  • Active Directory – Kerberos Support for AES/SHA256/384
  • Active Directory – Changes to Default behavior of legacy SAM RPC Spassword change methods
  • Active Directory – Kerberos en KPINT Support cryptographic agility
  • Active Directory – New AD Forest en Domein Level (Minimal Server 2016 requirement)
  • Storage – NVME 70%/90% peformance increase
  • File Server – SMB over Internet (Quick Protocol)
  • File Server – More Control over SLTM
  • File Server – SMB Limitor (Enabeld bij Default)
  • File Server – Signing by Default
  • File Server – Minimum version SMB
  • File Server – More Secure Bij Default (Netbios disabled bij default)
  • RDS – M365 Apps stil supported for every Windows Server release 2-3 years
  • Finance – General support and Pay-as-you-go Support

Need to find some time to dig in

Handy link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-server-insiders/announcing-windows-server-preview-build-26040/m-p/4040858

Excalidraw replacement for Microsoft Visio?

Sometimes you want to make a design of something.
A whiteboard is then very handy. In most cases you would to like to use Microsoft Visio.
But on my home pc I don’t have Visio. A free alternative is Excalidraw.

You can draw some thing cool like this: (This for Demo only has no function)

A diagram of a computer network Description automatically generated

Highlight some libraries.excalidraw.com:

IT icons
Microsoft 365 icons
VMware Architecture Design
Veeam
Veeam unofficial
Technology Logos
Fortinet
Kubernetes Icons Set
Microsoft Azure cloud icons
Misc Azure Icons
Azure General
Azure Compute
Azure Storage
Azure Containers
Azure Network
Azure cloud services icons
Cloud

Would be nice if we see more venders on the list.

Deploy Windows Core Server 2022 with Server Core App Compatibility Feature on Demand with Packer

I while ago I started with parker to create simple templates for use in my homelab.

It take some time to find the rights scripts and learning en understanding the HCL2 coding

But in related to Security reasons I want to use a Windows Core Server the smaller footprint.

What is Server Core App Compatibility Feature on Demand: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/server-core-app-compatibility-feature-on-demand

Installing Features on Demand through Powerschell contains a bug. You may see “failure to download files”, “cannot download”, or errors like “0x800F0954” or file not found.

To Solve that I created I powerschell script to run the install twice: featuresondemand.ps1

You can find al the needed files on my Public Github Packer repository: https://github.com/WardVissers/Packer-Public

When running is showing like this:

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It works for now, but there is one thing that would the hole thing a quiet nicer.
Passwords encrypted in a separate file.

VCF 5.0 running inside Nested ESXi server with only 64GB Memory

So I interested to trying to deploy latest release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 5.0 on my Windows 11 Home PC witch have 128GB and 16 core intel cpu.

William Lee wrote a nice artikel about VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 running on Intel NUC

Disclaimer: This is not officially supported by VMware, please use at your own risk.

Requirements:

  • VMware Cloud Builder 5.0 OVA (Build 21822418)
  • VCF 5.0 Licenses Through VMUG ADVANTAGE
  • Home PC (Not Special Hardware)
    – 128GB Memory
    – Intel 12600 CPU
    – 4TB of NVME Storage
  • Windows 11 with VMware Workstation 17

Setup

Virtual Machines

  • DC02 (Domain Controller, DNS Server) (4GB 2vcpu)
  • VCF-M01-ESX01 (ESXi 8.0 Update 1a) (64GBGB 1x140GB 2x600NVME 2x NIC) (Every Thin Provisiond)
  • VCF-M01-CB01 (4GB and 4CPU) Only needed through First Deploment

Network settings on my PC

  • 1 IP In my home network
  • 172.16.12.1 (To Fool Cloudbuilder)
  • 172.16.13.1 (To Fool Cloudbuilder)

Procedure:

Install en Configure ESXi

Step 1 – Boot up the ESXi installer from de iso mount and then perform a standard ESXi installation.

Step 2 – Once ESXi is up and running, you will need to minimally configure networking along with an FQDN (ensure proper DNS resolution), NTP and specify which SSD should be used for the vSAN capacity drive. You can use the DCUI to setup the initial networking but recommend switching to ESXi Shell afterwards and finish the require preparations steps as demonstrated in the following ESXCLI commands:

esxcli system ntp set -e true -s pool.ntp.org
esxcli system hostname set –fqdn vcf-m01-esx01.wardvissers.nl

Note: Use vdq -q command to query for the available disks for use with vSAN and ensure there are no partitions residing on the 600GB disks.
Don’t change time server pool.ntp.org.

To ensure that the self-signed TLS certificate that ESXi generates matches that of the FQDN that you had configured, we will need to regenerate the certificate and restart hostd for the changes to go into effect by running the following commands within ESXi Shell:

/bin/generate-certificates
/etc/init.d/hostd restart

Cloudbuilder Config

Step 3 – Deploy the VMware Cloud builder in a separate environment and wait for it to be accessible over the browser. Once CB is online, download the setup_vmware_cloud_builder_for_one_node_management_domain.sh setup script and transfer that to the CB system using the admin user account (root is disabled by default).

Step 4 – Switch to the root user and set the script to have the executable permission and run the script as shown below

su –
chmod +x setup_vmware_cloud_builder_for_one_node_management_domain.sh
./setup_vmware_cloud_builder_for_one_node_management_domain.sh

The script will take some time, especially as it converts the NSX OVA->OVF->OVA and if everything was configured successfully, you should see the same output as the screenshot above.

A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated

Step 4 – Download the example JSON deployment file vcf50-management-domain-example.json and and adjust the values based on your environment. In addition to changing the hostname/IP Addresses you will also need to replace all the FILL_ME_IN_VCF_*_LICENSE_KEY with valid VCF 5.0 license keys.

Step 5 – The VMnic in the Cloud Builder VM will acked als a 10GB NIC so I started the deployment not through powershell but normal way in Cloud Builder GUI.

Your deployment time will vary based on your physical resources but it should eventually complete with everything show success as shown in the screenshot below. (I have one retry for finish)
A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated A screenshot of a cloud support Description automatically generated
Here are some screenshots VCF 5.0 deployment running on my home PC.

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A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated

Problems

Check this if you have problems logging in NSX:
https://www.wardvissers.nl/2023/07/26/nsx-endless-spinning-blue-cirle-after-login/

Next Steps.

1. Reploy with use of the Holo-Router https://core.vmware.com/resource/holo-toolkit-20-deploy-router#deploy-holo-router

2. Testing if can deploy Single Host VCF Workload Domain, on same way by following this blog post HERE! 😁
A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated

If I can start another 64GB ESXi Server.

NSX endless spinning blue cirle after login

After Upgrading NSX in my Homelab from from 3.2.0.1 to 4.0.1.1 I had weird issue. Also when I deployed my VCF5 lab
When I log in the NSX manager I had endless spinning blue circle
Tried different browsers Chrome/Firefox.

A blue and white circle Description automatically generated

Solution: Setting the Browser back to English.. Works

Chrome.

A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated

And it works again

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Source: Link

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 is Here

The VMware Cloud Foundation team is pleased to announce the availability of VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0

Waiting for VMUG Advantive to be updatet & Finding the time to test it out.

Powercli Delete Orphaned Edge Transport Nodes

I made a little mistake on my Lab Environment. There fore it was required to clean up my last unremoveable edge server.

Sow i made a little powercli script

RemoveOrphanedEdge.ps1

# https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/892835
# https://virtuallyjason.blogspot.com/2020/11/using-nsx-t-api.html

$nsxfqdn = Read-Host “Give the IP of the FQDN from your NSX Server”
if (!($creds)){

$creds = Get-Credential -Message "NSX-T Administrative Credentials:"

}
$base64Creds = [Convert]::toBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes(“$($creds.username):$($creds.GetNetworkCredential().password)”))
$header = @{Authorization = “Basic $base64Creds”}
$uri = “https://$nsxserver”

# Check API Connection

invoke-webrequest -uri “$uri/api/v1/spec/openapi/nsx_api.json” -headers $header -SkipCertificateCheck

# Clean Stale Entries

invoke-webrequest -uri “$uri/api/v1/transport-nodes?action=clean_stale_entries” -headers $header -Method ‘POST’ -SkipCertificateCheck

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