Bring up a network interface without an IP address in Debian
by lunarg on September 13th 2022, at 12:26
It is possible to automatically bring up a network interface without any IP address configuration in Debian. This can be useful for e.g. traffic flow monitoring where the interface is subsequently placed in promiscuous mode by software such as tcpdump.

Like always, all network interface configuration is stored in the file /etc/network/interfaces. For the interface you want to bring up without an IP address, add these lines:

iface eth0 inet manualpre-up ifconfig $IFACE uppost-down ifconfig $IFACE down

If the interface is a VLAN interface, the up/down commands must be executed after/before the VLAN hooks, so it should then read:

iface eth0.2 inet manualpost-up ifconfig $IFACE uppre-down if  ...
 
Direct links to macOS installers
edited by lunarg on September 1st 2022, at 10:01

Here's a list of direct download links to the latest macOS installers. They are all links to Apple's servers, either direct links to the App Store, or, in case of older versions, links to Apple's CDN.

Direct links to App Store:

Older versions are only available as DMG files from Apple's CDN:

 
Static binary of tcpdump
by lunarg on April 27th 2022, at 15:41

If you need to perform packet captures on virtualized appliances, it can be useful to get a statically linked binary of "tcpdump" on hand, especially because tools such as a compiler or package repositories are not on hand on those appliances.

You can download the latest statically linked binary of "tcpdump" via Github:

https://github.com/yunchih/static-binaries/blob/master/tcpdump

 
Error java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException when joining vCenter to AD
by lunarg on March 28th 2022, at 12:43
When attempting to join your vCenter appliance to AD, you may get the following error message when clicking the Join button:

Error
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException

This is known behaviour when running vCenter with an external Platform Service Controller (in HA mode) but the issue may persist even after upgrading vCenter to a new version with the option to switch to an embedded PSC. You can work around the issue by performing the domain join from the CLI (through SSH):

Connect to the vCenter appliance through SSH (if it's still an external PSC, connect to that instead).

Unless shell access is already activated, use the shell command to enter the regular shell.

Run the followin  ...
 
Required firewall settings for provisioning Snom phones using SRAPS
by lunarg on February 24th 2022, at 11:32

To successfully provision Snom phones using SRAPS, you'll need these access using these servers and protocols/ports.

  • To secure-provisioning.snom.com (52.28.89.237), open outbound port HTTP and HTTPS (TCP 80 and 443).
  • For XML-RPC API, also open outbound port 8080.
 
GUI Service temporarily unavailable on DataDomain
by lunarg on February 7th 2022, at 10:18
When attempting to log onto a Data Domain's management webpage, sometimes you may run into the issue where you are not able to log on, and the following error appears, even though you have not upgraded the firmware or there's nothing wrong with installed SSL certificates.

Service Not Available
The GUI Service is temporarily unavailable. Please refresh your browser. If the problem persists, please contact DataDomain support for assistance.

While the webpage does not work, it is still possible to log on using CLI (through SSH).

If you have not upgraded DDOS, try restarting the web services by logging on through CLI and running the following commands in sequence:

adminaccess disable httpadm  ...
 
Enable/disable automatic storage reclamation (VMFS unmap) via PowerCLI
by lunarg on November 19th 2021, at 13:28
In VMware, using VMFS-6 as the datastore filesystem introduces automatic storage reclamation. This process, also called "VMFS unmap" runs in the background (by default at low priority so it doesn't interfere with performance) to clear allocated unused storage space by sending "unmap" commands to the underlying storage so it can reclaim the blocks for other uses.

Sometimes it may become necessary to (temporarily) turn off (or on, if it's turned off already) storage reclamation on a datastore. You can do this through the WebClient but if you want to change this for a bunch of datastores, you can also do this via PowerCLI. While the latter is pretty complicated, William Lam  ...
 
Prevent VMware Tools auto-update in Fusion
by lunarg on November 17th 2021, at 16:17
By default, VMware Tools are automatically updated when power-cycling a VM each time a new version is available. This may not be desirable, and currently, there is no way to change this behaviour anywhere in the settings. This setting can however by changed manually on a VM-basis, by manually editing the VM's configuration file (.vmx).

Although there's mention of a global setting in Fusion's configuration files, many users report this as not working, so I only mention the per-VM setting here.

First, make sure your VM is not running. Preferably, close VMware Fusion entirely (⌘ + Q).

Using Finder or Terminal, navigate to the VM folder. When using Finder, you'll need to right-click you  ...
 
 
 
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