Friday, September 28, 2018

Netagear ReadyNAS, NFS datastore, VMware VSphere ESXi and VCenter

How to create an NFS volume to be used as a datastore for VMware environment with a NetGear Ready NAS

Login to the Netgear Ready NAS as the admin
Under Settings – Enable NFS
Create a Share - and name it
Then select the Settings of the Share
Select Network Access select NFS- check off read/write
                Note: You can also limit the host by IP that can have access to this share
File Access - check off read/write
Make sure that you note the volume name. You will need this when you are entering the folder name in the NFS mount process. Note the volume name may differ depending on the version of your Netgear ReadyNAS firmware version, etc. in this example it is Data


Open VCenter VSphere client or VSphere Web Client to create a new datastore for your VMware environment. Make sure that include the volume name and the folder share name when you are entering the folder name in the VMware NFS datastore mount process. The key point is to use the proper syntax for the folder name when you are putting in the information for the folder name In my example I used /Data/VMs
Note: Caps and correct spelling really, really count and of course the correct syntax as you see above J
For Server you can enter an IP address or the FQDN
Type in a name for the VMware datastore name

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

How to change SID on a Windows Server 2016

Open Powershell as Administrator and type Whoami /all
Get the SID information and record it somewhere
Run C:\windows\system32\sysprep\Sysprep.exe
This will bring up the System Preparation Tool (sysprep)
Select Enter System Out of Box Experience (OOBE) and Select Generalize 
Reboot the Server
Open Powershell as Administrator and type Whoami /all
Verify that the SID changed from the one that you recorded earlier
Change the Static IP or DHCP /release if applicable
DHCP /renew if applicable
Change the computer name if applicable and Reboot

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

WIndows Server 2016 VMTools installaiton with VSphere 5.5 host

How to get the VMTools properly installed on W2K16 Server running onVSphere.5.5
First of all yes I know that VSphere 5.5. is not officially supported anymore. However, for lab purposes I often have to do what I have to do :-) to do my testing. I am also aware that this may be old news but as I run into new scenarios I like to post a simple fix if I can.
When you install the new Windows 2016 VM you will have to choose Windows 2012 (64bit) as your operating system. Note: You do not have a choice to select 2016 as the server OS>
VCenter will show that the VMTools are not running on your Windows 2016 server however, you have already installed them -What to do?
No worries it is a simple thing-
Uninstall VMTools and Reboot the Windows 2016 Server
Install the VMTools as Administrator another words right-click on the VMTools setup64.exe and select Administrator and then reboot the Windows 2016 server. VCenter will now display that the VMTools are running on the Windows 2016 server- Success!.