Ahhh, it seems like replacing SSL certificates in vSphere is a never-ending process. My vSphere farm was not prompting me about untrusted SSL certs until I installed the NetApp Virtual Storage Console. Using the template from my previous posts, however, I was able to quickly update VSC's certs using a combination of …

Replacing ESX SSL is the easiest of all the vSphere components, in my opinion. Unlike vSphere 5.1, you can use Microsoft's Web Server SSL template, and there's no need to use the Java keytool or reregister the service with SSO.

Below is a script I use in conjunction with my vSphere/PowerShell Replace SSL script.

This …

While it took quite awhile to figure out how to replace vSphere 5.1 and 5.1U1's SSL certs, converting that script to work with 4.1U3 and 5.0. It probably helps that SSO doesn't exist (or I couldn't find it -- I haven't used vCenter on a regular basis since about 2006, but I've learned quite a bit from these SSL …

One month ago when I finally got my vSphere lab set up, I had no idea that getting rid of those annoying untrusted SSL errors would be such a colossal undertaking. I have my own domain CA and thought it would be easy to automate the process of replacing the self-signed vSphere SSl certs with my own trusted certs.

At …

This is sort of a continuation of my earlier post, Importing Windows Forwarded Events into SQL Server using PowerShell, where I mentioned that I was unable to get the script to work on Windows 2008 R2 due to a known bug in Get-WinEvents. I had to end up deploying my solution to a Windows 2008 R2 Server and was required …

I know the ideal Enterprise network won't have any SQL Server Express instances, but every large network that I've ever worked on has at least a few. Many times, it's powering apps like SolarWinds or BackupExec. Since SQL Express doesn't run SQL Agent, it can be a pain to backup and maintain the systems.

There are a …

Update: You can't even independently schedule slave jobs. Count my organization as yet another that won't be implementing MultiServer Administration. Grrr.

I always forget about Multiserver Administration. I've actually never worked in an environment that uses it, even though it seems to have a lot of potential. I …

So it seems like the best way to go about centralizing Windows Events in an Enterprise is to use GPO, but if you can't or don't want to involve Active Directory GPOs, here's a guide on using one server to go out and collect Windows Events from other servers on your domain.

Things you'll need: Windows Server 2012 or …

Over the past couple weeks, I've looked into a number of ways of parsing and importing Windows Forwarded Events into SQL Server: from using SSIS to LogParser to PowerShell to setting up a linked server to the "Forwarding Events.evtx" file.

Ultimately, the only thing that worked was PowerShell's Get-WinEvent …

Read this updated post instead. It's superior in a number of ways ;)

Alright, so I've wanted to setup a Remote Desktop Gateway for years, but the configuration seemed so.. time-intensive. Then I moved to Belgium, my living situation changed and I didn't want to setup a whole new VPN server to access my virtual lab. …