Install VIB on VMware ESXi

Today I got my shiny new host for the homelab. After installing ESXi, I noticed the 10 Gbit NICs weren’t being detected. After looking around a bit I found the drivers in the form of a VIB. Start by uploading the VIB to a datastore that is accessible to the host. Turn on the SSH service in the security section and fire up a session. Once connected run esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/NAS1-iSCSI/net-ixgbe_4.4.1-1OEM.600.0.0.2159203.vib ...

29 June, 2016 · 1 min · Maarten Van Driessen

How to upgrade an IRF stack – incompatible firmware

When upgrading HP Comware switches that are part of an IRF stack, you want to use In Service Software Upgrade (ISSU). This allows you to do a rolling upgrade of the firmware while limiting the impact to just 1 switch in the stack. ISSU will reboot 1 switch in the stack, wait for it to come back up and then moves on to the next switch. Types of ISSU There are 3 types of ISSU: ...

24 May, 2016 · 3 min · Maarten Van Driessen

When DFS Replication goes wrong…And how to fix it

A while back a client of ours had some issues with DFS replication between 2 nodes. One of the members reported a backlog of over 1 million files! Upon further investigation, I found the DFS database on that node got corrupted which caused it start the initial sync again. We let the process run it’s course over a couple of days but noticed the progress was incredibly slow. We were averaging about 3000 files / hour. After some quick math, it’d take about 16 days before the sync completed. And that’s not taking into account anyone working on the file servers. ...

8 March, 2016 · 3 min · Maarten Van Driessen

Setting up IPSec VPN between Fortigate and Axsguard

If you’ve ever had the “pleasure” of building an IPSec tunnel between 2 endpoints from different vendors, you’ll know how smooth that usually goes. Today I was building a tunnel between a Fortigate 70D and an Axsguard Gatekeeper, as you can guess, things didn’t go as planned. Fortigate Let’s start by creating the tunnel on the Fortigate. Create a new tunnel and select the Custom VPN Tunnel template. Next, fill in all the phase 1 settings. In this example, I’m using 3DES and SHA1. While 3DES is still considered as secure, I would recommend against using it in production, mainly because of the speed. If you want to use the public IP address as the local ID, leave the field empty. Fortigate will automatically send its public IP as the local ID. Keep this in mind when you’re behind a NAT device. ...

3 March, 2016 · 2 min · Maarten Van Driessen

Using VLANs on Fortigate 30D

While setting up a new Fortigate 30D for a client, I wanted to add a new VLAN for the guest Wi-Fi network. Usually, you just go into Network - Interfaces and add a new Interface there. On the 30D however, this option wasn’t there. After changing the device from switch mode to interface mode and back, I figured you can’t do it in the GUI. The only way to do it on a 30D is by using the CLI. ...

26 February, 2016 · 1 min · Maarten Van Driessen

Word 2013 High CPU usage

Late last week I had a client call me about Word acting slow. After a quick checkup, I noticed that Word was using 25 - 40% CPU. I hadn’t received any other reports so I assumed it was a one-off and recreated the document. This sorted the issue for that particular computer. Today I got the same report from a dozen more people. I started digging around in the documents that were having issues and noticed a drop in CPU usage when removing the header and footer. More specifically, removing images or objects in the header and footer. ...

16 February, 2016 · 1 min · Maarten Van Driessen

0 min · Maarten Van Driessen