Using Let’s Encrypt DNS-01 challenge validation with local BIND instance

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I’m using Let’s Encrypt certificates for a while now. In the past, I used the standalone plugin (TLS-SNI-01) to get or renew my certificates. But now I switched to the DNS plugin. I run my own name servers with BIND, so it was a very low hanging fruit to get this plugin to work.

To get or renew a certificate, you need to provide some kind of proof that you are requesting the certificate for a domain that is under your control. No certificate authority (CA) wants to be the CA, that hands you out a certificate for google.com or amazon.com…

The DNS-01 challenge uses TXT records in order to validate your ownership over a certain domain.… Read more

EAPoL forwarding on NEC VoIP phones

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A customer is running their PCs behind their VoIP phones. Nothing unusual, most VoIP phones I know have an embedded ethernet switch, so that you only need one cable to connect PC and VoIP phone to your network.

As part of a network security project, my colleague and I implemented IEEE 802.1X port-based Network access control at one of our customers networks. The setup consists of multiple Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise OmniSwitches (6450-P10 and 6860/E) and Aruba ClearPass.

We noticed, that mac-address based authentication worked all the time, but 802.1x fails constantly if the client was connected to a VoIP phone (NEC DT700).… Read more

Powering on a VM with shared VMDK fails after extending a EagerZeroedThick VMDK

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I hope that you are not reading this blog post while searching for a solution for a failed cluster. If so, feel free to leave a comment if this blog post saved your evening or weekend. :)

Last friday, a change at one of my customers went horribly wrong. I was not onsite, but they contacted me during the night from friday to saturday, because their most important Windows Server Failover Cluster was unable to start after extending a shared VMDK.

They tried something pretty simple: Extending an virtual disk of a VM. That is something most of us doing pretty often. The customer did this also pretty often. It was a well known task… Except the fact, that the VM was part of a Windows Server Failover Cluster.… Read more

What is in the bag?

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Michael White published the third release of his “What is in the bag” blog post. In reference to this, I would like to share the content of my bag.

I used a RIMOWA Salsa business trolley for several years. Unfortunately, it broke in June 2017 and a repair was refused by RIMOWA. I was very disappointed of the product quality and the customer service experience with RIMOWA.

I decided to switch to a backpack, which felt much more comfortable than carrying or pulling the RIMOWA trolley.

Since November 2017, I’m using an Eastpak Floid Ash Blend2. It is a small backpack, with just enough space for my equipment.… Read more

Office 365 – Outlook keeps prompting for password

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This is only a short blog post to document a solution for a very annoying problem. After the automatic update of my Outlook to the latest Office 365 build (version 1809), it has started to prompting for credentials. I’m using Outlook to access a Microsoft Exchange 2016 server (on-premises), without any hybrid configuration. A pretty simple and plain Exchange 2016 on-prem deployment.

I knew, that it has to be related to Office 365, because the Outlook 2016 on my PC at the office was not affected. Only the two Office 365 deployments on my ThinkPad T480s and ThinkPad X250.

To make this long story short: ExcludeExplicitO365Endpoint is the key!… Read more

Vembu BDR Essentials – affordable backup for SMB customers

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It is common that vendors offer their products in special editions for SMB customers. VMware offers VMware vSphere Essentials and Essentials Plus, Veeam offers Veeam Backup Essentials, and now Vembu has published Vembu BDR Essentials.

Backup is important. There is no reason to have no backup. According to an infographic published by Clutch Research at the World Backup Day 2017, 60% of all SMBs that lost all their data will shutdown within 6 months after the data loss. Pretty bad, isn’t it?

When I talk to SMB customers, most of them complain about the costs of backups. You need software, you need the hardware, and depending on the type of used hardware, you need media.… Read more

Exam prep & experience: VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization Deployment Exam (VCAP6-DCV Deploy)

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TL;DR: I have passed the VCAP6-DCV Deploy exam today. :) I want to thank Fred, Dominik, Frank and Jens-Henrik for kicking my ass. Without you, I would have taken the VCP 6.5 delta exam. Thank you!

As often, the whole thing started with a tweet. A tweet about my expiring VMware Certified Professional (VCP) certification.

Time to prepare the VCP-DCV 6.5 Delta. Otherwise my VCP expires in a couple of months.
— Patrick Terlisten (@PTerlisten) June 30, 2018

To my surprise, several of my followers recommended to go for the VCAP6-DCV Deployment instead. Okay, so many smart people can’t be wrong.… Read more

The one stop solution for backup and DR: Vembu BDR Suite

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I have worked with a lot of backup software products during my career, but for the last years I have primarily worked with MicroFocus Data Protector (former HP OmniBack, HP Data Protector, or HPE Data Protector), and Veeam Backup & Replication. Data Protector was a great solution for traditional server environments, or when UNIX (HP-UX, AIX, Solaris etc.) compatibility was required. Features like Zero Downtime Backups, LAN-free or Direct SAN backups were available for many years. But their code quality has suffered severely in the recent years. The product no longer seemed like a one-stop shop.… Read more

Backup from a secondary HPE 3PAR StoreServ array with Veeam Backup & Replication

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When taking a backup with Veeam Backup & Replication, a VM snapshot is created to get a consistent state of the VM. The snapshot is taken prior the backup, and it is removed after the successful backup of the VM. The snapshot grows during its lifetime, and you should keep in mind, that you need some free space in the datastore for snapshots. This can be a problem, especially in case of multiple VM backups at a time, and if the VMs share the same datastore.

Benefit of storage snapshots

If your underlying storage supports the creation of storage snapshots, Veeam offers an additional way to create a consistent state of the VMs.… Read more

CloudFlare API v4 and Fail2ban: Fixing the unban action

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In January 2017, I wrote an article about how to protect your WordPress blog using the WP Fail2Ban plugin, fail2ban on your Linux/ FreeBSD host, and CloudFlare. Back then, the fail2ban was using the CloudFlare API V1, which was already deprecated since November 2016.

Although the actions were updated later to use CloudFlare API V4, I still had problems with the unbaning of IP addresses. IP addresses were banned, but the unban action failed.

This is the unban action, which is included in fail2ban (taken from fail2ban-0.10.3.1 which is shipped with FreeBSD 11.1-RELEASE-p10):

actionunban = curl -s -o /dev/null -X DELETE -H 'X-Auth-Email: <cfuser>' -H 'X-Auth-Key: <cftoken>' \
            https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/user/firewall/access_rules/rules/$(curl -s -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Email: <cfuser>' -H 'X-Auth-Key: <cftoken>' \
            'https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/user/firewall/access_rules/rules?mode=block&configuration_target=ip&configuration_value=<ip>&page=1&per_page=1' | cut -d'"' -f6)

actionunban = curl -s -o /dev/null -X DELETE -H 'X-Auth-Email: <cfuser>' -H 'X-Auth-Key: <cftoken>' \

https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/user/firewall/access_rules/rules/$(curl -s -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Email: <cfuser>' -H 'X-Auth-Key: <cftoken>' \

'https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/user/firewall/access_rules/rules?mode=block&configuration_target=ip&configuration_value=<ip>&page=1&per_page=1' | cut -d'"' -f6)

And this is the unban action, which finally solved this issue:

actionunban = curl -s -o /dev/null -X DELETE -H 'X-Auth-Email: <cfuser>' -H 'X-Auth-Key: <cftoken>' \
            https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/user/firewall/access_rules/rules/$(curl -s -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Email: <cfuser>' -H 'X-Auth-Key: <cftoken>' \
            'https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/user/firewall/access_rules/rules?mode=block&configuration_target=ip&configuration_value=<ip>&page=1&per_page=1' | tr -d '\n' | cut -d'"' -f6)

actionunban = curl -s -o /dev/null -X DELETE -H 'X-Auth-Email: <cfuser>' -H 'X-Auth-Key: <cftoken>' \

https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/user/firewall/access_rules/rules/$(curl -s -X GET -H 'X-Auth-Email: <cfuser>' -H 'X-Auth-Key: <cftoken>' \

'https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/user/firewall/access_rules/rules?mode=block&configuration_target=ip&configuration_value=<ip>&page=1&per_page=1' | tr -d '\n' | cut -d'"' -f6)

I found the solution at serverfault.com.… Read more

vcloudnine.de

… virtualization on cloud 9

Using Let’s Encrypt DNS-01 challenge validation with local BIND instance

EAPoL forwarding on NEC VoIP phones

Powering on a VM with shared VMDK fails after extending a EagerZeroedThick VMDK

What is in the bag?

Office 365 – Outlook keeps prompting for password

Vembu BDR Essentials – affordable backup for SMB customers

Exam prep & experience: VMware Certified Advanced Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization Deployment Exam (VCAP6-DCV Deploy)

The one stop solution for backup and DR: Vembu BDR Suite

Backup from a secondary HPE 3PAR StoreServ array with Veeam Backup & Replication

CloudFlare API v4 and Fail2ban: Fixing the unban action