Veeam backups fails because of time differences

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Last week I had an interesting incident at a customer. The customer reported that one of multiple Veeam backup jobs jobs constantly failed.

The backup job included two VMs, and the backup of one of these VMs failed with this error:

The verified the used credentials for that job, but re-entering the password does not solved the issue.… Read more

DOT1X authentication failed on HPE OfficeConnect 1920 switches

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The last two days, I have supported a customer during the implementation of 802.1x. His network consisted of HPE/ Aruba and some HPE Comware switches. Two RADIUS server with appropriate policies was already in place. The configuration and test with the ProVision based switches was pretty simple. The Comware based switches, in this case OfficeConnect 1920, made me more headache.

The customer had already mac authentication running, so all I had to do, was to enable 802.1x on the desired ports of the OfficeConnect 1920. The laptop, which I used to test the connection, was already configured and worked flawless if I plugged it into a 802.1x enabled port on a ProVision based switch.… Read more

HPE Networking expert level certifications

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A couple of days ago, I took the HP0-Y47 exam “Deploying HP FlexNetwork Core Technologies”. It was one of two required exams to achive the HPE ASE – Data Center Network Integrator V1, and the HP ASE – FlexNetwork Integrator V1 certification. It was a long planned upgrade to my HP ATP certification, and it is a necessary certification for the HPE partner status of my employer.

You might find it confusing that I’m talking about an HP ASE and a HPE ASE. That is not a typo. The HP ASE was released prior the HP/ HPE split. The HPE ASE was released after the split in HP and HPE.

The HP/ HPE ATP is a professional level certification, comparable to the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA).… Read more

vSphere Distributed Switch health check fails on HPE Comware switches

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During the replacement of some VMware ESXi hosts at a customer, I discovered a recurrent failure of the vSphere Distributed Switch health checks. A VLAN and MTU mismatch was reported. On the physical side, the ESXi hosts were connected to two HPE 5820 switches, that were configured as an IRF stack. Inside the VMware bubble, the hosts were sharing a vSphere Distributed Switch.

The switch ports of the old ESXi hosts were configured as Hybrid ports. The switch ports of the new hosts were configured as Trunk ports, to streamline the switch and port configuration.

Some words about port types

Comware knows three different port types:

  • Access
  • Hybrid
  • Trunk

If you were familiar with Cisco, you will know Access and Trunk ports.… Read more

Demystifying “Interfaces on which heartbeats are not seen”

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By accident, I found a heartbeat/ VLAN issue on a NetScaler cluster at one of my customers. The NetScaler ADC appliances have three interfaces connected to a switch stack. Two of the three interfaces were configured as a channel (LAG). This is a snippet from the config:

Azure PowerShell vs. Azure RM PowerShell

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In 2014, Microsoft announced the Azure Preview Portal, which was going GA in December 2015. Since January 8, 2018, the classic Azure Portal is turned off. The “Preview Portal” was more than a facelift. The classic Azure Portal was based on the Service Management mode, often called the “classic deployment model”, whereas the new Azure Portal uses the Resource Manager model. Azure Service Management (ASM) and Azure Resource Management are both deployment models. The Resource Manager model eases the deployment of complex setups by using templates to deploy, update and manage resources within a resource group as a single operation.… Read more

Security: If it doesn’t hurt, you’re doing it wrong!

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The Informationsverbund Berlin-Bonn (IVBB), the secure network of the german government , was breached by an unknown hacker group. Okay, a secure government network might be a worthy target for an attack, but your network not, right? Do you use the same password for multiple accounts? There were multiple massive data breaches in the past. Have you ever checked if your data were also compromised? I can recommend haveibeenpwned.com. If you want to have some fun, scan GitHub for -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----. Do you use a full disk encryption on your laptop or PC? Do you sign and/ or encrypt emails using S/MIME or PGP?… Read more

Unsupported hardware family ‘vmx-06’

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A customer of mine got an appliance from a software vendor. The appliance was delivered as ZIP file with a VMDK, a MF, and an OVF file. Unfortunately, the appliance was created with VMware Workstation 6.0 with virtual machine hardware version 6, which is incompatible with VMware ESXi (Virtual machine hardware versions). During deployment, my customer got this error:

The OVF file includes a line with the VM hardware version.

If you change this line from vmx-06 to vmx-07, the hash of the OVF changes, and you will get an error during the deployment of the appliance because of the wrong file hash.… Read more

NetScaler native OTP does not work for users with many group memberships

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Some days ago, I have implemented one-time passwords (OTP) for NetScaler Gateway for one of my customers. This feature was added with NetScaler 12, and it’s a great way to secure NetScaler Gateway with a native NetScaler feature. Native OTP does not need any third party servers. But you need a NetScaler Enterprise license, because nFactor Authentication is a requirement.

To setup NetScaler native OTP, I followed the availbe guides on the internet.

The setup is pretty straightforward.… Read more

Meltdown & Spectre: What about Microsoft Exchange?

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On January 18, 2018, Microsoft has published KB4074871 which has the title “Exchange Server guidance to protect against speculative execution side-channel vulnerabilities”. As you might guess, Exchange is affected by Meltdown & Spectre – like any other software. Microsoft explains in KB4074871:

Because these are hardware-level attacks that target x64-based and x86-based processor systems, all supported versions of Microsoft Exchange Server are affected by this issue.

Like Citrix, Microsoft does not offer any updates to address this issue, because there is nothing to fix in Microsoft Exchange.… Read more