NSX, STIG, VCF, VMware

NSX Session Cookie Creation fails with HTTP 403 when using special characters

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VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 - Path For Dell VxRail Customers - VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Blog For a customer we are required to perform a STIG hardening check.More info about the STIG hardening for Broadcom can be found here: https://www.cyber.mil/stigs/downloads

To perform these test (they can be done for all components within VCF in one check, or check the components seperatly) on NSX you need to obtain a cookie ID and a token. Once you collected these items, you need to enter these into a yaml file and execute the test. In the documentation can be found to find these items you need to execute the following command:
curl -k -i -X POST -d ‘j_username=myuser&j_password=mypassword’ https://<NSX-Manager>/api/session/create

In my environement I receive the following error message:
http/1.1 403 Forbidden

This error is caused by the fact that special characters are being used in the password causing problems with the encoding.

To resolve this issue we need to encode the username and password separatly, using –data-urlencode.

Example:
curl -i -k -c cookies.txt -X POST --data-urlencode 'j_username=<username>' --data-urlencode 'j_password=<password>' https://<NSX-Manager>/api/session/create

Note: Replace <NSX-Manager>, <username> and <password> with the correct details.

Now the command completes succesfull and you can collect the required data.

PowerShell, VCF, VMware

Password Rotation in VCF SDDC Manager

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VCF-Logo-large-300x169.png - VMware BlogsIn today’s security conscious IT landscape (with databreaches news everywhere), password rotation is a critical practice for maintaining the integrity and security of your infrastructure. Within VMware by Broadcome’s VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), the SDDC Manager plays an important role in orchestrating and automating this process across the VMware based software defined data center.

Password rotation helps mitigate the risk of credential compromise by ensuring that passwords are changed regularly and are not reused across systems. In environments like VCF, where multiple components such as vCenter, NSX, vSAN, and others are tightly integrated, managing credentials manually can be an error sencitive  and time-consuming task.

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NSX, VCF

Understanding BGP Peering in NSX

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In this article, I will dive into the functionality of BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) peering within a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and NSX environment. Since VMware’s acquisition of Broadcom, the company’s primary focus has shifted toward expanding and optimizing VCF, making it a critical area of development for enterprise customers.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with large-scale clients who can fully leverage the benefits that VCF provides. This experience has not only broadened my technical expertise but also given me valuable insights into the real-world applications of VCF in enterprise environments. NSX has always been a key area of interest for me, and integrating it with VCF presented a new, exciting learning curve that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed navigating.

One of the critical aspects of delivering a successful VCF environment is ensuring seamless connectivity with the broader network infrastructure. This is where BGP comes into play. To ensure reliable and efficient routing in and out of VCF, BGP is an essential protocol that helps facilitate proper network communication and routing across complex environments. In the following sections, I will walk you through the importance of BGP peering in a VCF/NSX setup and how it enables smooth, scalable networking.

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Cloud, ESXi, NSX, vCenter, VCF, VMware, vSAN

What is new in VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0?

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VCF-Logo-1-1.png - VMware BlogsOn June 1st VMware released the latest version for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), version 5.0. The release of VCF 5.0 means that VCF customers now can benefit from all the cool new features included in vSphere 8.x and NSX 4.1.x.

The first release off VCF dates back to 2015. During the VMworld (what we now know as VMware Explore) of that year VMware launched a product called SDDC EVO. In the following years that product evolved to what we know today as VCF.

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NSX, VMware

Change NSX passwords with the API

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Today I received a message from a customer that he wanted to change his NSX passwords to more complex passwords for the various account within his NSX environment.

NSX allows you to change the passwords by using API calls. API are a common way of managing your NSX environment. I think changing the NSX accounts passwords is a good way for getting yourself familiar with using API for managing NSX. it is quite a simple task, and this is a good way to practice using a API and Postman. Let me talk you through how to accomplish this task.

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NSX

Replace Local Manager Certificate

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imageA customer send out the request to take a look at a few alarms they received in the NSX Manager console. The alarm they received was about a expiring certificate for local manager.

We did some investigating from the NSX Manager and it was clear that this was a self-signed (not linked to the company own PKI infrastructure) and it was in use. This last comment means we have to use the Application Programing Interface (API) to tell NSX to use the new certificate.

Since this is a production environment we don’t do anything before we have verified that a recent backup of the NSX database is available. Please take note that a VMware snapshot is not supported the restore a NSX Manager Cluster. It is  best practice to have a scheduled NSX Manager backup schedule. Before we start working on the environment we create a manual backup of the NSX database.

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NSX, VMware

Unable to delete a segment in NSX because of an orphaned logical port

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imageFor one of our customers all NSX related questions are routed to me (pun intended). I received a customer ticket stating that they where not able to remove an unused NSX created port group although it is not in use while observing from vCenter.

After some investigating within NSX it was clear that this issues was caused by an orphaned logical port. NSX allows you to do allot of the config from the UI, but for some actions it is required to turn to the application programming interface (API). NSX provides a programmatic API to automate management activities. The API follows a resource-oriented architecture by using JSON object encoding. Clients interact with the management plane by using RESTful web service calls over HTTPS.

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vCenter, VMware

vSphere 8: What is new?

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Image result for vsphere 8 logovSphere 8 has been released on October 11 in 2022. It was first announced during the VMware Explore US (the event previously known as VMworld). vSphere 8 includes many new features . To be clear, when we talk about vSphere we talk about both vCenter Server and ESXi.

Compared to VMware vSphere 7 U3, this new release has increased a number of hard limits:

  • Lifecycle Manager can now manage 1000 ESXi Hosts, this was 400 in the previous release.
  • A cluster can now hold 10000 VMs, this was 8000 in the previous release.
  • VM DirectPath I/O devices per host is increased from 8 to 32.

Lees verder vSphere 8: What is new? →

NSX, VMware

NSX Microsegmentation

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In this blog article I will first give you some history of the NSX product and how it evolved to the current product that we all know today. Next I will explain the security use case for NSX. And show you step by step how to implement this in your environment.

A bit of history
In 2012, VMware acquired a company called Nicira. One year later VMware launched of the first NSX product from to the public. One year later in 2013 VMware launched NSX for vSphere (NSX-V). NSX-V came with its limitations. To name a few It was tied into vCenter and it was not possible to create multi-tier routing. In 2016 came VMware launched NSX 1.0 which later evolved into NSX Datacenter. Now fast forward to January 22 of 2022, on this day VMware release NSX for Datacenter version 3.2.0.1. This release came with a long list of improvement on his predecessor. The migration and upgrade assistance is very much improved to allow this version to operate in a wide variation of environments. Another big change is the launch of the Kubernetes bases NSX Application Platform. Lees verder NSX Microsegmentation →

Running

Running 2022

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Running Man Icon . Simple Vector Illustration. Stock Vector - Illustration of athlete, symbol: 112107561I mostly write about technical subjects, to be honest mostly VMware related, a subject I enjoy writing and talking about. But today I want to write about a different passion.

This year I’ve start running at competitions. When I started to prepare myself for my first competition run, I stated to myself I will do this three times this year. After does three run I will be done with it.

Yesterday, (Sunday December 11th) I finished my 7th competition run of this year. I would never have imagined having so much fun running. At first I started with three 5km runs, then I did one 5 mile (8km) and finally three 10km runs.

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This year I ran in the following city’s:
Hengelo
Veenendaal
Rotterdam
Zaandam
Barendrecht
Franeker
Leeuwarden