Upgrading from Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 in Packer isn’t just a version bump—it’s a complete shift in how Packer handles EFI, GRUB, and Subiquity sections. Discover how I used AI as a “tutor” to rewrite my legacy 2023 automation, moving from fragile menu-editing to a robust, console-driven workflow in just two hours.
Tag: vsphere
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Pass keystrokes to a pfSense virtual machine to install it automatically
In my previous post I showed how to install automaticaly a virtual machine with pfSense. The automation I reached was around 90%, as I didn’t know how to automate the installation of the software. Thanks to Michael Zenzmaier who suggested me the Set-VMKeystrokes function created by William Lam I was able to also automate the installation. This solution is also a great example to automate every situation where we need to send keystrokes to a vSphere VM.
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My Automated Lab project: #5 Deploy a Linux vSphere VM with Terraform and custom disks
After deploying a Windows VM in the previous article, this time I will deploy a Linux VM to be used as a Veeam Hardened Repository. Since I need some more space for storing the backup, I will use this opportunity to create the VM with a additional disks.
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My Automated Lab project: #4 Deploy the VMs from templates using Terraform
After I have created my templates with Packer in the previous posts, I can now use them every time as a quick source for creating my own virtual machines. Thanks to Terraform, I’ll be able to deploy each new vm in a matter of minutes, and also to customize each of them as I need.
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My Automated Lab project: #3 Create a Windows Server 2019 template in VMware vSphere with Packer
In my previous post I’ve created a Ubuntu template into VMware vSphere using Packer. Time to build now a Microsoft Windows template.
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My Automated Lab project: #2 Create a Ubuntu template in VMware vSphere with Packer
In my previous post I explained the tools I use in my lab automation. Today, we’ll talk about creating Ubuntu templates into VMware vSphere. For this, I will use Packer.
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Increase the performance of your Veeam backups in network mode
If you ever tried to do any file operation via the management interface of an ESXi host, like uploading an ISO file or running a backup using Network Mode, you may know the management interface is not running at the full speed of the underlying network interface, and the bandwidth you end up using is only a percentage of the total available. This limit is designed to preserve the availability of the management interface, but still there are situations where this limit is a problem, and you would like to increase it. Hopefully, there’s a solution.
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Deploy and install NetApp ONTAP Simulator 8.3 RC1 for a vSphere cluster
NetApp has a nice ONTAP Simulator that is freely available, and allows anyone to test out their storage platform without having to own a physical array. In the past I’ve used the NetApp Edge VSA, but since some months this is not available anymore, and the simulator is the only way to go. In this article, I’ll show you how to install and configure the Simulator with its latest version 8.3 RC1, and connect it to a vSphere cluster.