Veeam: ‘Failed to open disk for read’
KB ID 0001577 Problem EVERY VMware Job in Veeam Backup and Recovery failed with the following error, (for every Guest VM); Processing SERVER-NAME Error: Failed to open VDDK disk [[DATASTORE-NAME] SERVER-NAME/SERVER-NAME.vmdk] ( is read-only mode – [true] ) Logon attempt with parameters [VC/ESX: [ESXi-SERVER-NAME.DOMAIN-NAME.COM];Port: 443;Login: [administrator@.vsphere.local];VMX Spec: [moref=vm-231];Snapshot mor:...
VMware: Upgrade Errors
KB ID 0001576 Problem This weekend I had to upgrade some servers from VMware 5.5 to version 6U3, (that’s the latest supported version, on the hardware I was using: HP BL460c). As the VC was at version 6.5 I couldn’t use the built in update manager, so I had to use the ‘offline bundle’ method. TWO THINGS then jumped up and bit me; Problem 1 [DependencyError] File path of ‘etc/init.d/hp-mst.init’ is...
Cisco SFR Cant Ping its Default Gateway?
KB ID 0001575 Problem This is a strange one? I was deploying FirePOWER to a pair of ASA 5550-8-X firewalls in Active / Standby failover last week. After each SFR was updated (via ASDM.) I could no longer ‘ping it’, the SFR itself could ping everything on the same VLAN, APART from its own default gateway, (which was an SVI on the Cisco 3750 switch it was connected to). This happened every time I updated the SFR, (or...
Load Balance IIS with Microsoft ARR
KB ID 0001573 Problem If you have a lot of IIS servers, and want to load balance between them, then you can either buy a load balancer, or use Microsoft ARR (Application Request Routing). Note: ARR does a lot more than simply load balancing, e.g. it can perform caching, and complex web routing, and even SSL offloading. Here we are just looking at load balancing. I’m going to deploy TWO ARR servers in my DMZ, here I’ve got...
Veeam Virtual Labs & SureBackup
KB ID 0001572 Problem If you require a ‘Virtual Lab’ for testing patches or config changes, on copies of your live servers, or simply want to test the ‘integrity’ of your backups, then this is the post for you! Licence Requirements: SureBackup and On Demand Sandbox require Enterprise Plus Veeam Licensing. Host Licences: Hosts that are only used for SureBackup / On Demand Sandbox DO NOT NEED Licences, (in...
Find All HP iLOs on your Network
KB ID 0001571 Problem I had to find all the HP iLOs on a client network today, I could have got an IP scanner and then sorted the results for HP devices, but I would have ended up with switches, printers and God knows what else! If only there was a PowerShell command I could use? Solution There is! You will need to download it though, (HPiLOCmdlets-x64,) extract them to your C: drive. Here I’m installing them from PowerShell,...
Convert MBR Partitioned Drives to GPT
KB ID 0001407 Problem I got asked if I’d ever had to do this today, I vaguely remember having this problem in the past, but I can’t remember how I solved it. You set the ‘Partition Table Type’ on a disk in Windows, when the drive is first initialised, like so; And the default is MBR, so that usually gets ticked, the problem is MBR only supports disks up to 2TB in size. Now if it’s just a new disk, with...
Remote Desktop Services – Securing By Group Policy
KB ID 0001211 Problem Note: This is not an exhaustive list, but it’s what I use when securing Remote Desktop Services, (Terminal Services) servers. Some of these settings are ONLY for Server 2012 R2 and later. If you have any settings you think are omitted, please comment below. Solution User Access To RDS If you want to create a Domain security group for RDS users than please do so. BE AWARE the ‘Remote Desktop...
Certificate Chain Incomplete
KB ID 0001570 Problem The certificate here at PNL expired over the weekend, I got a new one and installed it. All appeared to be fine until I did an online check to make sure it was OK. The server’s certificate chain is incomplete Solution I had this problem once before, back then I was using Apache and CentOS7, and things were a little different, (now I’m using NGINX and Ubuntu 18.04). Essentially you see this error...
Windows 10 & Windows Server Update Error 0x800705b4
KB ID 0001569 Problem I can’t remember Windows being so diabolically bad at simply updating? I built a new 2016 server, simply to create a VM template, and it would not update; There were some problems installing updates, but we’ll try again later. If you keep. seeing this and want to search the web or contact support for information this may help: (0x800705b4) Solution Well that’s a very polite but useless error!...