@scottalanmiller correct!

@EddieJennings said in Managing Hyper-V VMs:

Ah, I didn't think of the barrier restricting me to 2012 R2.

Yeah, the misinstallation is anything but trivial. It sounds trivial, and in some ways it is for the first two years, but it gets worse and worse as time goes on. If it was only the bloat, then whatever, not great but you wouldn't be anxious to work around it. But it is licensing and risk.

Now that said, any effort that you can use to move to 2016 today, you can still do tomorrow. So you just need to think about the right time to make the change.

This won't be an overnight fix. My first step though is complete. The Synology is now in RAID 10 with 1 hot spare disk. One thing to note; the disks in this Synology are WD reds :(. So even though the storage connects to the Hyper-V host via iSCSI, the VHDX stored on it, which contains the data for our file server is at least not living on a RAID 5 anymore.

Next will be dealing with the local storage situation on the Hyper-V host (the two-drive RAID 1 and the three-drive RAID 5). The only "production" VM storage left on the RAID 5 is our Spiceworks VM, which I'll move to the RAID 1 storage. The other VMs that have their VHDs on the RAID 5 are non-production / testing VMs, so if they're lost, it's not a big deal to just rebuild them.

@JaredBusch said in Bare Metal Backup (and restore):

@EddieJennings Basically, this backup method it a solid 100% guaranteed method because you are capturing backups of all data in a stopped state. No worries about SQL server database states, etc. You are only backing up the backup files made by the SQL application itself.

This is a perfectly valid scenario.

Using a full image backup is dangerous if it does not talk to the database process and tell it that it is going to run a backup. Because then the Database files are not in a state to be read. This is probably what happened to your mentor/boss/whatever.

True I second this, cause he is focusing on backing up files, but the downside is restoring from DR will take some time for the stuff to be ready.

Having VM export feature + his current file backup will speed the DR restore process greatly.

@EddieJennings said in Hosts file and DNS:

On centrally managing hosts file, is there some kind of tool you use for that, or is it literally, just have one hosts file stored somewhere, and copy it to X machines?

Just having something like your Jump box that already has permissions to access each machine and just having a script that automatically puts it on each box is definitely one way to go and super simple.

Salt, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, cfEngine are all specifically built for this, too.

@EddieJennings said in Cisco a "Skill" Hee hee:

I will say, I learned what I know about networking while taking the classes for my Associate's degree, which were my CCNA preparation classes. I've obviously learned more since then, but that training did move me beyond clueless. 🙂

Same here!

@JaredBusch said in OpenSSL CSR with Subject Alternative Name:

@EddieJennings said in OpenSSL CSR with Subject Alternative Name:

@JaredBusch Correct. The "ye olde way" is how I've typically made a CSR and private key. The link I included talks about making a configuration file, which allows you to include SAN in your CSR.

Ah, did not read the link. Yes, using a config file is the only method to get any SAN on a cert with OpenSSL.

And after re-reading my post, I realized how terrible it was :(. I was hoping to find a one liner kind of thing, but alas. That particular article made it clear how to do it.

@scottalanmiller said in Purchasing new hard drives: Embrace 4kn?:

@EddieJennings said in Purchasing new hard drives: Embrace 4kn?:

@scottalanmiller

From: https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/advanced-format-disk-compatibility-update

This topic introduces the effect of Advanced Format storage devices on software, discusses what apps can do to help support this type of media, and discusses the infrastructure that Microsoft introduced with Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 to enable developers to support these types of devices.<

I must've misunderstand the usage of apps. Article was a good read.

It's about performance. Not support.

Curious, because it read to me like it's a support issue, which can be worked around with the 512e drives with a possible performance cost. However, on second thought, it would make sense that if the OS supports 4kn sectors, then the applications running on top of it shouldn't care about the sectors (which is what you said before).

Oh yeah. That makes sense.

That makes sense. They did not explain that well. And it isn't a Linux concept so even weirder.

If it wasn't for wanting to learn enterprise hardware, an Intel NUC is great, too. But there is big value to knowing server hardware. I've blown minds in an interview when I had the same enterprise gear at home that a Wall St. firm was deploying every day. I was literally the only person they had, in interviews OR on staff, that had ever even touched the gear before... and it was sitting in my basement. Having hands on with enterprise gear at home really is important, even if it seems like a silly thing.

@Tim_G said in Question of the morning:

@gjacobse said in Question of the morning:

@EddieJennings
it happens... I go to hit WinLogo + L to lock and end up hitting WinLogo+<enter>

+1 if you hit WinLogo+Enter to see what it did...

I did, hadn't used that before, and now I know why 😛

Linuxtoday.com is a decent aggregation.

Seems a bit like...
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