Integrating {php}IPAM with vRealize Automation 8

Feb 22, 202137 min read

In a previous post, I described some of the steps I took to stand up a homelab including vRealize Automation (vRA) on an Intel NUC 9. One of my initial goals for that lab was to use it for developing and testing a way for vRA to leverage phpIPAM for ...

Using VS Code to explore giant log bundles

Feb 18, 20213 min read

I recently ran into a peculiar issue after upgrading my vRealize Automation homelab to the new 8.3 release, and the error message displayed in the UI didn't give me a whole lot of information to work with: I connected to the vRA appliance to try to ...

VMware Home Lab on Intel NUC 9

Feb 5, 202122 min read

I picked up an Intel NUC 9 Extreme kit a few months back (thanks, VMware!) and have been slowly tinkering with turning it into an extremely capable self-contained home lab environment. I'm pretty happy with where things sit right now so figured it wa...

PSA: halt replication before snapshotting linked vCenters

Jan 30, 20214 min read

It's a good idea to take a snapshot of your virtual appliances before applying any updates, just in case. When you have multiple vCenter appliances operating in Enhanced Link Mode, though, it's important to make sure that the snapshots are in a consi...

Burn an ISO to USB with the Chromebook Recovery Utility

Dec 23, 20203 min read

There are a number of fantastic Windows applications for creating bootable USB drives from ISO images - but those don't work on a Chromebook. Fortunately there's an easily-available tool which will do the trick: Google's own Chromebook Recovery Utili...

Auto-connect to ProtonVPN on untrusted WiFi with Tasker

Nov 24, 202015 min read

I recently shared how I use Tasker and Home Assistant to keep my phone from charging past 80%. Today, I'm going to share the setup I use to automatically connect my phone to a VPN on networks I don't control. Background The apps OpenVPN config file...