IntroductionIn the previous post, I showed how to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation 9 in a home lab. This time, we move to the network layer—you’ll see, step by step, how I set up pfSense 2.7.2-RELEASE to serve the entire VCF environment: VLANs, NAT, DHCP, NTP, and (for now, inactive) BGP peerings to NSX-T Edge. Table of contents 1  Hardware requirements & topology Virtual machine (e.g., running on ESXi/HomeLab): Virtual NIC Role vSwitch / PortGroup MTU vmx0 WAN WAN (192.168.100.0/24) 9000 vmx1 trunk (802.1Q) Lab‑TRUNK 9000 vmx2 access network VCF_LOCAL (172.16.10.0/24) 9000 💡 Jumbo frames (MTU 9000) reduce CPU usage and packet count for vMotion/vSAN. Diagram: 2  Installation & first login…

Anyone who works with vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) daily knows the pain of documentation. Manually creating and updating descriptions for workflows, their inputs, outputs, variables, and logic is time-consuming, error-prone, and often neglected. The result is hundreds of workflows that no one fully understands, making them difficult to maintain, reuse, and develop. But what if we could fully automate this process? What if the documentation generated itself with every code change, ensuring it’s always up-to-date and reflects the actual state of the workflow? In this article, I present a complete solution based on GitHub Actions and a set of Node.js scripts…

Introduction With the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, Broadcom is ushering in a new era of private cloud management. This latest platform version, designed for infrastructure administrators and architects, offers a unified and fully automated environment to build, deploy, and operate a private cloud infrastructure efficiently. In this article, based on official documentation and detailed screenshots, we will guide you through the complete installation process of VCF 9.0 in a “Greenfield” scenario—from scratch in a clean environment. Architecture and Key Components of VCF 9.0 Before we proceed with the installation, it’s worth understanding what we are deploying. VCF…

Introduction When provisioning a new Virtual Machine (VM) for a customer, one of the final, critical steps is delivering the initial access credentials. This moment is fraught with security risks: passwords sent over email, pasted in chat, or left in ticketing systems can be intercepted or accidentally exposed, compromising the security of the new machine before the customer even logs in. This article outlines a secure, automated, and elegant solution. The Solution: An Automated, Self-Destructing Web Page Imagine this workflow: during the VM deployment process, your automation platform generates a strong, random password for the machine. As soon as the…

Introduction to the deploy.sh Script The deploy.sh script is a fundamental tool in the VMware Aria Automation ecosystem (formerly vRealize Automation), responsible for deploying, configuring, and managing all components of this advanced environment. Located in the /opt/scripts/ directory on the Aria Automation virtual machine, it serves as the central orchestration point for the entire system. The main tasks of the deploy.sh script include: The deployment process using the deploy.sh script typically begins after the Aria Automation virtual machine starts. The administrator executes the script, which initiates the installation process for all necessary services and components, using Kubernetes as the container…

Introduction So buttons in forms is quite useful but Aria Automation does not natively support them in their forms. To achieve this, I found a workaround using checkboxes as buttons concatenating two dropdown fields values together. Here in this article, we go through the setup, covering all the form configurations and the JavaScript structure to concatenate. Problem Statement I needed a way in my Aria Automation form to: Aria Automation does not directly allow for button use, so I created a workaround using a checkbox field (Add to List). Solution Overview The implementation consists of several key form elements and a backend JavaScript action:…

I’m very sorry that I haven’t written anything for a long time, but I have a lot of work on my head and other obligations. I hope that this article will make up for the wait and the next ones will be soon. In the world of cloud computing, managing disk partitions and formatting can be a cumbersome task, especially when dealing with multiple instances or machines. Automating this process not only saves time but also ensures consistency and reduces the risk of human error. This article explores a comprehensive solution for automating disk partitioning and formatting on both Windows…

In the modern era of cloud computing, managing and orchestrating containerized applications efficiently is paramount for businesses aiming to stay ahead in the digital transformation curve. VMware’s Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Multicloud (TKGm) emerges as a robust solution, offering a consistent, secure, and fully integrated Kubernetes environment across on-premises, public cloud, and edge environments. However, as organizations scale their Kubernetes clusters, the necessity for a centralized management platform becomes evident. This is where VMware Tanzu Mission Control (TMC) steps in, providing a unified management interface for consistent operations and security across all your Kubernetes clusters, regardless of where they reside. The…

I would like to inform that the information contained in this article reflects my personal thoughts and understanding of the concepts described. While this knowledge should facilitate comprehension, in some cases it may not be consistent with official VMware information. Therefore, the use of this information should be done with caution and individual consideration Recently, when I was preparing my script, I wanted to learn about the low-level vRealize Automation deployment process. That’s why I decided to delve into the logs, into the code, and spend a couple of nights preparing an article on this topic for you. I had…

After creating prereq vm, setting all parameters and deploying 4 esxi hosts in the first part of the article I started the third part by configuring accessibility as more and more elements were needed, more and more elements needed access between environments, I decided to run routing and NAT on prereq VM. additionally, to make it easier for me to get into the environment, I added static routing and hosts entries to solve fqdn names after setting up accessibility i started vCenter setups and set up the following one by one Virtualization extension Datacenter Cluster (HA, DRS, vSAN) Add host…