I'm working on standing up a @matrixdotorg homeserver on a free @OracleCloud instance. Along the way I learned about @caddyserver, which made it dead simple to implement a TLS reverse proxy with auto-generated trusted certs. Caddy takes care of everything!

https://caddyserver.com/docs/automatic-https

#CoSoTech

I keep hearing how great the free offerings are in Oracle Cloud so decided to take them for a spin. Getting an account required an actual human to call me on an actual telephone for verification, but I'm in!

Now to come up with a project...

https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/

#CoSoTech

Here we go, I guess.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/event

#CoSoTech #windows

An intern at HBOMax accidentally sent a test email to "a portion of" their customer email list. And this thread has turned into one of the most heartwarming things I've ever seen on the 🐦 as techies from all over write to #DearIntern to let them know that everyone breaks prod and everything's going to be okay.

https://twitter.com/HBOMaxHelp/status/1405712235108917249

#CoSoTech

Have questions about #Google's messaging strategy? So does JR Raphael. Maybe his questions (and answers) can help to make sense of this mess:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3622023/google-workspace-messaging-services.html

PS: I *highly* recommend his weekly Android Intelligence newsletter, which delivers the "why it matters" part of the week's #Android news straight to your inbox so you don't have to keep up with developments on your own:

https://www.androidintel.net/refer/?rh_ref=johnd130
nosanitize

#CoSoTech

Are you playing with the #Android12 Beta 2 too? Here's a chance to share your thoughts (like how much you HATE that the Device Controls were removed from the power menu) with the team:

https://www.reddit.com/r/android_beta/comments/nxn1o6/5_min_survey_tells_us_what_you_think_about/

Don't forget about the other feedback options too:
https://developer.android.com/about/versions/12/feedback

#Android #Pixel #TeamPixel #CoSoTech

The latest #Android 12 beta 2 is now rolling out.

Downloading the OTA image to sideload onto my Pixel 5 imminently.

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2021/06/android-12-beta-2-update.html

Come on, work wifi, I know you can go faster!!!

#Pixel #CoSoTech #TeamPixel

If you can't figure out why #vmware won't successfully customize your newly-deployed Linux VM, make sure that it's got perl installed. It's not marked as a dependency of the open-vm-tools package... but open-vm-tools won't Do The Thing without it.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2075048#:~:text=Note%3A%20If%20you%20are%20using%20RHEL7%20minimal%20or%20CentOS7%20minimal%2C%20Perl%20must%20be%20installed%20for%20customization%20to%20function.

nosanitize
#CoSoTech

PSA: be sure you've got any important data backed up before letting your Chromebook update to the new v92 beta.

Both my Pixelbook and Lenovo Duet got wiped by the update.

https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/nt0kih/chrome_os_92_beta_factory_reseting_its_self_after/

#CoSoTech #ChromeOS

#VMware's William Lam has organized a Supermicro homelab group buy, which lets you get an 8-core E300-9D for $1350 - 20% off!

This deal is worth checking out if you're in the market for some new hardware.

https://williamlam.com/2021/06/supermicro-2021-homelab-group-buy.html

#CoSoTech

Here's a quick post on how I use #vmware vRealize Automation and Orchestrator to add descriptive notes and custom attributes to VMs as they get provisioned.

https://virtuallypotato.com/adding-vm-notes-and-custom-attributes-with-vra8

#CoSoTech

#CoSoTech

I thought it might be fun to set up an AdGuard Home DNS blackhole instance in a Docker container on a Photon OS VM running on my ESXi homelab host.... and it was! I got to brush up on containering and learn a bit more about Photon in the process.

Here's what it took:
https://virtuallypotato.com/adguard-home-in-docker-on-photon-os

This is a super-handy reference for the various punctuation marks used in PowerShell.

It also taught me a new word.
#octothorpe

https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/sysadmin/powershell/the-complete-guide-to-powershell-punctuation/

#CoSoTech

I've since come up with what I think is a better approach to using a vRA8 Service Broker custom form for automatically generating unique deployment names:

https://virtuallypotato.com/vra8-automatic-deployment-naming-another-take

#vmware #CoSoTech #MakingThisUpAsIGo

The latest installment in my #vmware vRA8 adventures covers connecting Service Broker custom forms to vRO actions. Make your request forms smarter so your users don't have to be!

PS: shiny new domain!

https://virtuallypotato.com/vra8-custom-provisioning-part-four
#CoSoTech

"Remember that if your diagnostic theories were accurate, you wouldn't be asking for help right?"

https://xyproblem.info

#CoSoTech

So #VMware recently released vRealize Automation 8.4, which adds a new` bootDiskCapacityInGB` property to Cloud Templates... allowing me to effective replace 90+ lines of scripting in a vRO Workflow with just two lines in the Cloud Template.

Not bad!

(I'm especially happy with this development since now I don't feel compelled to document that workflow for my little blog series at https://john.bowdre.net/series/vra8 - I was kind of dreading that!)

https://blogs.vmware.com/management/2021/04/whats-new-with-vrealize-automation-8-4-technical-overview.html

#CoSoTech

I just ended a line of a script with the following punctuation:
`"}}`''"

Whoever wrote this code is a jackass.

#CoSoTech

And here's another quick script that I use to install Windows Updates without requiring a persistent session to wait around for that to happen.

#windows #powershell #script

https://john.bowdre.net/using-powershell-and-a-scheduled-task-to-apply-windows-updates

#CoSoTech

Here's a quick script I kanged together to auto-expand a Linux VM's root LVM volume to fill up free space on its "physical" disk - great for vRA but also for running directly.

https://john.bowdre.net/automatic-unattended-expansion-of-linux-root-lvm-volume-to-fill-disk

#CoSoTech
#linux #bash #automation #storage