WilliamLam.com

Quick Tip - SSH Server, Client & Authorized Key Configurations for ESXi 8.0 Update 2 and later

by // 4 Comments

The general best practice is to disable SSH on your ESXi host by default and if/when you need access, you can turn it on temporarily and disable it when you have completed your task.

For users that need to modify the default SSH configurations whether that is on the server side, client side or setting up SSH authorized keys, this was historically accomplished by manipulating the various SSH configuration files and then reloading the service, if applicable.

With the introduction of the ESXi Configuration Store in vSphere 7.0 Update 1, the process is now different with ESXi 8.0 Update 2 and later for services that requires a configuration file to run such as SSH, NTP or SNMP to name a few.

[Read more...]

Quick Tip - Monitoring ESXi remote syslog forwarding

by // 3 Comments

When an ESXi host is unable to forward its logs to a remote syslog server, a VMkernel Observation (VOB) is automatically raised by the host and it can be used to proactively alert administrators, which has been possible since ESXi 5.0 .... per this blog post from 2012 after some Googling! ??

While I was pretty confident the behavior described above still holds true for our latest ESXi 7.x and 8.x releases, I wanted to be sure before responding back to a colleague. I deployed the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 3q and ESXi 8.0 Update 3b and after configuring syslog forwarding, I disabled the NIC on my Aria Operations for Logs to simulate a network disconnect and I saw the following log entry in /var/log/vobd.log

2024-09-28T21:12:00.298Z: [UserLevelCorrelator] 7452916537us: [esx.problem.vmsyslogd.remote.failure] The host "192.168.30.62:514" has become unreachable. Remote logging to this host has stopped.

By default, ESXi will attempt to retry the remote syslog connection after the configured timeout (default 180 seconds), which is a relatively new configuration option that is available with ESXCLI (esxcli system syslog config set --default-timeout XX).

[Read more...]

ESXi on ASUS NUC 14 Pro (Revel Canyon)

by // 44 Comments

The ASUS NUC 14 Pro (formally known as Revel Canyon) is the first ASUS-based NUC since the acquisition of the NUC Division from Intel last fall. I know many of my readers have been requesting a review of the new ASUS NUCs, but to be honest, it has been pretty difficult to get samples directly from ASUS, which was not the case when I had worked with Intel.

In fact, it was thanks to the folks over at SimplyNUC who was kind enough to provide access to the ASUS NUC 14 Pro, so that I could do a proper review ?

In case you are reading this ASUS, I hope this was simply due to the initial integration of the NUC Division and in the future, getting early samples will be possible to help support our shared community of users.


At first glance, the exterior chassis of the ASUS NUC 14 Pro has minimal changes, it is the same classic 4x4 design that we have all come to love. The only noticeable change is the raised bevel on the top of the chassis and the removal of the etched Intel NUC brand which was located on top.

[Read more...]