Monthly Archives: August 2015

Bitdefender Gravityzone with vShield using Ravello

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Being a VMware vExpert, I decided to use the free 1,000 CPU hours per month to run VMware ESXi labs or VMware workloads in AWS or Google cloud to test out the newest version of Bitdefender Gravityzone on VMware vSphere 6.  If you are not a VMware vExpert Ravello still provides a free trial period.

Click Here to check out more information about Bitdefender and download a free trial.

The first thing I did to get started was to add the Autolab 2.6 Final blueprint to my library and setup and application.  You can check out these links on how to setup Autolab on Ravello :

Once you have Autolab setup on Ravello, your blueprint will look like this :rav02

 

I did not want my DC & VC exposed publicly, so I removed public RDP access and added a WIN 7 VM as a jump box.  I also added three more ESXi hosts to my blueprint.blueprint

 

Once the NAS, DC, VC & WIN701 VM’s were built, I modified the PXE boot menu so I could build more than 3 ESXi hosts.  You just have the modify the .cfg files in the TFTP-ROOT dir on the DC.menu

 

After I had all the ESXi hosts were built and added to the cluster, it was time to install and setup VMware vShield since I was going to be testing agent-less AV.  This site has good instructions on where to download and how to install vShield.  Once you have vShield installed and endpoint installed on all the hosts, vShield should look like this.bd06

 

Now that vShield is deployed and all setup it is now time to deploy Bitdefender Gravityzone.  You can learn more about Bitdefender and download a free trial from their website.  You can download the installation guide and follow it to install and setup Gravityzone.  Once you have Gravityzone installed, then you can deploy the security appliances to each ESXi host.  In the picture below you can see I have the security appliance applied on each ESXi host and they have their own special icon.bd05

 

After vShield and Bitdefender was installed, I installed a Windows 7 VM on one of the ESXi hosts.  It takes a little longer to install because it is nested on an ESXi host that is nested on Ravello, but it works.  After Windows 7 is installed, I installed VMware Tools.  For agent-less AV to work, you need to enable Guest Introspection.introspection

 

Now that everything is installed, it’s time to test it out.  You can go to the eicar website and download the eicar.com file.  I always save the file as eicar.txt.  I then open it and it should be blank.bd07

 

Then you can log into Gravityzone and go to the dashboard.  It should show that it resolved an issue on one VM.bd08

 

Bitdefender is a good solution for virtualized environments.  You can use vShield agentless solution and deploy security appliances on each host or you can deploy the Bitdefender agent on each VM and have one security appliance that all the scanning is offloaded to.

Ravello made all this testing a lot easier since I did not have to setup any hardware, but my free 1000 hours did run out faster than I thought.  I will need to keep a closer eye on the number of hours I use each day.

VMworld 2015 App Ready

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VMworldApp

 

VMware has posted the VMworld 2015 Apps on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.  Go download them now.  One of the cool features of the app is that when you look at your schedule, it will tell you what building and room a session is in.

Android – Google Play Store – Click Here

Apple – App Store – Click Here

 

Collection of VMworld Conference Tips

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vmworld 2015

VMworld 2015 is just around the corner.  This will be my 4th year attending.  It is not too late to sign up. Click here to sign up.

There are a lot of posts out there with lots of tips, so I am going to list a few that I have not seen list.

  1. Do not use your work email address to sign up for VMworld.  Very difficult to get the email address associated with your account changed.
  2. Do things at VMworld that you can not do after VMworld is over
  3. Have Fun.  Don’t fill your day with attending sessions.
  4. Create a separate calendar just for VMworld schedule.  I used gmail and it is very easy to create a separate calendar that overlays on top of your regular calendar.

Below is a collection of VMworld Conference Tips posts by some great bloggers.  Check them out.

VMworld Tips for 2015 By Joseph Griffiths

 

VMworld 2015 Conference Tips By Sean Massey

 

VMworld 2015 – Maximise your Experience by vcdx133

 

Do’s and Don’ts at VMworld by Alex Muetstege

 

Top VMworld tips for vNewbies By David Davis

 

Tips and tricks for surviving and enjoying VMworld By Eric Siebert

 

VMworld Tips, Tricks and Prize winning VMworld By Christopher Kusek

 

vRanger 7.2 Upgrade Error

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vRanger 7.2 was released back in June.  A couple weeks ago I decided to perform the upgrade in our production environment.  I was upgrading from vRanger 7.1 to 7.2.  I started the installer and this is the error I received.

Error

It appeared as if the installer did not see there was an older version already installed.  I did a little research on Google and did not find anything related, so I opened a ticket with tech support.  Immediately the  technician new what the issue was.  He had me continue and finish the install.  After the install finished and the services started I opened vRanger and nothing was in there.  The tech had me open the SQL server vRanger was connect to and confirmed that the install had created a new database.

New Database

This was a known bug, but the kb for the fix was internal to Dell only.

The tech left the window open when fixing the issue, so I took a screen capture of what he did to fix this issue.

Tech Support Help

After running the commands above and restarting the services, I opened vRanger and everything appeared.

I then went back into the SQL server and deleted the new database the installer had created.