SHIFT-WIKI - Sjoerd Hooft's InFormation Technology
This WIKI is my personal documentation blog. Please enjoy it and feel free to reach out through blue sky if you have a question, remark, improvement or observation. See below for the latest additions, or use the search or tags to browse for content.
vCenter Scheduled Task
Summary: How to schedule a task in vCenter to start a Virtual Machine.
Date: Around 2012
Refactor: 29 April 2025: Checked links and formatting.
How to schedule a task in vCenter to start a Virtual Machine:
- Logon to vCenter → Tasks & Events → Scheduled Tasks
- Click on the “New” button
- In the “Schedule Task” dialog select the “Change the VM power state”
- In the “Change a Virtual Machine's Power State” dialog:
- Select the virtual machine
- Select the required Power Operation (Power on)
- Note that it's possible to select a specific host to power on the virtual machine on.
- Give a task name and description and set the the frequency (once - later - 20:00 - today)
- Fill in the email addresses to notify after task completion
AIX Reading Passwords
Summary: ALthough AIX is by now on version 7.3 I find these old pages so fascinating I decided to keep them. On this page I'll show you quickly hide passwords from the screen. This page is for AIX 5.3 and AIX 6.1.
Date: Between 2010-2013
Refactor: 21 December 2024: Checked formatting.
If you have a script which requires a password somewhere as input and you don't want to have that password displayed on the screen, this is how you do it:
# Request for the password of the ORACLE_USER printf "Provide password %s user: " $ORACLE_USER # Save the current settings of the terminal session stty_orig=`stty -g` # Change the terminal session settings so it won't display input anymore stty -echo # Read the input from the script operator read ora_secret # Set the terminal back to it's old settings stty $stty_orig
vCenter Linked Mode
Summary: How to configure vCenter Linked Mode.
Date: Around 2013
Refactor: 29 April 2025: Checked links and formatting.
This is my report on configuring vCenter Linked Mode. It meant trouble for me, because vCenter was installed using the simple install it was not possible to link two of them together. I didn't know this, so I had to reinstall both vCenters and reinstall while configuring SSO for a multisite environment. If you already did that, linking vCenters together is quite easy.
vCenter 6.5 in Azure
Summary: How to setup vCenter 6.5 in Azure.
Date: Around 2017
Refactor: 29 April 2025: Checked links and formatting.
After installing a Active Directory Domain Controller in Azure and setting up a Setup a Point To Site VPN to Azure it's time for something else. On the Windows 10 client I installed a couple of ESXi 6.5 hosts so of course I want to manage them with vCenter. But since I lack the serious resource requirements of vCenter on my Windows 10 laptop I decided to run the vCenter in Azure. Why? Because I can… Or at least, because I want to.
Note: Even though you could use parts of this manual as a howto on various subjects do not consider this a manual for a production environment. While trying to set this up I encountered many difficulties and in the end I did not fully complete on my original goal. It was however fun to do and I learned I lot while doing this so if that is your goal please continue and have fun.