Matej.GURU

Another guru blog...

[mygurublog-blog]

Adding Management Virtual Network Adapters to Hyper-V Host with PowerShell

Some simple and useful cmdlets for adding multiple management Virtual Network Adapters and assigning VLANs.

This cmdlet adds two virtual network adapters on your Hyper-V Host and connects it to a virtual switch named External vSwitch.

Add-VMNetworkAdapter -Name "LAN" -ManagementOS -SwitchName "External vSwitch" Add-VMNetworkAdapter -Name "DMZ" -ManagementOS -SwitchName "External vSwitch"

Use Set-VMNetworkAdapterVlan to assign VLAN on your virtual network adapters.

Set-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -VMNetworkAdapterName "DMZ" -ManagementOS -VlanId 20 -Access

List all Virtual Network Adapters and their VLANs.

Get-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -ManagementOS | select VMNetworkAdapterName,Mode,VlanList

[mygurublog-blog]

Redirect Windows Azure Pack Desktop Connections through RDS Gateway

There are two different option to connect to a Virtual Machine in Windows Azure Pack. You can use the Console Connect with Remote Desktop Gateway or direct Remote Desktop Connection which will generate a RDP file with the Virtual Machine IP Address. Because Console Connect is quite limited, I modified the script which creates the RDP file with my Remote Desktop Gateway included.

On the Windows Azure Pack Tenant Site Server go to %SystemDrive%\inetpub\MgmtSvcTenantSite\Content\VM\Scripts\Commands and edit the VM.Command.VirtualMachine.RemoteDesktop.js script.

Search for:

requestUrl = service.getRdpUrlForRemoteDesktop(null, null, null, dataContext.activeVM.displayName, viewModel.getSelectedIpAddress());

And change it to:

requestUrl = service.getRdpUrlForRemoteDesktop(null, null, null, dataContext.activeVM.displayName, viewModel.getSelectedIpAddress() + "\r\ngatewayhostname:s:YourRDSGateway.domain.com\r\ngatewayusagemethod:i:2\r\ngatewayprofileusagemethod:i:1\r\npromptcredentialonce:i:1");

Change "YourRDSGateway.domain.com" with your Remote Desktop Gateway Server. Change, add or remove any other parameters if required.

npromptcredentialonce:i:1 - use my RD Gateway credentials for the remote computer.

Save the script, reset IIS and now all Remote Desktop Connections will redirect through your gateway server.

I use this modified script in a production and did not experienced any problems, nevertheless I would recommend backing up your server configuration and testing the script first in your test lab!

[mygurublog-blog]

Regular Expression in Service Manager 2012 R2

Using built in Content Constraints in Service Manager 2012 when creating Request Offerings is easy, but what about Regular Expression? With Regular Expression you can more efficiently control what a Self-Service User can insert. This is an Request Offering example for creating a new Domain User. The Request Offering will require a First Name, Last Name, E-Mail Address and optional a Phone Number.

Regular Expression for validating First and Last Name:

^[A-Z]{1}[a-z]+$

This will validate that the first letter is Uppercase and others are Lowercase letters. If required you can also add additional characters like Ć, Č, Ž: ^[A-ZĆČŽ]{1}[a-zćčž]+$

Use Custom ToolTip box to provide examples or instructions for Self-Service User, and use Length Constraints for limiting the string length.

Regular Expression for the E-Mail Address:

^[a-z]{3,15}\.[a-z]{3,15}\@contoso.com$ 

This Regular Expression can be used for email addresses like [email protected]. Replace the "contoso.com" domain with your domain name. {3,15} will limit the lenght of individual name to minumum of 3 characters and maximum 15 characters.

And the last Regular Expression for Phone Number which will be optional:

^([0-9]{1}-[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{4})*$ 

This will validate that the entered Phone Number is in a format 1-123-321-4444.

Self-Service User Request:

I hope this is helpful!

[mygurublog-blog]

Installing System Center Global Service Monitor in SCOM 2012 R2

System Center Global Service Monitor is Software Assurance benefit which you can use if you own a System Center license, to monitor your externally facing web sites from multiple locations around the world. You can register with your organizational account for a free 90 days trial on http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=275502, and then after the 90 days trial you will be able to upgrade your subscription to a full version. After the registration you will get your confirmation email, which will include a download link for the System Center Global Service Monitor Managements Packs.

Run the GSM installation that you downloaded on a Management Server, or on a machine that has the Operations Manager Console installed. The default installation path is “C:\Program Files (x86)\System Center Management Packs\System Global Service Monitor”, where you will find GSM Management Packs that you need to import.

When the Management Packs are imported, you should see Global Service Monitor tab on the Administration navigation pane in the System Center Operations Manager Console. You will need to install the Windows Identity Foundation feature on the Management Server, and also on your machine if you are managing System Center Operations Manager remotely. If the Windows Identity Foundation feature is not installed you will see a prerequisites warning.

When you install all the prerequisites, you will be able to start a Subscription. On the Subscription Credentials page enter the user ID, and organization credentials of your Subscription.

The next step is to create a Web Application Availability Monitor. If you had successfully installed the Global Service Monitor, you will have an option to choose multiple external location for monitoring your web pages.

With Global Service Monitor you will get two new Dashboards, which will show your web page test results.

Summary Dashboard

Detailed Dashboard

[mygurublog-blog]

Removing images from the Topology and Image Widget in SCOM 2012 R2

You are probably familiar with the new Topology and Image Widgets in SCOM 2012 R2. If you are using this feature you are probably aware that there is no “direct” option to remove imported images from SCOM. So to update the image or just remove unused images, you need to remove the whole Management Pack. The name of the Management Pack that you need to remove is:

“Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library.Resource”

Removing this Management Pack will remove all imported images from SCOM. The Management Pack will be recreated when you import a new image. That said, remember to save all of your Topology images so you can re import them back. Good news is that this process won’t corrupt your dashboards, you will just need to assign the images once again to your dashboards.

Summary Dashboard