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Synology 2022 AND BEYOND

Synology, Synology C2, Synology DiskStation No Responses »

Dec 022021

As I’m watching the Synology: 2022 AND BEYOND event live I wanted to write this post to share with you some of my favorite parts.

For those of you wanting to tune in (while live) or watch the replay you can view it below.

You can also visit: https://event.synology.com/en-us/annual_event to watch the stream (or replay) and find out more information.

DSM 7.0.1 and DSM 7.1

As an IT professional and enthusiast, here’s a list of some of my favorite new features, functionalities and improvements.

DSM 7.0.1

High Availability Improvements
- 40% less time needed for failovers and switchovers
- 80% less time needed for system updates
System Responsiveness and Performance enhancements
- 56x faster SMB (Windows File Share) searches
- 70% speed up in application launches
- 80% faster RAID 6 performance (for double parity RAID)
Enhanced Drive Replacement
- Replace predicted failure/presumed unhealthy/to-be-retired drives with unused healthy drives that are in other bays.
- Switch without degrading your array/storage pool
Auto Drive Replacement
- Clones predicted failure/presumed unhealthy drive to available hot spare, switching automatically when the drive fails without requiring RAID rebuild time
Volume-wide data deduplication (on all flash arrays)
- Scheduled or Manual Volume Wide Deduplication on all flash volumes
- Click here for information on supported models and configurations
Synology Directory Server
- Secondary domain controllers provide additional redundancy and availability of directory services
- Provides ability to deploy additional domain controllers at additional locations

DSM 7.1 (Coming Soon)

SMB Multichannel
- Utilize multiple network links and network connections to combine speed with SMB (Windows File Share) file transfers
- Provides redundancy and fault tolerance
DFS Support over SMB
- Combine multiple Synology NAS file servers to provide file services to your network using Distributed File System (DFS)
Active Insight
- Numerous updates to make Active Insight more powerful when it comes to managing numerous Synology NAS units.
- Enhanced control and information on System Updates
- Suspicious activity detection recognizes suspicious activity on the NAS units (example: unusual login times and locations, unused accounts being used after being idle, failed logins, etc).
- Task monitoring for Hyper Backup
Synology Directory
- Read-only domain controller support provides ability to deploy read only domain controllers at remote sites that may not be physically secure while providing local cached copies of the directory.

And that’s not all…

Synology has also made numerous improvements to their Data Protection Services, Surveillance suite, Wireless Networking, Synology C2 Cloud, and more, but you’ll have to check it out for yourself. There are tons of other goodies for office workers, small business owners, photography enthusiast, and more that I haven’t included in this list.

DUO MFA Radius Issues with VMware Horizon 8 Version 2111 UAG (Unified Access Gateway)

Duo MFA, End User Computing, Omnissa Horizon, VDI 9 Responses »

Dec 022021

In a VMware Horizon environment with DUO MFA configured via RADIUS on the VMware Horizon Connection Server, you may notice authentication issues when logging in through a UAG (Unified Access Gateway) after upgrading to VMware Horizon 8 Version 2111.

During this condition, you can still login and use the connection server directly with MFA working, however all UAG connections will get stuck on authenticating.

Horzion 8 Version 2111 UAG Stuck on Authenticating using DUO MFA (RADIUS)

Disabling MFA and/or RADIUS on the connection server will allow the UAG to function, however MFA will be disabled. This occurs on upgrades to version 2111 of the UAG both when configuring fresh, and importing the JSON configuration backup.

Temporary Fix

Update January 26 2022: VMware has now released version 2111.2 of the Unified Access Gateway which resolves this issue. You can download it here, or view the release notes here.

Update January 12 2022: It appears VMware now has a KB on this issue at: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/87253.

Temporary workaround/fix: To fix this issue, log on to the UAG and under “Horizon Edge Settings”, configure “Client Encryption Mode” to “Disabled”.

“Client Encryption Mode” is a new setting on UAG 2111 (and UAG 2111.1) that enables new functionality. Disabling this reverts the UAG to the previous behavior of older Unified Access Gateway versions.

More information on “Client Encryption Mode” can be found at https://docs.vmware.com/en/Unified-Access-Gateway/2111/uag-deploy-config/GUID-1B8665A2-485E-4471-954E-56DB9BA540E9.html.

Another workaround is to deploy an older version of the UAG, version 2106. After downgrading, the UAG functions with DUO and RADIUS even though the Connection Server is at version 2111.

If you use an older version of the UAG, please make sure that you mitigate against the Apache log4j vulnerabilities on the UAG using information from the following post: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/87092.

Active Directory Certificate Services Discussion and Install Guide

Certificates, Microsoft, Video Posts, Windows Server, Windows Server 2022 2 Responses »

Oct 112021

Today we’re going to discuss and deploy Active Directory Certificate Services on a Windows Server 2022 Server. Additionally, we’ll also be generating a domain certificate request inside of IIS and then assign the resultant certificate to a WSUS Server.

This video will demonstrate and explain the process of deploying a Windows Server 2022 Certification Authority with AD CS.

Check it out and feel free to leave a comment! Scroll down below for more information and details on the guide.

Windows Server 2022: Active Directory Certificate Services Discussion and Installation Guide

Who’s this guide for

This guide is perfect for a seasoned IT professional or a beginner who is looking at getting experience with Windows Server 2022.

What’s included in the video

In this guide I will walk you through the following:

Discussion
- SSL Certificates (Host verification)
- Internal Root Certification Authorities (Root CAs)
- Internal Root CA vs Public Trusted Root CAs
- HTTPS Scanning (Web Filtering) and SSL Certificates
- Intermediate Certificate Authorities
- Why ADCS?
- AD CS Certificate Templates
- Encryption
- Certificate Issuance

Demonstration
- Server Manager Role Installation
- MMC Snap-in for Certificates (Local Computer)
  - Root CAs
- Install Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS)
  - Add Server Role
  - Root CA Trust Discussion
  - AD CS Installation on Domain Controller Installation
  - AD CS Prerequisites
  - Web Enrollment Discussion
  - AD CS and IIS Discussion
- Install Internet Information Services (IIS) as pre-requisite
- Configure Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS)
  - Credentials
  - Role Configuration
  - Enterprise CA vs Standalone CA
  - Root CA vs Subordinate CA
  - Private Key Creation and Cryptographic options
  - Root CA Naming
  - Validity Period
- Certification Authority MMC Usage
- Root CA Replication to Domain (“gpupdate /force” and restart)
- AD CS Certificate Templates Overview
  - Certificate Templates MMC
  - Duplicate and Customize Web Server Certificate Template
  - Enable Auto-Enrollment for Certificate Template
- Use IIS to request certificate from Active Directory Certification Authority
  - Create Domain Certificate
- Enable SSL on WSUS Server using Active Directory Certificate Services Certificate
  - Bind new certificate to IIS Web Server
  - Update GPO to reflect SSL URL and port number
  - Run “iisreset” on elevated command prompt
- Demonstration Summary

What’s required

To get started you’ll need:

1 x Server (Virtual Machine or Physical Server)
Microsoft Windows Server 2022 Licensing
A running Windows Server 2022 Instance (OSE)
A network router and/or firewall

Hardware/Software used in this demonstration

VMware vSphere
HPE DL360p Gen8 Server
Microsoft Windows Server 2022
pfSense Firewall

vCSA Update – Backup and Restore Tips and Tricks

Backup, vCenter vCSA, Video Posts, VMware 1 Response »

Oct 102021

In this post, I wanted to go over some Backup and Restore tips and tricks when it comes to VMware vCSA Updates and Upgrades.

We’ve almost all been there, performing an update or upgrade of the VMware vCenter Server Appliance when it fails, and we must restore from a backup. There’s also times where the update or upgrade has been successful, however numerous issues occur afterwards prompting for the requirement of a restore from backup.

In this post, I wanted to briefly go over the methods of backups (and restores) for the vCSA, as well as some Tips and Tricks which might help you out for avoiding failed updates or upgrades in the future!

We all want to avoid a failed update or upgrade! 🙂

VMware vCSA Update Tips and Tricks for Backup and Restore

Please enjoy this video version of the blog post:

vCSA Update and Upgrade – Tips and Tricks for Backup and Restore

vCSA Backup methods

There are essentially two backup methods for backing up the vCenter Server Appliance:

vCSA Management Interface Backup
vSphere/ESXi Virtual Machine Snapshot

vCSA Management Interface Backup

If you log in to the vCSA Management Interface, you can configure a scheduled backup that will perform a full backup of your vCSA (and vCenter Server) instance.

This backup can be automatically ran and saved to an HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB destination. It’s a no-brainer if you have a Windows File Server or an NFS datastore.

In the event of a failed update/upgrade or a disaster, this backup can be restored to a new vCSA instance to recover from the failure.

For more information on backups from the vCSA Management Interface, please see https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vcenter.install.doc/GUID-8C9D5260-291C-44EB-A79C-BFFF506F2216.html.

For information on restoring a vCSA file based backup, please see https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vcenter.install.doc/GUID-F02AF073-7CFD-45B2-ACC8-DE3B6ED28022.html.

vSphere/ESXi Virtual Machine Snapshot

In addition to the scheduled automatic backups configured above, you should snapshot your vCSA appliance VM prior to initiating an update or upgrade. In the event of a failure, you can easily restore the vCSA VM snapshot to get back to a running state.

vCSA Snapshot Screenshot — vCSA Snapshot

Only after you test and confirm the upgrade or update was successful should you delete the snapshot.

You should also have your Backup application or suite performing regularly snapshot based backups of your vCSA.

Additional Tips and Tricks

I have a few very important tips and tricks to share which may help you either avoid a failed update or upgrade, or increase the chances of a successful restore from backup.

Gracefully Shutdown and Restart the vCSA Appliance before Upgrading
Application Consistent Snapshot – Snapshot after graceful shutdown

Let’s dive in to these below.

Gracefully Shutdown and Restart the vCSA Appliance before Upgrading

I noticed that I significantly reduced the amount of failed upgrades by simply gracefully shutting down and restarting the vCenter Server Appliance prior to an upgrade.

This allows you to clear out the memory, virtual memory, and restart all vCenter services prior to starting the upgrade.

Please Note: Make sure that you give the vCSA appliance enough time to boot, start services, and let some of the maintenance tasks run before initiating an upgrade.

Application Consistent Snapshot – Snapshot after graceful shutdown

Most VMware System Administrators I have talked to, usually snapshot the running vCSA appliance and do not snapshot the memory. This creates a crash consistent snapshot.

If you follow my advice above and gracefully shutdown and restart the vCSA appliance, you can use this time to perform a VM snapshot after a graceful shutdown. This will provide you with an application consistent snapshot instead of a crash consistent snapshot.

If you perform an application consistent snapshot by gracefully shutting down the VM prior to creating the snapshot, the virtual machine and database inside of it will be in a cleaner state.

Conclusion

Some of the Tips and Tricks in this post definitely aren’t necessary, however they can help you increase the chance of a successful upgrade, and a successful restore in the event of a failed upgrade.

For more information on upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance, please visit https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vcenter.upgrade.doc/GUID-30485437-B107-42EC-A0A8-A03334CFC825.html.

Synology NAS backup to Synology C2 Cloud

Synology, Synology C2, Synology DiskStation, Video Posts 2 Responses »

Oct 092021

One of the new real cool features of the Synology C2 Cloud and Synology DSM 7.0 is the ability to back your Synology DiskStation NAS up to the cloud.

Using the Synology’s “C2 Storage” service, you can use Synology Hyper Backup on DSM 7.0 to backup your your File Shares, NAS, applications, and data to the cloud.

Below, I will show the process of creating a Hyper Backup Backup task to backup a few Synology File Shares to the Synology C2 Storage Service.

NAS Backup (and Restore) with Synology C2 Cloud Video

For a full video guide and demonstration, please enjoy this video! Please continue scrolling for a text guide (with images).

Synology DiskStation NAS Backup (and Restore) with Synology C2 Storage Cloud!

Backup NAS to Synology C2 Storage

It’s very easy to back your NAS up to the cloud. Here’s a quick guide showing how it’s done.

We’re going to assume you already have some File Shares configured on your NAS. These can be Windows File Shares, NFS Exports, and even Active Backup for Business storage repositories. In my case, I want to back up 2 Windows File Shares to the Synology C2 Storage service.

Open Hyper Backup
If you have no existing backup jobs, the “Backup Wizard” should automatically open to configure a new job. If you have existing jobs, select the “+” on the top left of the window.
Under “Backup Destination”, choose “Synology C2 Storage”.
This will open a new window asking you to log on to the Synology C2 Storage Service. You may have to create a new account, or log in with your existing Synology credentials. From here you can start a free trial.
Choose a subscription and plan. You should get a 30-day free trial.
Confirm your subscription
Accept the TOS (Terms of Service)
You must now “Grant access to C2 Storage”. This will allow your user account to access the C2 Storage service.
You will now be presented with information on your Synology C2 Storage Account
You will now be redirected back to Hyper Backup. You’ll need to create a name for the new backup task destination directory.
Here’s where you will configure which File Shares (or volumes) to backup to Synology C2.
You also have the ability to backup Synology Applications. This is helpful should you wish to backup your entire Synology NAS to Synology’s C2 cloud. I’m only doing shares, so I hit next without selecting anything.
Now we will configure the Backup Task settings. This includes the task name, notifications, file change logs, bandwidth limits, backup schedule, and integrity check schedule. We can also “Enable client-side encryption” which we will use to encrypt the data on the cloud.
After proceeding, we will now configure backup rotation settings. I enabled backup rotation with “Smart Recycle”.
If you enabled encryption, you will be prompted to download your encryption key. Save this file in a safe location as you will need it in the event your NAS fails and you need to access your cloud storage.

And that’s it! You have now configured your NAS to backup to Synology C2 Cloud!

Hyper Backup NAS Backup to Synology C2 Cloud

We have now configured the backup job. Let’s go ahead and kick off a backup by clicking on “Back up now”.

And that’s it! After some time, your backup should complete and you data should be safe on the Synology C2 Cloud.

What happens when your run of out space

This is a question many of you will be asking, and I was curious myself. I went ahead and uploaded a bunch of garbage data to max out my plan.

Synology Hyper Backup C2 Storage - Not enough quota available on the target — Synology Hyper Backup C2 Storage – Not enough quota available on the target

To my surprise Synology allowed me to exceed my plan by a decent amount of storage until the backup job went in to a “Suspended” state reporting “Not enough quota available on the target”. I actually exceeded the storage by 128GB!!! This is extremely generous!

Synology C2 Storage - Storage overage — Synology C2 Storage – Storage overage

To find out how well the NAS would recover from this situation, I logged on to the Synology C2 Storage service and increased my purchased storage. I was able to simply click on “Action” and “Resume” the backup without any issues… It actually resumed where it left off.

Conclusion

The Synology C2 Storage Cloud service is a great option for backing up your DiskStation NAS and all your important files to the cloud. In my case I use my NAS as a backup, and then further backup my NAS both to a removable hard drive, and the Synology C2 Cloud, keeping me compliant with the 3-2-1 backup rule.

The pricing is amazing and there’s extra cost to backup and restore, which means no upload or download costs. They even provide de-duplication so you’re not paying to store duplicated data.

As part of the backup process, Hyper Backup only copies over blocks of data and files that have changed, which significantly helps bandwidth usage as only what’s changed is copied.

I highly recommend using Synology C2 Storage with your Synology DiskStation NAS!

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