Scott's Tech Blog – Technology blog for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), Microsoft, and Linux

Deploying VCF Offline Depot using Photon OS

December 29, 2025 | Homelab, Linux, VCF, VMware | No Comments

Greetings, today we will be deploying an Photon Linux Offline Depot for VCF This was done using Aaron Rombaut’s and the Broadcom KB articles. https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vcf/vcf-9-0-and-later/9-0/deployment/deploying-a-new-vmware-cloud-foundation-or-vmware-vsphere-foundation-private-cloud-/preparing-your-environment/downloading-binaries-to-the-vcf-installer-appliance/connect-to-an-offline-depot-to-download-binaries/set-up-an-offline-depot-web-server-for-vmware-cloud-foundation.html To start, you will need to download the Photon OS from the following link. I will be using the OVA with visual hardware v15 version. https://github.com/vmware/photon/wiki/Downloading-Photon-OS I will be downloading […]

By Scott Bell

Modify Default Policy for Automatic Certificate Request (Group Policy)

December 22, 2025 | ADCS, Certificate Services, Certificate Template, Microsoft | No Comments

Greetings, today we are going to modify the Default Policy Group Policy Object to set domain member computers to automatically request a machine certificate. This assumes you already have a Domain and Certificate Services setup and ready to use for this. If you need to setup your domain or certificate services still, please refer to […]

By Scott Bell

Create Certificate Template for VMware Certificate Authority

December 13, 2025 | ADCS, Certificate Services, Certificate Template, Homelab, Microsoft, VCF, VMware | No Comments

Greetings, this time we are going to be creating a Certificate Template for VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA). This would allow you to use VMCA to issue certificates for your VMware environment. This is based on the following article: Creating a Microsoft Certificate Authority Template for SSL certificate creation in vSphere Open Certificate Authority Select Certificate […]

By Scott Bell

Update ESXi 7 using CLI

December 1, 2025 | ESXi, ESXi 7, ESXi 7 CLI Update, Homelab, VMware | No Comments

Greetings, today we will be updating ESXi 7 to a newer version of 7 using command line and no vCenter. In this case 7.0.3d to 7.0.3w. Note: All VMs running on the host should be powered off, or vmotioned to another host if there is a vCenter available. To start we will need to have […]

By Scott Bell

Building an VCF Offline Depot in Windows using IIS

December 1, 2025 | Homelab, Microsoft, VCF, VMware | No Comments

Greetings, today we are going to be setting up an Offline Depot using Windows and IIS. This is going to assume you have already deployed an Windows Server. You will want an additional drive added with 1TB of space for current and future downloads. You will need: 1TB added drive. If your limited on space, […]

By Scott Bell

Create Certificate Template for VMware Services

November 28, 2025 | ADCS, Certificate Services, Certificate Template, Homelab, Microsoft, VCF, VMware | No Comments

Greetings, this time we are going to be creating a Certificate Template for VMware services. This is based on the following article: Creating a Microsoft Certificate Authority Template for SSL certificate creation in vSphere Open Certificate Authority Select Certificate Authority Expand Root-CA01, then right-click Certificate Templates and select Manage Right-click Web Server and select Duplicate […]

By Scott Bell

Setting Up IIS SSL Certificate for CA Server for Homelab (CertSrv) (Part 2 of Setting up CA Server)

November 27, 2025 | ADCS, Certificate Services, Homelab, Microsoft | No Comments

Now that we have IIS installed on our CA Server, it’s time to setup a certificate for HTTPS connections Login, click the Start Menu and type certlm.msc. You can also right-click start and select Run to do the same. Expand Personal and then click on Certificates. Notice there is only the Root-CA’s Cert here, we […]

By Scott Bell

Install an CA Server for Home Lab (Part 1)

November 26, 2025 | ADCS, Certificate Services, Homelab, Microsoft, VCF | No Comments

Today we are going to be setting up a Certificate Server for the new domain in my home lab. This is part of the systematic rebuild of the lab so that I can write these articles to document the process to potentially help others and for a record of my own on the next rebuild. […]

By Scott Bell

Deploy Windows Server 2022 and Build Active Directory Part 2: Building Active Directory

November 13, 2025 | Homelab, Microsoft | No Comments

Deploy Windows Server 2022 and Build Active Directory Part 2 Greetings, today in part 2 we will be building the Active Directory Domain using the new name for my lab which will be lab.scottbell.me. Lets get to it Snapshot First, login and take a snapshot of the VM just in case. Now that we have […]

By Scott Bell

Deploy Windows Server 2022 and Build Active Directory Part 1: Building the Windows Servers

November 11, 2025 | Homelab, Microsoft | No Comments

This will be the start of a series of articles for the rebuild of my lab to properly document the build process. This will start here with Active Directory on Windows Server 2022, building a new Certificate Server on 2022, then continue into VCF oriented steps such as the offline depot, deploying the VCF installer, […]

By Scott Bell

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