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Update Manager not working with VAMI proxy VCSA 6.7

On previous versions of vcenter server as vsphere 6.5 you had to enable proxy settings through VAMI in order to apply updates on your infrastructure (for non internet facing subnets)

You can locate your appliance VAMI endpoint from https://ApplianceIP/FQDN:5480

However by following the same procedure download manager on vcenter 6.7 was not able to download updates.

By checking the logs I could determine the

Connecting to vapp-updates.vmware.com failed cannot assign requested address.

/var/log/vmware/applmgmt/applmgmt.log

It seems that download manager is a different component on newer versions and cannot get internet connection through VAMI. You can see below the location on which configuration files and settings are saved inside the vcsa appliance.

In order to resolve issue I added proxy on download manager as shown on the below screenshot and updates could be downloaded.

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Allow non Admin users to connect through RDP on domain controller

On domain controllers only domain administrator users are allowed to initiate a remote desktop connection and connect successfully. In order to allow normal domain users to connect through RDP perform the below:

run local group policy editor on each domain controller

Go under Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> User Rights Assignment

edit allow log on through Remote Desktop services policy and add a user or group.

The last step is to add the above user or group to remote desktop users group on Active Directory Users and Computers -> Builtin -> Remote Desktop Users

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Clients cannot registered to WSUS console

Recently I faced an issue with Microsoft’s WSUS update manager and the console on which clients are reporting. In more detail although clients were able to connect and communicate with WSUS server, they could not be registered on the console.

I tried many workarounds that I found online but non of them worked. By troubleshooting further I was able to detect the issue.

First things first, when you deal with such an issue try ping in order to verify network connectivity and also

Test-NetConnection WSUS_serverIP -port 80 
Test-NetConnection WSUS_serverIP -port 8530 (or 8531 for encrypted)

If you are sure that network and port connectivity is in place run the below powershell command which will generate a log output on your desktop. Try to read the logs and verify the issue.

Get-WindowsUpdateLog

On my case the issue was a proxy that did not allow communication to WSUS web service which performs the necessary tasks in order for the machine to be registered on the console.

Below is the command to reset web proxy settings on a windows server 2016 machine.

Bonus content:

After the successful removal of proxy I restarted the windows update setting and it got stuck on a server with the state of stopping.

You can kill a stuck service on Windows with the below command on an elevated prompt:

taskkill /F /FI "SERVICES eq wuauserv"

I used wuauserv as it is the name of windows update service

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Extend Raw Device Mapping Disk – virtual compatibility mode on VMware

You can follow the below procedure to extend an RDM disk with virtual compatibility mode on VMware. As described in the article attached on the bottom, you can accomplish that either by migrating the RDM or by shutting down the VM and performing the procedure below. The article implements the shut down way.

The first step is to extend the RDM disk from storage. Find the UUID descriptor and provide some additional space.

Then you need to locate the VMware disk that you want to extend and record the SCSI controller and SCSI ID because it is needed on a later stage.

on my case SCSI target is 8

Then you should delete the disk from virtual machine. You can also select (delete files from datastore) as only the RDM pointer will be deleted and not the actual disk data.

After that you should rescan storage devices and volumes on the ESXi host and locate if the device has identified the new capacity.

in my case the new storage capacity is 150G

Then edit virtual machine settings and select add new device that will be of type RDM Disk

The next dialog shows the new disk with the extended capacity.

Click OK and be careful in order to add the same SCSI ID and controller as previously.

Perform a rescan inside the Operating system and the capacity will be available for use

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1007021