Month: August 2016

VMware vSphere 5.x client and Windows XP/Server 2003

Posted on by Andy

When installed on a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 host machine, the vSphere Client and vSphere PowerCLI may fail to connect to vCenter Server 5.0, 5.1 and 5.5 due to a Handshake failure. vSphere 5.0, 5.1 and 5.5 uses the Open SSL library, which, for security, is configured by default to accept only connections that use strong cipher suites. On Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, the vSphere Client and vSphere PowerCLI do not use strong cipher suites to connect with vCenter Server.

Here is the fix:

  1. Connect to the host via SSH
  2. Navigate to the directory:

    /etc/vmware/rhttpproxy/
  3. Backup the config.xml file. Do not skip this step.
  4. Open config.xml file using vi editor
  5. Add the <cipherList>ALL</cipherList> parameter between the <ssl>…</ssl> section of the configuration file. Use the model below as an example: 

    <config>
...
<vmacore>
...
<ssl>
<doVersionCheck> false </doVersionCheck>
<useCompression>true</useCompression>
<libraryPath>/lib/</libraryPath>
<cipherList>ALL</cipherList> # <-- TO BE ADDED
</ssl>
...
</vmacore>
...
</config>
  6. Save and close the config.xml file
  7. Reset the rhttpproxy service for the change to take effect by running the command:

    /etc/init.d/rhttpproxy restart

Install MATE desktop on FreeBSD 10.3

Posted on by Andy

FreeBSD has no GUI in its initial installation state. Here are a few steps to get the MATE desktop up and running using the binary packages. Note that the packages could also be installed by using the ports collection. For easy configuration i prefer to use VIM but it needs to be installed first. Use following command: 

pkg install vim

Installing the X Window System

This is needed by the desktop environment and can be installed easily by using 

pkg install xorg

Configuring the X Window System

Now we need a few commands and edit to configure the system. As root do the following 

vim /boot/loader.conf

add this line at the top: 

kern.vty=vt

Installing SLIM and MATE desktop

It's time to install your graphical interface… MATE does not come with a login manager sou you need to install one like SLIM. 

pkg install mate
pkg install slim

after installation add this to /etc/fstab 

proc          /proc       procfs  rw  0  0

now everything should be ready. Only one more step: add the following lines to /etc/rc.conf to start the desktop environment at boot: 

moused_enable="YES"
dbus_enable="YES"
hald_enable="YES"
slim_enable="YES"

REMEMBER:

If you want a user to login to the MATE desktop, replace the user and execute the following command: 

echo "exec mate-session" > /home/<myuser>/.xinitrc

VMWARE USERS:

Should you run this FreeBSD setup in a VMware product like VMware Fusion please install following packages: 

pkg install xf86-video-vmware xf86-input-vmmouse