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	<title>Ubiquitous Talk &#187; Security</title>
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	<link>http://blog.laspina.ca</link>
	<description>Blogging for technical minds.</description>
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		<title>Protecting Active Directory with Snapshot Strategies</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/protecting-active-directory-with-snapshot-strategies</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/protecting-active-directory-with-snapshot-strategies#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:38:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Storage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VMware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Active Directory]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[best practice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[opensolaris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Restore]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[snapshot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[zfs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.laspina.ca/?p=422</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Using snapshots to protect Active Directory (AD) without careful planning will most definitely end up in a complete disaster. AD is a loosely consistent distributed multi-master database and it must not be treated as a static system.  Without carefully addressing how AD works with Time Stamps, Version Stamps, Update Sequence Numbers (USNs), Globally Unique Identification numbers (GUIDs), [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/protecting-active-directory-with-snapshot-strategies/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Controlling Snapshot Noise</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/controlling-snapshot-noise</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/controlling-snapshot-noise#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Aug 2009 03:21:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Storage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VMware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[backup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[delta]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[noise]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[size]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[snapshot]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.laspina.ca/?p=382</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The ability to perform file system, database and volume snapshots grants us many data protection benefits. However there are some serious problems that can occur if we do not carefully architect snapshot based storage infrastructures. This blog entry will discuss some of the issues with data noise induction and data integrity when using point in time [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/controlling-snapshot-noise/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Securing COMSTAR and VMware iSCSI connections</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/securing-comstar-and-vmware-iscsi-connections</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/securing-comstar-and-vmware-iscsi-connections#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:40:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Storage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VMware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[authentication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CHAP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comstar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[esx]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[initiator]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iscsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[itadm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mutual]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[target]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.laspina.ca/?p=189</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Connecting VMware iSCSI sessions to COMSTAR or any iSCSI target provider securely is required to maintain a reliable system. Without some level of initiator to target connection gate keeping we will eventually encounter a security event. This can happen from a variety of sources, for example a non-cluster aware OS can connect to an unsecured VMware shared storage LUN and cause severe damage [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/securing-comstar-and-vmware-iscsi-connections/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Additional VMFS Backup Automation script features</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/additional-vmfs-backup-automation-script-features</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/additional-vmfs-backup-automation-script-features#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:28:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VMware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[automation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[backup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[features]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[script]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vmfs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ux1.laspina.ca/?p=103</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was conversing with William Lam about my blog entry Protecting ESX VMFS Stores with Automation and we exchanged ideas on the simple automation script that I originally posted. William is well versed in bash and has brought more functionality to the original automation script. We now have a have a rolling backup set 10 versions deep with folder augmented organization based [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/additional-vmfs-backup-automation-script-features/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Protecting ESX VMFS Stores with Automation</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/protecting-esx-vmfs-stores-with-automation</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/protecting-esx-vmfs-stores-with-automation#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2009 03:31:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VMware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[automated]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[backup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cron]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scripts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[undelete]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vmfs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ux1.laspina.ca/?p=98</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Some time ago I shared some interesting information about VMFS volumes that I found using direct analysis in my blog named Understanding VMFS volumes. This spawned some discussions on the VMware Community forums and it became apparent that an automated backup of the critical VMFS info could be useful in the event of an undesirable security event that impacts our [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/protecting-esx-vmfs-stores-with-automation/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Understanding VMFS volumes</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/understanding-vmfs-volumes</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/understanding-vmfs-volumes#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:16:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Storage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VMware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[deleted]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[esx]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[esxi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fdisk]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[guid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[header]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lun]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lvm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[partition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[path]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recover]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resignature]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sector]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uuid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vml]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[volume]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ux1.laspina.ca/?p=68</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Understanding VMFS volumes is an important element within VMware ESX environments. When storage issues surface we need to correctly evaluate the VMFS volume states and apply the appropriate corrective actions to remediate undesirable storage events. VMFS architecture is not publically available and this certainly adds to the challenge when we need to correct a volume configuration or change [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/understanding-vmfs-volumes/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>10</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>ZFS Snapshot Rollup Bash Script</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/zfs_snapshot_rollup_bash_script</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/zfs_snapshot_rollup_bash_script#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:28:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Storage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VMware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[backup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bash]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[father]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grandfather]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[receive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rollup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[script]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[send]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[snapshot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[son]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[zfs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ux1.laspina.ca/?p=38</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
As a follow on to my blog entry Provisioning Disaster Recovery with ZFS, iSCSI and VMware I created this snapshot rollup script to help maintain the growing snapshots and minimize disk consumption. The script is an add-on to the zfsadm account cron jobs and runs under the security privileges of the zfsadm user detailed in that [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/zfs_snapshot_rollup_bash_script/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A centrally based method for patching ESX3 VMWare Servers</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/a_centrally_based_method_forpatching-esx3-vmware-servers</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/a_centrally_based_method_forpatching-esx3-vmware-servers#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:45:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VMware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[esx]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[method]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[patch]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ux1.laspina.ca/?p=61</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I have updated my ESX servers manually many times and I find the process to say at the least is &#8221;annoying&#8221; so I decided to change it to an http based method with a modified patch configuration. I found that it really works well. 
I did some searching prior to the method I settled on and found [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/a_centrally_based_method_forpatching-esx3-vmware-servers/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Provisioning Disaster Recovery with ZFS, iSCSI and VMware</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/provisioning_disaster_recovery_with_zfs</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/provisioning_disaster_recovery_with_zfs#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:41:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Storage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[VMware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[clone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[disaster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[howto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iscsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recovery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[replication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[snapshot]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vmfs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[zfs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ux1.laspina.ca/?p=57</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[OpenSolaris, ZFS, iSCSI and VMware are a great combination for provisioning Disaster Recovery (DR) systems at exceptionally low cost. There are some fundamentally well suited features of ZFS and VMFS volumes that provide a relatively simply and very efficient recovery process for VMware hosted non-zero RPO crash consistent recovery based environments. In this weblog I will demonstrate [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/provisioning_disaster_recovery_with_zfs/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>iSCSI Security Basics</title>
		<link>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/iscsi_security_basics</link>
		<comments>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/iscsi_security_basics#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 12 Apr 2008 02:39:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mike La Spina</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[basics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[best practice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iscsi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[isolation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[methods]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[power]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[redundancy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ux1.laspina.ca/?p=21</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With iSCSI&#8217;s growing popularity the need for improved iSCSI security understanding is becoming very important. Multiple issues arise when we choose to transport storage over our networks. The fundamental security areas of availability, confidentiality and integrity are all at risk when iSCSI best practices are not implemented. For example a single attachment error can corrupt an iSCSI attached device at the speed [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/iscsi_security_basics/feed</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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