Category: security

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Change Brocade FOS default passwords

Brocade FC-Switches are equipped with four default useraccounts: admin, root, user and factory.

By connectiong an SSH session with user ‘root’ and default password ‘fibranne’ you will be prompted to change logins for accounts root, user and factory.

 

This happens at login as long as you did not change default passwords. The process can be started by pressing <ENTER>. If it is skipped by pressing Ctrl-C you will be prompted again at next login of user ‘root’

Show users

userconfig --show -a

This command will show a list aof all local users and their settings.

 

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VMware releases patches for Meltdown and Spectre bug

Important patches available

VMware has issued Security Advisories for the recent Meltdown and Spectre bugs to address side-channel analysis due to speculative execution.

I recommend reading a post by Anton Gostev (Veeam), which i reposted yesterday.

It includes patches for VC, ESXi, Workstation and Fusion.

VMSA-2018-0004

VMware vSphere, Workstation and Fusion updates add Hypervisor-Assisted Guest Remediation for speculative execution issue.

There’s also an update to VMSA-2018-0002

VMSA-2018-0002.1

Continue reading “VMware releases patches for Meltdown and Spectre bug”

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create kernel panic on ESXi

There are situations when you need to check cluster reactions after a ESX host crash. For example to see if HA will start VM on other hosts.

The easiest method is to pull a hosts powercord. But there ar more elegant ways to let a host crash.

Warning! Do not use on productive systems! This is for testing purposes under controlled conditions only. Use at your own risk.

PSOD

You can trigger a Purple-Screen-of-Death (PSOD) by issuing a special command that causes a kernel panic.  Use the VMkernel Sys Info Shell (vsish).

First you need a SSH connection to your host. Change to vsish

vsish
set /reliability/crashMe/Panic

Alternatively you can issue the command together with parameters.

vsish -e set /reliability/crashMe/Panic 1

Your host will end up in a PSOD and can be restarted afterwards.