Sadly the iPhone app doesn't get updated. According to the app store version history:
v2.6.0 was released about 6 months ago, so around October 2023
v2.5.5 was released two years ago.

CBT Nuggets isn't much better.

Very interesting read. Thanks, @Andrew-Despres!

Please submit this to our member support team via the chat bubble on our site to get a direct reply.

I wish we could have afforded him...it is a voice actor...very talented voice actor

https://forums.acilearning.com/topic/4114/morgan-freeman-on-itprotv/3?_=1711357822396

If it doesn't recognize it in safe mode...your computer is allergic to it ;)
I'm now at a loss. this should strip out anything that would have interfered with it completely.

I used to love TWiT's This Week in Computer Hardware with Patrick Norton, but Leo got rid of it.

Hi Benjamin - this forum is for questions regarding the courses themselves. For example, questions about what you learned in A+.

I would recommend you use the chat support (bubble) feature of our website. That is the support team geared for questions not relating to the technical content of our classes.

Thanks so much.

It's time for another bonus episode!

This will be episode 2.1: Windows, Virtio, QEMU...Oh my!

As I mentioned in the previous episode, there are some special things to keep in mind when it comes to installing Windows in Proxmox. After going through the video "Launching a Windows VM in Proxmox" by Learn Linux TV I was able to understand how to use Virtio drivers and get the QEMU agents working.

Before we begin, you might be thinking, "Why should I do this? I was able to get my VM installed no issues without these steps." The short answer has been summed up right within the Proxmox documentation:

"VirtIO Drivers (download link here) are paravirtualized drivers for kvm/Linux. In short, they enable direct (paravirtualized) access to devices and peripherals for virtual machines using them, instead of slower, emulated, ones. "

What this all means is by using Virtio, you are using "Paravirtualization" which allows for better performance for your VM which gives the VM direct access to the devices and peripherals connected to the VM as-opposed to emulated drivers which are slower.

"Whats a QEMU agent? Is that important?"

QEMU is an abbreviation that means Q(uick) EMU(lator) which is a free and open-source emulator that emulates a computers processor through dynamic binary translationand provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it to run a variety of guest operating systems. It can interoperate with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) to run virtual machines at near-native speed. QEMU can also do emulation for user-level processes, allowing applications compiled for one architecture to run on another.

Now with that out of the way we can finally begin deploying a Windows VM correctly using Proxmox!

First thing you you will want to do is actually download the Virtio drivers. I put a link earlier in the thread. Like I mentioned in previous episodes you can add these ISO files easily right within Promox and download them within the client itself by clicking on the "Download from URL" button and pasting the URL:

8e19322d-75cb-4448-8d8c-75857fd2af51-image.png

Now that the Virtio ISO is downloaded, let create a new VM by clicking the Create VM button in the top right corner of our Proxmox instance. We can mostly go through the same installation process as I mentioned before but I will mark any changes that may need to be made below.

The first difference is on the OS tab. In this tab there is a checkbox to add an additional drive for our Virtio ISO. Super handy! Click the checkbox and find the location where you Virtio ISO:

653ac66e-5054-4d35-9402-0e475cb659b9-image.png

Next on the System tab, make sure to hit the checkbox for the QEMU agent. This will make sure the agent will be enabled when we install the software:

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Next on Disk, select SCSI for your disk and select Write Back for the Cache option. Write back should help increase performance:

23732417-1f96-4a63-bb69-997d7c8c5fd1-image.png

And that was the last difference for the Create VM portion. All of these changes are the recommended settings that Proxmox dictates. Now, because we chose the option to add an addtional drive for Virtio drivers, we do not need to do anything else with our VM, we can now start it. Make sure that the virtual DVD drive with the Server 2022 ISO file is first in the boot order! Your IDE drive order should look like the image below. Notice that my Server 2022 drive is set to 0 and my Virtio drive is set to 1:

d95ef83d-bf06-4af3-b7d3-4f1c3f244fda-image.png

Please note, you might need to smash your "Any key" (mines spacebar) as soon as you boot your VM. If you don't you will miss the option to continue to boot to Windows and then your VM will move to the next device which will be your Virtio DVD drive.

Follow the steps to install Windows until you get to the disk selection screen. You will notice that there are no drives to select! This is where the Virtio ISO comes in. Select the Load Drive button in the bottom left side:

d64b783f-62df-4eb1-813c-ff932f63d278-image.png

On the load driver prompt select Browse and the go to the follow folder: Virtio ISO> viosci> 2k22> amd64

c329a725-315d-4b76-9b70-2d626f218f22-image.png

You should now see a Redhat VIRTIO SCSI pass-through controller driver. Click next to install the driver. After this driver is installed your hard drive will now be select-able in the Windows Installer! You can now complete your installation of Server 2022.

9c73fb3c-157b-47a9-bc42-b9bb5aa136f6-image.png

Once you're logged into your new Server 2022 installation, you will most likely notice some drivers missing if you open you Device Manager. Below is what my device manager looks like after a fresh install:

ad65efb3-73be-483f-b520-2d30838bec2f-image.png

You can see that I am missing an Ethernet Controller, PCI Device and a PCI Simple Communications Controller. We will be using the Virtio ISO disk to install these missing drivers. Simply right-click on the driver you want to install and click on Update Drive, Browse my Computer, and then Browse again and find your Virtio ISO drive. If you don't see it check the hardware settings of the VM in Proxmox. You should be able to select the Virtio drive (in my case my E drive) and Windows will search all subfolders as long as that checkbox is selected:

5121e83c-8ae0-4477-9604-b9f87dc99f26-image.png

Click next and within seconds your driver will be installed!

3509a8cc-fc48-4744-9a33-5be5a9b1a97b-image.png

Lastly, we will install the QEMU agent. This is also fairly simple to complete. Just follow the steps below:

And that's it! You have now successfully gone through the steps to install Server 2022 using Virtio drivers and a QEMU agent following the Proxmox recommendations.

For my next episode(s) I want to go through the Networking and Firewall settings within Proxmox. I want to do this to isolate my Homelab and do some networking tricks within my Homelabs own subnet. Make a server run NAT so all traffic goes through it etc etc. If you have any questions or comments on this last bonus episode please feel free to post a comment! I am hoping to make these updates more frequent as long as my work schedule and sickness in my home cooperate.

Thanks again for going on this adventure with me. Keep learning cool things nerdos!

Have a great weekend!

Thanks @Anthony-Sequeira-0. It wasn't down long, but FELT like forever. I need my content!

I know this is a really late response, but I thought I'd add my two cents to this for history reasons. Our company has chosen to implement BOTH SecureWorks (Taegis XDR) and Rapid 7. I didn't have any part in the decision, but I really like the capabilities of the two. The Taegis XDR product gives us near real-time responses to events in our environment, both from the internal network and our cloud resources, showing us what's going on with our servers and our devices. We also have CrowdStrike Falcon, that was already in place and that feeds a lot of data to the Taegis XDR platform. So we actually have two separate products that are monitoring and automatically responding to and preventing a lot of things that could have been an issue or caused problems. We've had a few events that were stopped that might have become a bigger issue.
As for the Rapid 7 environment, we are using it currently for active vulnerability tracking and penetration testing on our external and cloud environments. It finds vulnerabilities or even just things that are recommended security changes. We haven't yet set it up for scanning our internal systems, but once we do I can certainly see it providing as useful information there as it has been for our external and cloud systems.

And five years later nothing has changed.

Be sure to submit this request using the Support Chat feature on the site so that it gets officially logged. It seems that we are starting to get more and more requests for Aruba...currently, it is not on our build plan for 2024.

Hopefully in the future we could (at least) provide training for the Aruba Certified Network Technician (ACNT) https://www.arubanetworks.com/support-services/training-services/certified-network-technician/

Hi @Mike-Berry!

Exciting that you get to start on this journey! @wes-bryan has brought up a lot of what I would say. Pick a hypervisor, get some ISO's and get started poking around. I have recently started my journey with creating a Home Lab as well and I am documenting everything in this ITPro TV forum post right now (with plans to through them onto a Google Site using my personal Google Workspace domain):

https://forums.acilearning.com/topic/4515/home-lab-for-skills-buidling/24

I just finished Episode 2 where I go through installing a VM using Proxmox. I try my best to explain my rationale with whatever choices I make and go through my troubleshooting steps when I run into issues.

For backup software I can recommend Veeam for Home for your learning. Veeam is a backup solution that is used by a good chunk of Enterprises in the wild and could very well be a good solution for your NfP, depending on pricing of course.

I would also like to advise you that if you have questions on a server technology to check out the Server+ videos on the ITPro Platform. Wes and Ronnie do an amazing job with that series and they helped me pass my Server+ exam back in October 2023. Also, don't be afraid to ask questions here on the forum! I'm trying to be active here and would be more than happy to give my expertise, or at the very least, my Google-Fu skills for any question you may have.

Good luck with your journey, and, most importantly, have fun!

Check out the SCOR course here - https://app.acilearning.com/course/cisco-ccnp-security-scor-exam-350701/course-overview-scor

For lab work - I would recommend that you check out the Sandbox labs that are available at Cisco DevNet. These are amazing. There are also learning labs at Cisco DevNet. All of these resources are free! You just need a free Cisco or Google account.

https://developer.cisco.com/site/sandbox/