Virtualization by Davis: “VMware accelerates security updates after ESX source code leak” plus 2 more

VMware accelerates security updates after ESX source code leak
Dell and Red Hat Collaborate for Embedded Solutions through Dell OEM Partner Program
Walking through the App-V 5.0 Beta Server Setup (Part 1)

VMware accelerates security updates after ESX source code leak

Posted: 08 May 2012 01:25 PM PDT

On May 3 VMware released a security update, that the company itself define as "accelerated", with the purpose to patch five "critical" security issues across VMware ESX and ESXi hypervisor version 3.5, 4.0, 4.1 and 5.0 and also two of the client products, VMware Workstation and Player.

As reported in the Security Note, this update is connected to the source code leak announced on April 24.

Albeit VMware didn't release any detail about the leak so far, ThreatPost, run by Kaspersky Lab, indicates "Hardcore Charlie" as the hacker claiming to have stolen 300 Megabytes of VMware source code from the military contractor China National Import & Export Corp (CEIEC).

Despite VMware quotes the event in the note, doesn't evidence any link between the discovered vulnerabilities and the stolen code, merely suggesting the update as a normal security procedure.

1. Are these software patches related to source code associated with the April 23rd incident?

VMware has consistently provided software updates and patches to help customers maintain the most reliable and secure environment. In light of the current circumstances, we have accelerated our most recent security patches and applied them to all affected currently supported products.

Labels: Leaks, Security, VMware

Dell and Red Hat Collaborate for Embedded Solutions through Dell OEM Partner Program

Posted: 07 May 2012 09:00 PM PDT

Dell and Red Hat Collaborate for Embedded Solutions through Dell OEM Partner Program

Walking through the App-V 5.0 Beta Server Setup (Part 1)

Posted: 08 May 2012 07:08 AM PDT

The App-V 5.0 Beta Server is made up 3 components – Management Server, Publishing Server and the Management Database. The components are dependent but have varying requirements and actions to have them successfully deployed. The goal of this series of blog posts is to walk you through the process of deploying the App-V 5.0 Beta server in your environment.

This first post will discuss the things that you will need to do to be able to prepare your environment to do the deployments. The following posts will discuss the actual installation process and will review the process of deploying the server in a script.

Getting ready to deploy

There are 3 things you need to consider before deploying the App-V Server.

· Unsupported Scenarios: These are the scenarios where the deployments are not supported and could result in failures.

· Prerequisites: These are the pre-requisites that need to be present to ensure that the installation is able to successfully complete and the service is functional. These can vary from component to component.

· Deployment Preparations: These are items that you will need to get ready before launching the installation.

Unsupported Scenarios

The following deployment scenarios are currently not supported:

· Deployment on Windows Server Core

· Deployment on a machine which has previous versions of the App-V Server components deployed (e.g. App-V 4.5 Server)

· Deployment of the App-V Management Database to SQL Server Express edition

· Remotely deploying the Management Server Database. The installer must be run directly on the SQL server for the database install to succeed.

· Deployment on a machine configured as a domain controller.

Pre-requisites

The system pre-requisites - which are required for all the components – are as follows:

· Windows Server 2008 R2 or later

· Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Extended Version (Download http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718 )

o Note: If .Net 4.0 is not present on the machine, server setup currently will fail silently so if you run appv_server_setup.exe and nothing happens, check if .Net 4.0 is installed on the machine. For more details on how to check your machine for a .Net installation, refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/kbarticle.aspx?id=318785

· The account used to launch appv_server_setup.exe must have Administrative privileges on the targeted machine and must be able to query AD. If the Management Server Database component is selected, Database Admin (DBA) privileges are also needed.

In addition to the system pre-requisites, each component has certain prerequisites that need to be met before the installation will successfully complete.

Management Server / Publishing Server

· Windows Web Server with IIS Role added and configured with only the following features enabled:

o Common HTTP Features

§ Static Content

§ Default Document

o Application Development

§ ASP.Net

§ .Net Extensibility

§ ISAPI Extensions

§ ISAPI Filters

o Security

§ Windows Authentication

§ Request Filtering

· The following Windows Web Server features must be disabled:

o Common HTTP Features

§ WebDAV Publishing

o Security

§ Basic Authentication

· Disable "Anonymous Authentication" in the IIS Console.

· Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 (This must be installed/configured via the 'Add Features Wizard' in Server Manager)

o This is required in addition to the .Net 4.0 requirement called out above so as to support the App-V PowerShell module.

· Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Runtime Redistributable (Download http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=15336)

o Note: This only applies to the App-V 5.0 Beta Management Server and is not required for the Publishing Server.

· Run the following command in an elevated command prompt. This has to be done in addition to the prerequisites detailed above

o Windows Server 2008 R2

dism /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:IIS-ApplicationDevelopment /FeatureName:IIS-ASPNET /FeatureName:IIS-CommonHttpFeatures ^

/FeatureName:IIS-DefaultDocument /FeatureName:IIS-DirectoryBrowsing /FeatureName:IIS-HealthAndDiagnostics /FeatureName:IIS-HttpCompressionStatic ^

/FeatureName:IIS-HttpErrors /FeatureName:IIS-HttpLogging /FeatureName:IIS-HttpTracing /FeatureName:IIS-ISAPIExtensions /FeatureName:IIS-ISAPIFilter ^

/FeatureName:IIS-LoggingLibraries /FeatureName:IIS-ManagementConsole /FeatureName:IIS-ManagementService /FeatureName:IIS-NetFxExtensibility ^

/FeatureName:IIS-Performance /FeatureName:IIS-RequestFiltering /FeatureName:IIS-RequestMonitor /FeatureName:IIS-Security /FeatureName:IIS-StaticContent ^

/FeatureName:IIS-WebServer /FeatureName:IIS-WebServerManagementTools /FeatureName:IIS-WebServerRole /FeatureName:IIS-WindowsAuthentication ^

/FeatureName:WAS-ConfigurationAPI /FeatureName:WAS-NetFxEnvironment /FeatureName:WAS-ProcessModel /FeatureName:WAS-WindowsActivationService

o Windows Server 2012

dism /Online /Enable-Feature /all /FeatureName:IIS-ApplicationDevelopment /FeatureName:IIS-ASPNET /FeatureName:IIS-ASPNET45 ^

/FeatureName:IIS-CommonHttpFeatures /FeatureName:IIS-DefaultDocument /FeatureName:IIS-DirectoryBrowsing /FeatureName:IIS-HealthAndDiagnostics ^

/FeatureName:IIS-HttpCompressionStatic /FeatureName:IIS-HttpErrors /FeatureName:IIS-HttpLogging /FeatureName:IIS-HttpTracing /FeatureName:IIS-ISAPIExtensions ^

/FeatureName:IIS-ISAPIFilter /FeatureName:IIS-LoggingLibraries /FeatureName:IIS-ManagementConsole /FeatureName:IIS-ManagementService /FeatureName:IIS-NetFxExtensibility ^

/FeatureName:IIS-NetFxExtensibility45 /FeatureName:IIS-Performance /FeatureName:IIS-RequestFiltering /FeatureName:IIS-RequestMonitor /FeatureName:IIS-Security ^

/FeatureName:IIS-StaticContent /FeatureName:IIS-WebServer /FeatureName:IIS-WebServerManagementTools /FeatureName:IIS-WebServerRole /FeatureName:IIS-WindowsAuthentication ^

/FeatureName:WAS-ConfigurationAPI /FeatureName:WAS-NetFxEnvironment /FeatureName:WAS-ProcessModel /FeatureName:WAS-WindowsActivationService

· Register ASP.NET (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions) - after IIS, .Net 3.5 and .Net 4.0 have been installed.

o 32-bit registration: c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -ir

o 64-bit registration: c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -ir

Management Server Database

· Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP2 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

o SQL Server has to be Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter edition

o "Database Engine Services" feature must be enabled

Deployment Preparations

The App-V server is supported in a single-server deployment and a distributed deployment. A single-server deployment has all the 3 components deployed on the same machine while a distributed deployment has each component installed on a different machine.

- Note, if you are doing a distributed deployment, you will need to plan to do the Management Server Database deployment first as the database information will be needed for the Management Server deployment.

The table below lists the set of information that you should have prepared when starting the deployments.

· Note this list assumes that each component is installed on a separate server.

Management Server

· Install location

o By default this will be installed to %PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Application Virtualization Server

· Location of the App-V Management Database

o SQL Server Name

o SQL Instance Name

o Database Name

· Access rights for the App-V Management Console

o This is the user or the group that should be granted access to the management console at the end of the deployment. Post deployment, only these users will have access to the Management Console until additional administrators are added via the Management console.

o Note: Global security groups and AD Distribution groups are not supported. Domain local or Universal groups are required for this.

· App-V Management Service Website name

o A name for the website is required, if you do not want to use the default

· App-V Management Service Port Binding

o This should be a unique port number that is currently not already used by another website on the machine.

§ Note: Install does not validate if the port is in use so this has to be confirmed prior to running install

· Support for Silverlight

o Silverlight is required for the Management Console to be accessible. While this is not a requirement for the deployment, the machine that will be used to access the App-V Management Console must be able to support Silverlight

Publishing Server

· Install location

o By default this will be installed to %PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Application Virtualization Server

· App-V Management Service URL

o This is the URL of the App-V Management Service that this Publishing Server will be communicating with and should be of the format http://<ManagementServerName>:<ManagementPortNumber>

· App-V Publishing Service Website name

o A name for the website is required, if you do not want to use the default

· App-V Publishing Service Port Binding

o This should be a unique port number that is currently not already used by another website on the machine.

§ Note: Install does not validate if the port is in use so this has to be confirmed prior to running install

Management Database

· Install location

o By default this will be installed to %PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Application Virtualization Server

· Custom SQL Server instance name (if applicable)

o Format should be "INSTANCENAME" as install assumes it is on the local machine. Entering it in the format of "SVR\INSTANCE" will fail.

· Custom App-V Database Name(if applicable)

o This has to be a unique database name. Install will block if a database with the provided name already exists.

o Defaults to AppVManagement

· App-V 5.0 Management Server Machine Account

o The machine account for server on which the Management Server is deployed on or will be deployed on. This must be in the format of Domain\MachineAccount

· App-V 5.0 Management Server Install admin

o This is the account that will be used to install the App-V Management Server. This should be in the format of Domain\AdministratorLoginName

-Priya Ravichandran | Program Manager, Microsoft Application Virtualization

Virtualization by Davis

miércoles, 9 de mayo de 2012