Using http file server (HFS)

I have just discovered a great little app which allows you to quickly share files from your PC like a web server.

Why would you want that?

• No need to worry about share permissions in Windows to get it working
• No need to worry about sharing to Linux, Macs where you might need to enable more services
• No need to "install" software to start sharing your files out
• Just need a web browser to browse and download the files you have shared out
• its open source and its free

 I am going to run through the basic steps of setting it up to start sharing your files on my Windows 10 Desktop

1. Go to http://www.rejetto.com/hfs/?f=dl to download the windows version of the exe file

2. Once you have downloaded the file which is around 2.4.mb then copy the file to a location where you will want to run this from. For me its at "D:\hfs\"
3. Run "hfs.exe"
4. You may receive a "Open File - Security Warning". If you are Ok with this then click "run

5. As this is the first time running of HFS.exe it will ask you if it can create two new inbound rules for this exe and which profiles they will be applied to. I have just allowed "private networks" and clicked "Allow Access". There maybe situations where you need to allow it for public networks as well. You can make this change via the within Windows Advance Firewall settings.

6. You show now see that the program has loaded so check what IP it is using to act as the web server by looking at the address bar. You only need to check if you PC has more than one IP address

7. If the address is not right then select Menu>IP Address and see if can see the IP address you would like the web server to run on and select it

Sharing your files and folders

You can share specific files or just share folders so that people can just browse to find the files that they need. 

To share files you click on Menu >Add Files and browse to the files that you would like to share. If the files are in the same directory then you can use the control key to do multiple selection.

To share folder you click on Menu >Add Folder from disk and browse to the folder that you would like to share. There are two options when sharing the folder which is "Real Folder" or "Virtual Folder". Real folder is where it reads directly from the disk and with virtual folder it loads all the files to memory. So if you have a lot of files and its big then select "real folder". Further explanation available here

Now when you open a browser to the IP address you will see the files and folders that you have shared out

If you click on a file it will download and if you click on a folder it will drill further in to the structure.

I have only scratched the surface of this nice little app as there are more features such as;

• requiring login to access files/folders
• view bandwidth utilisation
• view source IPs
• apply basic access control list
•  apply speed and simultaneous limits
• plus many more

One note : The windows firewall rule will stay enabled when you shutdown the application so you will need to go in to Windows Firewall to either disable or delete the rule after usage.

Credit to Massimo Melina (aka rejetto) for creating this simple and lightweight application and I hope you will find it useful in moments where you just had to quickly share and transfer some files to some one.

Here is the links to the author website and wikipedia:

• HFS Documentation
• Wikipedia meaning of HFS
• http://www.rejetto.com/hfs/

Updating vCenter Appliance 6 Update 1b to Update 2a

I have a vCenter Appliance 6 U1b with embedded Platform Services Controller in my lab which I decided needed to be upgraded to U2a. Before you start make sure you have:

• User "root" password for your appliance not SSO administrator password 
• Able to mount ISO to your vCenter Appliance VM 
• You are not doing any major task within vCenter like deploying a VM as it could be affected as vCenter services will be stopped/unavailable once the upgrade is completed and you would need to do a reboot

1. First you need to go https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch to download the patch that is available for your vCenter Appliance version. Do not go to the usual product download page as that will not work for upgrades for vCenter Appliance. 
2. Once you have downloaded the patch ISO then you need to mount the ISO to your vCenter Appliance VM. 
3. Using your preferred browse go to your vCenter Appliance administrator page https://appliance-IP-Address-or-FQDN:5480 and login using the "root" account so not SSO administrator account.

4. Once logged in click on "update" and you should see the current version of your vCenter 

5. Ensure at this point that you have already mounted your ISO to your vCenter Appliance VM. On the same page as previous step by top right corner click on "Check Updates". This will bring a menu down and select "Check CDROM".

6. The system will now check the CD ISO to see if there are any updates needed. If there are updates the you will see information under "Available Updates" and it will state if the appliance needs a reboot after update. If you click the arrow next to "More Details" it will provide you more information such as; 

• Release date of this patch 
• Severity and category of this patch 
• Link to VMware KB article about this patch

7. Once you are happy with this patch then click on "Install Updates" and select "Install CDROM updates".

8. An End User License Agreement pop up box will appear. Tick box "I accept the terms of the license agreement" and click "Install".

9. A progress box of installation will appear and click on "Show Details" if you would like to see which stage the installation process is at.

11. Once the progress bar is 100% and it is showing as successfully then it means the installation is completed. If a reboot is required then the next step is to initiate a reboot for the appliance as vCenter services will be unavailable now so you have to reboot to be able to use vCenter. Hence the reason at the start my article I mentioned about not to kick of any major task within vCenter as the services will now be unavailable until you reboot the appliance.
    
    

There is two ways to reboot the appliance either via GUI or the command line.

GUI Way:

1. If you are still within the GUI from the above steps then click on "Summary" and select "Reboot" from the top right.

2. Once rebooted log in as root at https://appliance-IP-Address-or-FQDN:5480 and select "update" on the navigation panel. You should now see under "update version" the version you have updated to.

Command Line Way:

1. SSH to the appliance using your preferred tool and login using "root"
2. Type command shutdown reboot -r %Reason for reboot% ie shutdown reboot -r "upgrade from U1 to U2"

3. Once rebooted use the GUI method step 2 to quickly confirm your version you have upgraded to

This concludes the very basic steps to upgrade your vCenter Appliance.