- Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

Re: [Blind-sysadmins] VMWare Vcenter and ESXI
by Ryan Shugart 05 Sep '16

05 Sep '16

Billy: Welcome to the wonderful world of VMWare. I used to be the VMWare admin at my old job, but just couldn’t make the accessibility work. The VCenter client, the classic or CSharp client, kind of works with screen readers but be prepared to use your mouse/jaws cursor/whatever a lot. Also, that old classic Windows client is going away, and so is the Flash based web client to be replaced with a new HTML5 based client. I can’t comment on it because I’ve not played with it. My honest bet for you is to learn something called PowerCLI and learn it well. It is a Powershell module produced by VMWare that gives commandline access to everything in VSphere using Windows Powershell. It actually works well and I was able to get a lot done with it. The problem you’ll run into is that while the core VSphere functionality is supported through Powershell, some of the addon products may or may not be. So, for example, Site Recovery Manager has no Powershell support, at least not at the time I last checked, VMWare Update Manager has some, etc. And if you progress in the VSphere world you’ll need a lot more than core VSphere. I do hope this helps give you a starting place though. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins <blind-sysadmins-bounces(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org> on behalf of Billy Irwin <billy.irwin(a)outlook.com> Reply-To: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Date: Sunday, September 4, 2016 at 7:37 PM To: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] VMWare Vcenter and ESXI Hi Guys, I decided that I wanted to install VMWare E.S.X.I. to build a virtual environment. What I noticed is that there was no high contrast during the install process on the server. I had to use some sighted assistance. Meanwhile when I install Vcenter on my workstation it gave me the same issues and also didn't work with JAWS. I think it is essential to have VMWare experience these days. It wasn't as bad with Citrix Xen Server in the past. My question is as follows... 1. Do you have any recommendations as for working in this environment as a server admin? 2. Do any of you know of a device that would give me control of contrast instead of using ZT or Magic. This would be for example a box that connects between the monitor and the computer's graphics card. Any other thoughts would also be appreciated. Thanks, Billy _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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VMWare Vcenter and ESXI
by Billy Irwin 05 Sep '16

05 Sep '16

Hi Guys, I decided that I wanted to install VMWare E.S.X.I. to build a virtual environment. What I noticed is that there was no high contrast during the install process on the server. I had to use some sighted assistance. Meanwhile when I install Vcenter on my workstation it gave me the same issues and also didn't work with JAWS. I think it is essential to have VMWare experience these days. It wasn't as bad with Citrix Xen Server in the past. My question is as follows... 1. Do you have any recommendations as for working in this environment as a server admin? 2. Do any of you know of a device that would give me control of contrast instead of using ZT or Magic. This would be for example a box that connects between the monitor and the computer's graphics card. Any other thoughts would also be appreciated. Thanks, Billy

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EdgeOS and network setup
by Katherine Moss 04 Sep '16

04 Sep '16

Hi all, I'm thinking about picking up an EdgeRouterX in the next couple of months. I've heard good things about Ubiquiti's native accessibility, though I'm wondering about the latest updates? You know how venders do that ... they update stuff and end up breaking a label or what not on one of the links we use every day. Anyway ... my other question is ... I've never encountered speaking to my ISP and asking them to put their modem into bridge mode because I've never been allowed to. Should I have my EdgeRouter on hand when Verizon or Comcast or whoever comes to put in the new modem and they will work around me, or should I let them work and then make a separate phone call to have their device put into bridge mode, hence setting up my own primary router myself? And last but not least, do most ISP provided modems have enabled wireless access points on them even when in bridge mode? Or do I need to consider an external AP? Thanks for the feedback; I want to set up my new network right the first time.

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EdgeOS and network setup
by Katherine Moss 02 Sep '16

02 Sep '16

Hi all, I'm thinking about picking up an EdgeRouterX in the next couple of months. I've heard good things about Ubiquiti's native accessibility, though I'm wondering about the latest updates? You know how venders do that ... they update stuff and end up breaking a label or what not on one of the links we use every day. Anyway ... my other question is ... I've never encountered speaking to my ISP and asking them to put their modem into bridge mode because I've never been allowed to. Should I have my EdgeRouter on hand when Verizon or Comcast or whoever comes to put in the new modem and they will work around me, or should I let them work and then make a separate phone call to have their device put into bridge mode, hence setting up my own primary router myself? And last but not least, do most ISP provided modems have enabled wireless access points on them even when in bridge mode? Or do I need to consider an external AP? Thanks for the feedback; I want to set up my new network right the first time.

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Asus RT-N66u router guest network connection difficulties
by David Mehler 28 Aug '16

28 Aug '16

Hello, If anyone has this router please get back to me. I've just got this router and have updated it's firmware to the latest Asus firmware. I've configured it and everything is working great! Performance is awesome! All of this with one exception, guest network, I've set it up yet no one can connect to it, either with a laptop/desktop, or wirelessly phones. With a phone I just get connecting and nothing else, if I have an open authentication setup on the guest network I get acquiring ip address and then it just repeats. Connecting to the standard wireless network occurs without an issue. If anyone has any ideas or has this working i'd love to know about it. Also, if anyone has a nonstandard firmware, like ddwrt, tomato, or something called merlin, going on this router I'd love to know that as well. Thanks. Dave.

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Asus RT-N66u router guest network connection difficulties
by David Mehler 28 Aug '16

28 Aug '16

Hello, If anyone has this router please get back to me. I've just got this router and have updated it's firmware to the latest Asus firmware. I've configured it and everything is working great! Performance is awesome! All of this with one exception, guest network, I've set it up yet no one can connect to it, either with a laptop/desktop, or wirelessly phones. With a phone I just get connecting and nothing else, if I have an open authentication setup on the guest network I get acquiring ip address and then it just repeats. Connecting to the standard wireless network occurs without an issue. If anyone has any ideas or has this working i'd love to know about it. Also, if anyone has a nonstandard firmware, like ddwrt, tomato, or something called merlin, going on this router I'd love to know that as well. Thanks. Dave.

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Accessibility implications of the secure boot leak
by Ben Mustill-Rose 26 Aug '16

26 Aug '16

Hi all, Bit of an interesting one here: By now some of you will have heard that Microsoft has leaked what's being called a golden key relating to its secure boot process. For those that haven't, essentially, on newer UEFI based computers that are prebuilt & the Surface RT tablets you're unable to boot anything that hasn't been signed by Microsoft. On normal laptops & desktops you're usually able to just turn it off in the UEFI but obviously this presents accessibility issues for us. I'm not going to post any links as I'm assuming that this is a bit of a grey area legally & replies off list about how to do it will respectfully go unanswered, but suffice to say that after a bit of Googling I was able to download a script that disabled secure boot for me on a computer where it was enabled which allowed me to boot a talking PE disk. The script is kicked off within Windows and the process is more or less fully accessible. My understanding is that MS are pushing out updates that try to stop the tool from working but at the time of writing they appear not to be overly effective. Obviously if we look at the bigger picture, in terms of security this is a *huge* issue. Never the less, for us, it is a small, all be it unintended win in terms of accessibility. Have fun, Ben.

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Accessibility implications of the secure boot leak
by Ben Mustill-Rose 26 Aug '16

26 Aug '16

Hi all, Bit of an interesting one here: By now some of you will have heard that Microsoft has leaked what's being called a golden key relating to its secure boot process. For those that haven't, essentially, on newer UEFI based computers that are prebuilt & the Surface RT tablets you're unable to boot anything that hasn't been signed by Microsoft. On normal laptops & desktops you're usually able to just turn it off in the UEFI but obviously this presents accessibility issues for us. I'm not going to post any links as I'm assuming that this is a bit of a grey area legally & replies off list about how to do it will respectfully go unanswered, but suffice to say that after a bit of Googling I was able to download a script that disabled secure boot for me on a computer where it was enabled which allowed me to boot a talking PE disk. The script is kicked off within Windows and the process is more or less fully accessible. My understanding is that MS are pushing out updates that try to stop the tool from working but at the time of writing they appear not to be overly effective. Obviously if we look at the bigger picture, in terms of security this is a *huge* issue. Never the less, for us, it is a small, all be it unintended win in terms of accessibility. Have fun, Ben.

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bitlocker accessibility
by Chamandeep Singh Grover 18 Aug '16

18 Aug '16

Hi All, I am emailing on behalf of a friend who works at a company where bitlocker is used for encrypting devices. As you may know it requires the entering of a personal pin to login to the machine, however it is not possible to determine when the login screen is visible on screen. I wanted to ask if anyone knows of a setting to enable any audible beeps or similar to enhance the accessibility of this? Thank you Chamandeep singh Grover

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bitlocker accessibility
by Chamandeep Singh Grover 18 Aug '16

18 Aug '16

Hi All, I am emailing on behalf of a friend who works at a company where bitlocker is used for encrypting devices. As you may know it requires the entering of a personal pin to login to the machine, however it is not possible to determine when the login screen is visible on screen. I wanted to ask if anyone knows of a setting to enable any audible beeps or similar to enhance the accessibility of this? Thank you Chamandeep singh Grover

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