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rwattuab
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Feature Request: Public DNS resolution for Virtual Labs

Post by rwattuab »

Case #07753139

Hello, I would like to request the ability to proxy public DNS resolution for Virtual Labs (VL). I'm running VBR 12.3.2.3617.

I wanted to use VL to test operating system upgrades with minimal changes to the production VM. I went through the process and got everything running within the lab. I also enabled the HTTP(S) proxy via the VL proxy appliance VM. The problem I encountered was that DNS resolution doesn't work. So even though HTTP(S) traffic can be proxied, it doesn't help if the DNS names I'm trying to visit can't be resolved. I tried setting the DNS servers specified on the proxy VM to different local and public options.

In this specific example, I was running a single CentOS 7 VM. I wanted to test ELevate (https://wiki.almalinux.org/elevate/) using the Leapp utility to "perform in-place upgrades from CentOS 7 and Enterprise Linux (EL) 8, between EL8 and EL9, EL9 and EL10 systems." During the process, the VM needs to be able talk with various online repository mirrors to pull down the updates. However, since all of the repo mirrors are referenced by their DNS names, the process could never start.

I ended up just cloning the VM in vSphere and manually configuring the VM so it wouldn't conflict with the live production VM. That ended up working and it ultimately confirmed to me that an in-place OS upgrade wouldn't work. Well, it worked, but we decided to spin up a new VM and migrate. But that's neither here nor there.

Maybe I'm trying to use VL for something it's not intended for? It was just a single VM in this case, so maybe cloning should have been my initial choice. However, it got me thinking. What intended use is the HTTP(S) proxy if the lab VMs can't resolve DNS names? Is Veeam expecting the lab VMs to manually reference external entities by IP address?

Per https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120:
By default, VMs in the virtual lab work in the isolated environment and do not have access to internet. If you want to let VMs in the virtual lab access the internet, select the Allow proxy appliance to act as internet proxy for virtual machines in this lab check box. In the Port field, specify a port for HTTP traffic. By default, port 8080 is used. In the Production proxy field, you can optionally specify an IP address or a fully qualified domain name of an internet-facing proxy server that VMs must use to access internet.
How are others solving this? Is there something I'm needing to do that I'm not? Thank you.
haslund
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Re: Feature Request: Public DNS resolution for Virtual Labs

Post by haslund »

You can configure the machine to use the HTTPS proxy, then configure it to use Secure DNS Client over HTTPS (DoH).
Rasmus Haslund | Twitter: @haslund | Blog: https://rasmushaslund.com
Andreas Neufert
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Re: Feature Request: Public DNS resolution for Virtual Labs

Post by Andreas Neufert »

Another idea is to manually add a DNS server that has one leg in the lab and one in a network (DMZ or so) that can communicate with the internet. Give it the regular DNS IP within the lab. Maybe configure DNS forwarding to your regular DNS server or the internet. But anyway in order to be able to access the internet itself (not only name resolution) you need to work with the internet proxy configuration (see above).
Andreas Neufert
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Re: Feature Request: Public DNS resolution for Virtual Labs

Post by Andreas Neufert »

Here is a sample from documentation: https://www.veeam.com/kb1165
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