Bits, Bytes, & Radio Waves

A quiet journey through discovery and understanding.

  • SDDC Manager Database

    Overview This post is for educational purposes only and none of whats written will be supported by VMware by Broadcom. Connect to SDDC Manager Connect to the SDDC Manager appliance via SSH with the vcf user. Switch to the root user. Access the Database Log in with the default credentials. To list the various databases:…

  • VMware STIG Tools Appliance

    This post provides an overview of the VMware STIG Tools Appliance and how it supports automated STIG compliance across VMware environments. It explains how auditing, remediation, and reporting workflows work together to produce assessor-ready artifacts while reducing the operational burden of manual STIG implementation.

  • VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) ESXi 9.0.1 Installer in the Lab

    Overview I run a home lab built on older Intel Xeon CPUs, which are no longer supported by modern versions of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). Since this is a non-production lab environment, I’m using nested virtualization to continue my testing and learning. In this post, I’ll walk through how I’m bypassing the CPU-compatibility checks so…

Notes from practice

I use this site to document systems, configurations, and lessons learned as I work through real problems—both professionally and through personal experimentation. The goal is clarity: understand how something works, explain why it behaves the way it does, and make it reliable and repeatable.

These notes are written primarily for myself, but shared openly in case they help someone else avoid a dead end or reduce frustration. If you’d like to learn more, visit the About page.

If you have questions or comments, you’re always welcome to contact me.

Aaron Rombaut

Technologist & Writer