I recently attended a webinar with Runecast and it was about how to Mitigate Spectre and Meltdown in VMware Environments. In this post, you can see the steps to Mitigate Spectre and Meltdown in VMware Environment using Runecast Analyzer. Previously, I wrote an article about Spectre and Meltdown and the VMware recommendations to mitigate this Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, you can read it here.
In a VMware Virtual environment protection should be start from all layers starting from Management to core components.
Mitigation should be staring from vCenter server to the ESXi hosts, Runecast analyzer will scan the environment against the VMware knowledge base and provide the recommendations.
Runecast Analyzer Appliance 1.7.3.0 – Update Appliance
If you are planning to mitigate Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities using Runecast Analyzer make sure to have the latest version of the Analyzer. Sometimes you may already seen the update available notification in the top panel.
To update the Runecast Analyzer login to the appliance VAMI interface type “https://<IP_ADDRESS_OR_FQDN>:5480” on the browser and use the credentials provided in the Runecast Analyzer user guide.
Go to update Tab and check whether you can see the “Available Updates” notification and the appliance version, otherwise click on “Check Updates” button. To install the updates click on “Install Updates” button
It will prompt to install the updates click on OK to start the update.
Check the version again in the VAMI interface after the update
After login to the Runecast Analyzer you can see the updated information in the notification panel
Run an analysis against the VMware environment and you can see the Spectra and Meltdown issues under issue list
Perform the Analysis
Click on the issue it’ll provide the VMware response for the Spectra and Meltdown, KBs and detailed mitigation steps under details tab
Affected components can be seen in the “Findings” tab
One important thing is it will show the complete updates and communications regarding the Spectre and Meltdown updates. Follow the instructions and the updates in order to mitigate the vulnerabilities in the environment. Runecast will give you the best instructions and updates for your environment.
Use vCenter Web Client
Runecast Analyzer has a vCenter Web Client plugin and you can find my previous article about installing Web Client plugin to the vCenter can be found here.
Plugin can be used to scan the environment and issue can be seen in the “Details” tab
Under “Affected objects” displays the ESXi hosts subjected to the vulnerability
Change Runecast Analyzer Update Settings to Automatic Updates
To enable the automatic Updates, login to the VAMI interface. Go to “Update” tab and Select “Settings“. It has three main options for the updates. Select according to the requirement.
Runecast Analyzer updates may include KB/Best Practice/Security hardening updates, application component updates or appliance OS updates.
If Runecast Analyzer has the internet connectivity it can use the default repository for the updates. If there is a proxy requirement add the proxy configuration under network settings.
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