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New House Projects – Network 2.0

Ok – So, take one of this project didn’t go as planned. I don’t regret the choices I made, and while I’m very happy with how everything is working today. it’s not the setup I had hoped for. So, where did I end up?

Firstly – I ended up ordering a firewall from Protectli, the VP2420, which I ordered with Coreboot BIOS. Performance has been great, it was easy to setup, and the 2.5Gb ports work great. My only gripe is that the console port on the unit isn’t a true serial port. It’s a USB serial adapter, for which only drivers for Windows exists.… Click here to read more!

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New House Projects – Network Planning and Setup

EDIT - 11.1.2024 - I have changed many of the equipment choices listed below, which will be another blog post. The equipment from FS has been a total disaster, and the Qotom firewall, while effective, lacked the usability I really wanted in such an important device. The FS wireless equipment is likely to be e-waste, which is horrible, but the Qotom will live on, just in a different role

We’re in the process of moving from our apartment to a house to call our own. It will be somewhere I can drill holes, make improvements, and really nerd-out. The new spot has, if you can believe it, access to symmetric 2 Gigabit internet service for under $100/month.… Click here to read more!

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Dell Wyse 5070 – RAM and Coral AI

I too have been bitten by the bug and have a growing number of Dell Wyse 5070 thin clients appearing. I’ve been very happy with them, and since I struggled to find clear info on a couple of upgrades, I thought I’d add my text based ramblings to the Internets in case it’s a help for someone else.

I have a 5070 Extended, which has a PCIe 2.0 4x slot. The one I have included the AMD E9173 graphics card which works fine, but I don’t use it. I have it removed at the moment and, given time, will likely try out some other cards in there.… Click here to read more!

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Books Read: 2022

Having forgotten to make this post at the end of 2022, this post is a little tardy. But, I organize my reading into year based ‘Collections’ on my Kindle, so knowing what was read isn’t too hard to figure out. Figuring our the order in which I read them proving a stiffer challenge!

I started the year with a couple of books on time, and historical time keeping. Firstly, I read ‘Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time‘. Solving the problem of navigation for sailing ships was a tough one.… Click here to read more!

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Books Read: 2023

(I’ll try to get my 2021, and 2022 posts up soon too.. totally forgot to write them!)

Firstly, my reading has really declined this year! Though I continue to work from home, I have struggled this year to find gaps to do much reading. I do most of my reading during lunch, or in little pockets throughout the day. This year however, I did not do a good job of actually taking a lunch at work. Something to be addressed in the new year for sure…

[Links below do point to Amazon, since I’m a Kindle reader, but these are simple, direct links without any tracking, etc.]… Click here to read more!

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My Default Apps at the End of 2023

Quick and dirty! Here’s all the stuff I can think of…

Mail Client: Apple Mail and Thunderbird
Mail Server: Fastmail
Notes: Apple Notes
To-Do: Nothing
iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera
iPhone Photo Backup: Nextcloud
Photo Management: Apple Phones (on iPhone), On1 on MacOS
Calendar: Apple Calendar
Cloud File Storage: Nextcloud
RSS: TinyTinyRSS
Contacts: Apple Contacts
Browser: Firefox
Chat: iMessage
Bookmarks: Firefox
Homepage/News: Protopage
Music: Apple Music (The app, not the service)
Podcasts: Overcast
Password Management: KeePassXC

Other Default Apps and Devices:

Mastodon Client: Mono
eReader: Kindle Oasis
Digital Audio Workstation (DAW): AVID Pro Tools
Video Editing (NLE): Davinci Resolve
Linux Distribution: Debian (Bookworm)
Firewall: OpnSense (PC Engines APU4)
VPN Platform: Wireguard
Storage System: ZFS (on Debian)
Virtual Machines: KVM/qemu
Containers: Podman
Backup Service: Crashplan Pro
ZFS Data Replication: Syncoid (Sanoid)
Non-Web File Syncing: Syncthing
Home Automation: Home Assistant (Zigbee and WiFi for devices, with MQTT)
Weather Station: WeeWx
‘Serious’ Camera: OM Digital Solutions OM-1 (Micro Four Thirds)

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Simple Linux Kernel Picker

I run Fedora in my home-lab as the base OS for my server. It works well for me but I do occasionally run into an issue where Fedora will make a new kernel available before the ZFS project has support for it. When that happens I have to change from the most current kernel to something that I can have a dkms module built for.

I do this once or twice a year and I never remember the commands. So, here’s a script that will do it for me.

Run the script as a normal user and it will list your installed kernels.… Click here to read more!

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RSyslog, ZFS, and Storing logs based on the source in my HomeLab

There are many ways to store syslog data, and nearly all of them are better than what I am outlining here. If you’re looking to learn how to deal with syslog at scale, take a look at Graylog, or the Elk Stack or some other similar tool. There are many free and/or open source options to do this. Many of which I’ve setup and used for my employers.

For me though, I’m not looking to load big piles of data into some database and keep it stored for long periods, automatically indexed and cataloged. I don’t need that.

Instead, I’d like to gather logs from a handful of devices, store them as flat files based on the date, and then just throw them away after a month.… Click here to read more!

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Install Fedora, CentOS, Rocky Linux, and Alma Linux via Serial Console – And VNC!

I have a similar post for doing this with Ubuntu. The process here is similar, but simpler.

You can use this with any Red Hat style ‘Anaconda’ installer, from Alma Linux Minimal, to Fedora’s biggest Workstation installer. There is no need to find a special boot.iso. I have been doing Alma Linux installs on a PC Engines APU4D4 with this method, so I thought I’d put up a quick post.

Firstly, copy the install image you want to use onto a USB disk. To do this, I use the DD command. Be careful, of course, since you need to make sure you’re copying the image to the correct disk.… Click here to read more!

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Install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Via Serial Console

I have a few PC Engines APU units that do not have a graphics adapter, and are designed to be setup via a serial interface.

The first step is to find the mini.iso that is made available on the mirrors. This ~75MB image is the core installer for Ubuntu and it will download the items needed to complete your install as it runs, instead of it being pre-loaded onto a larger ISO image. Ubuntu does not make it that easy to find anymore, but if you know where to look you can find what you need.

Head to the below link, and then navigate into the version of Ubuntu you’re looking to install.… Click here to read more!