Skip to content

Technology

Detecting a weird packet loss issue.

So- I recently installed a Quad 100G Mikrotik CRS504-4XQ-IN Router into my lab recently and moved a few servers over to 100G NICs.

Around the time I did this- I also started experiencing tons of random, hard to pinpoint instances of latency across my network.

I validated flow-control was enabled for the network- and I checked various port counters to look for errors.

This- issue took me around a week or two to finally pinpoint.... this post- is going through a bit of the steps taken.

Proxmox - Setup Debian Cloud-Init Templates

This post documents the steps needed to create a minified debian cloud image template, which you can easily clone, and have a running VM in seconds with no configuration needed.

This includes common packages, ssh-keys, IP information.

The end result of this project is...

  1. You clone a template, and start it.
  2. The cloned VM automatically starts up, updates itself, and starts running, with common packages installed, and your ssh details pre-configured.
  3. A slimmed down distribution, without excess (My end result was a 400M image.)
  4. No need to edit the VM after cloning, other then adding CPU/RAM, or other hardware as needed.

Proxmox - Import OVA

A random thing I recently came across while testing out LibreNMS-

I discovered they have a published .ova, which I wanted to import into Proxmox. However, proxmox as of this post, does not have a easy option to support importing this.

This- is a quick post, containing the commands you need, to import the ova.

Removing a stripe from a zfs pool

In my quest to optimize on power usage, One of my servers has a zfs pool consisting of 4x 8T disks, in striped mirrors configuration.

For this particular pool, IOPs and performance is not needed. As well, I am using barely 10% of the available space in this particular pool.

So- I decided to remove a pair of disks, to save a miniscule amount of energy.

Reusing EMC Drives in other systems

So, I picked up a EMC-branded 1.92TB PM1633 SAS drive off of ebay, to toss into my ceph cluster.

After acquiring it, I slapped it into my Dell MD1220, and was surprised that it was not appearing in proxmox.

This is a short post to help correct this issue.

Building a ceph cluster

My adventures in building out a small clustered ceph environment for redundant VM / Container storage.

Quote

Ceph is a great way to extract 10,000 IOPs from over 5 million IOPs worth of SSDs! -XtremeOwnage

2023 Prime Day Deals

Interested in home automation? Here are a few of the prime day deals I would personally recommend.

Note, this is not a kitchen-sink post full of non-relaxant links, but, rather, a list of things I have hands on experience with.

Every single product linked below, will work with Home Assistant, 100% LOCALLY, without any required cloud services or subscriptions.

If, you need reasons as to why required cloud services are bad, see Reasons to avoid cloud products

Pioneer Minisplit control using ESPHome

Around a year and a half ago, I installed a Pioneer Mini-split and integrated it with Home Assistant

I used a local integration, which had a cloud dependency for the initial setup. And, since installation, it has been working flawlessly.

However, last week, it completely stopped working and I was unable to reinitialize it.

So- Today- I will be replacing the midea dongle, with a device running esphome.

Using ESPHome on critical devices, such as networking gear

In an effort to monitor the consumption of everything- I ran across an unusual problem.

When connecting my core switch to a ESPHome flashed smart switch, I noticed two things-

  1. It is very easy to accidentally turn the switch off.
    • This is a problem, because you cannot turn it back on remotely! Since, wifi connects to the core switch.
  2. When flashing updated firmware, the relay will quickly toggle for a very short duration.
    • This can cause devices to power cycle.

So, I set out to see how I could customize my configuration to be suitable for managing my core switch.

I will be implementing:

  1. A button to power-cycle the core switch.
  2. Configuration to prevent the relay from toggling during firmware updates / ESPHome restarts.
  3. Removing toggle switches.