Updated Homelab using M910Qs and P320s

Updated Homelab using M910Qs and P320s

Recently, I gave my homelab a fresh upgrade by adding Lenovo ThinkCentre M910Q Tiny systems and a few P320s equipped with Nvidia Quadro P600 video cards. These systems are compact yet powerful, documented to support up to 32GB of RAM each—but with a bit of tweaking, they can handle an impressive 64GB! They might not be the most powerful setups […]

Armbian custom builds for different SOCs, using docker

I’m impressed with how well Armbian works with SOCs. Since I couldn’t find a Raspberry Pi recently, I tried out a “LePotato” board, which has performed well overall. The main issue is the lack of a headless install option for Armbian. Without a FAT partition for /boot, configuring the OS on a PC or Mac before installation is challenging. I […]

LePotato and NanoPi Neo Plus2 Goodness

LePotato and NanoPi Neo Plus2 Goodness

Move OS to the NanoPi Neo Plus2 8GB emmc: Get an Armbian Image for the NanoPi and boot it from the microSD. After initially configuring, run /sbin/nand-sata-install. Follow the prompts to copy the root filesystem to the emmc. Remove the SD card. Installing DietPi to the 8GB eMMC flash on the NanoPi: Booted into Armbian on the internal SD card […]

Octoprint container in Debian Windows WSL 2 and Docker Desktop

Octoprint container in Debian Windows WSL 2 and Docker Desktop

Here’s a list of steps to get octoprint to run within a container on Windows. I happen to have a windows system running next to my ender so instead of infinitely waiting for a raspberry pi I decided to run octoprint in a container within windows – if possible. Using Debian was a challenge, but I prefer it over Ubuntu, […]

Docker volume backup and restore the easy way.

Docker volume backup and restore the easy way.

I haven’t had to move docker volumes around in a few years, but I finally had the need today. As usual, I searched for the process, knowing that most examples are… well… not very good. Well, as I almost resorted to pulling a manual job using ubuntu, I found a great write-up by Jarek Lipski on Medium. Here’s how you […]

Home Lab KVM with MeshCommander

Home Lab KVM with MeshCommander

No Homelab Remote KVM? Intel Chipset? No Problem with Intel’s Management Engine and MeshCommander! Mesh Commander is an application that can communicate to the Intel Management Engine (IME) available on most systems using an intel chipset. Once IME is configured, Mesh Commander will provide an entry point into the system and can provide a whole range of options from power […]

Where’s the truth…

Where’s the truth…

By not being on social media sites, I have a choice in what I consume from a news perspective. I want sources that give me the data to form my opinion rather than get opinions framed as news. So this is what works for me: Use a web browser “incognito” mode so tracking cookies aren’t used. This will help prevent […]

Add HEIC support to nextcloud

Add HEIC support to nextcloud

From https://eplt.medium.com/5-minutes-to-install-imagemagick-with-heic-support-on-ubuntu-18-04-digitalocean-fe2d09dcef1 A restart of apache2 should finish the job. Check with the phpinfo() call…

The Social Dilemma

The Social Dilemma

I thought I understood the general concepts and algorithms that companies like google, Facebook, twitter, etc. use but I was astounded about how much it impacts us as a society. The documentary, “The Social Dilemma”, on Netflix, is filled with conversations with many of the original architects of these systems and how monetization though ad targeting is driving behavior modification […]

zfs glory and snaphot hell

zfs glory and snaphot hell

This page is to document my trials with zfs snapshots for backup purposes. There a problem I found that entails when incremental snapshot sends are performed when the receive side has changed in some way. I’ll provide complete details soon. Good news my zfs retention script looks to be running well. I’ll document that as well soon. Here’s a teaser…

So long, Facebook, and Thanks for all the Fish …

So long, Facebook, and Thanks for all the Fish …

Good Morning!After not being active on Facebook for almost a year now I made the move to completely delete my account.  While it was surprisingly tough initially it was a great decision.  I realized all the ads and shaped content was not worth the family and friend connection I was actually seeking.  My account on Instagram will probably be deleted […]

Password-less ssh in 2 Glorious Steps…

Password-less ssh in 2 Glorious Steps…

Local System – Let’s call it alphaRemote System we don’t want to have to enter passwords for,Let’s call it foxtrot Prep: Harden your existing ssh keys since RSA 1024 sucks. This will create a new 4096 version – ed22519 is actually preferred so you can skip the rsa creation if preferred. me@alpha$ mv ~/.ssh/id_rsa ~/.ssh/id_rsa_legacy me@alpha$ mv ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub ~/.ssh/id_rsa_legacy.pub me@alpha$ […]

HomeLab Build

HomeLab Build

Since I had a old windows laptop as a plex and file server for years I thought it would be good to try something new. After researching options I ddecided to try FreeNAS. Since it has ZFS and I’m an old Sun guy – why not. Well…. After a few weeks I decided to abandon FreeNAS and roll my own […]

Raspberry Pi backup using fsarchiver and other tricks

So I ran into a few issues using the dd image backup I referenced prior Raspberry Pi 3 SDCard backup The Image is very large even though the data was not.  For example on a 32GB SD card I was getting a 12GB file.  I only have 3GB of data! so that was a bummer. When it comes time to recover, […]

Living on a Raspberry Pi!

Living on a Raspberry Pi!

This feels a little weird! Playing with the overclocking and it really makes a difference!  The settings below look stable but make the proc very hot (over 85 degrees c.) From /boot/config.txt: # Overclock settings – disabled until heat sink is added. 170327 SeanK #arm_freq=1350 #core_freq=500 #over_voltage=4 #disable_splash=1 ##force_turbo=1 #boot_delay=1 #sdram_freq=500 Also created a script to put the governor in […]

Snipe heaven

Snipe heaven

Ah good times…  Below is from 2010! Here’s some new details on snipes… https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=49073 I have 4 VM’s running MS-DOS and Netware.  Game On! Instructions: Use a vnc viewer like TightVNC (realVNC didn’t work for me, only gave me a blank screen). Go to one of the following server wijgalt.homeip.net Connect to one of the ports, 5901 thought 5904 If […]