Homelab

I am participating in the #100daysofhomelab challenge and have been posting a lot on Twitter as @tiernano, but some posts and tasks I am doing will require longer-form write-ups. So, some updates will include either Videos (which will be published on my Youtube Channel) or blog posts, which will go here. This is the first of the blob posts.

A few weeks back, Ubiquiti released a pre-release update for the Unifi Network Controller, version 7.1.61. It got installed on my UDM and I noticed a few interesting bits that you might find handy… First, you will need to be signed up for Unifi Early Access before you can download or even read the release notes, but this is just a quick update based on my findings so far.

For the last few weeks, I have been running a Raspberry Pi in my car, along with a small UPS and a Wifi Access point, allowing me to download videos from my dash cam and back them up to my NAS in the house. But I have had some teething issues, and I am currently thinking my way through some fixes…

While trying to figure out how to fix part 1, I came up with an idea: I have an older Mikrotik RB951G that can be powered via a 12v adapter for the car. I am going to use that, along with a Huawei 4G dongle to act as an internet connection. The onboard Wifi will be in client mode, so when it’s near the house, it will connect to the main network and send traffic through that to the internet (or internal NAS) and when away, use the LTE modem. Then, using the Wifi dongle on the Raspberry Pi, use that as a Wifi AP.

So, this has been a blog post in the making for a while now but never got around to fully writing it up, so here goes nothing…

I run a UDM Pro in the house. It has 2 WAN Links: 1 1Gb link and 1 10Gb Link. I also run AS204994, my own ASN with its own Transit and Peering connections, mostly in Europe. There is a VM in the house which acts as a connection to AS204994, which gives me a full connection to the Internet through my own ASN. More details on my AS204994 blog are here.

A few days back (October 6th 2020) VMWare announced a new “Fling”: ESXi Arm Edition. Not completely sure what a Fling is, but anyway, I started reading, liked the idea and managed to download a copy for testing. I have 2 Pi 4s in the house, both 4Gb Models, and I wanted to play around with the new tech.

So, this post has been a long time coming! A load of different things to talk about, so lets get started!

GodBox V3

So, for a long time, I have been thinking about GodBoxV3, the replacement to GodBoxV2. And when planning this, i had some ideas of what it should be:

• Minimum of 2×16 cores (double godboxv2)
• About the same RAM, if not more
• FAST STORAGE!
• Is able to run my twin 30" 4K monitors
• Would like 10Gb/s NICs

Well, It finally happened! I got the machine, built it and, well, its impressive! How did i do with specs? Well…

After many years, I am finally trying to move to a proper VoIP system for the house. This post will explain what I am using, how I am setting it up, and some other details you might (or might not) find useful.

First, backstory. I have been interested in VoIP for many years. The first post I wrote about Ito this site was here back in 2012, but I had posted about it on my other site back in 2008. It got my attention years ago as a way of saving money on calls, but in recent times, that has changed a little, mainly because most providers gives you calls for free (my mobile and land lines both come with unlimited calls and with my mobile, I can make them anywhere in Europe). The new reason I am interesting in VoIP is consolidation: I currently have 3 mobile phone numbers, at least 1 landline dedicated to me in the house, plus a work landline. I want to be able to pick up any phone and make a call, and it show as coming from my main number. Or a call comes in and i can pick it up from any of my phones. And that is what i am trying to do here. I (will) have some of it working, but some parts are still missing.

So, if you are reading this page, it is being delivered with the magic of Anycast. Well, technically, it was before, since i used Cloudflare, and it still is because of Cloudflare, but also because of my own ASN (As204994), some servers in different locations, and some magic, which i will explain a bit of in this post.

This all started late last year when i got my hands on an ASN and a /48 block of IPv6 addresses. I had been reading stuff about BGP, routing, etc, and decided to go all in. it was quite cheap with the help of HostUS. All in, it was about $50 for the year. As part of the process, i needed 2 upstream providers to say they would accept my announcement. They were Hurricane Electric though their Tunnel Broker service, and Vultr using a few of their VPSs.

in a previous post, I talked about setting up a distributed S3 like data storage system using Minio and ZeroTier. Well, this week, the ZeroTier guys tweeted about this.

A few people then started asking questions, and looking for a follow up, so here it is.

First, a quick recap. I had 4 machines, all running Linux. Three of them were in 1 time zone (GMT+1) and one was in another (GMT). Looking at the Distributed Minio Quickstart Guide again, there is a mention of times being in sync. which is probably why this did not work as planned. and by “not work as planed”, I mean that Minio would crash, or not be responsive, or not write data in the place it should have. which was a pain. But looking at the documentation again, they do mention that Windows support is “experimental” which means, hopefully, some day it will be not so experimental, and might work. Given that most of my machines in house are Windows boxes, this would be a nice feature.

So, after many (MANY) years messing with dual cable modems, struggling to get them working together, to get websites to even allow me in, having to use hacks and kluges to get it to work at all… I have given up. It has been a struggle getting two modems working properly. Load blanching kind of works… but it’s messy at best. Some sites kick you out every now and again because your IP changes. Some sites wont let you login at all… Mind you, some sites work grand and don’t ask questions…