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Photo by Ivan N / Unsplash

So, a little less than a year ago, I made a post on here describing how I was going to use this blog as a medium through which to share my tech adventures and gained knowledge. I also stated that I was not going to commit to any particular cadence.

I'm glad I kept at least one promise.

In all reality, the past year has been a whirlwind, both professionally and personally. I didn't have much time or energy to do more than maintain my stack. And the few times I made changes and additions, I had even less to write a blog post.

But things are beginning to reach an equilibrium. And, as a creature of momentum, I want to get things going now while I can, so that it is easier to maintain when life inevitably goes sideways again.

So I got a project on the horizon. I currently have two Dell R730xd servers running Proxmox, a Raspberry Pi 4 running a 32bit version of their OS (I didn't realize at the time I imaged it five years ago), and a lightweight Ubuntu VPS on Linode. The two Dells both function as hypervisors. One of them also is a NAS, and the other runs a Proxmox Backup Server as a virtual machine. The VPS runs Uptime Kuma and Rustdesk. Obviously, a lot of this is unideal:

  • The Raspberry Pi running a 32bit OS has proved to limit what it can run. I use it for Pi-hole, Nginx Proxy Manager, and my primary Portainer instance. I think of it as an always on "meta" device. It runs services that help me manage my stack. However, I found I am unable to run heimdall as it requires a 64 bit OS.
  • Having compute and storage share the same hardware is usually not the best idea. Especially when that storage runs on RAM hungry ZFS. It is also not good for the backup destination to live on the source.
  • The VPS is starting to strain its specs. Also, every one of my virtual machines runs Debian now, and one of the few projects I did this last year was standardize my Debian configurations. This "machine" was never updated.

All this means it is time for a rework of the entire stack. It is going to require a lot of forethought and planning. A lot of which I have already done:

  • I have several spare 4 and 8 TB drives. I am going to install them in the old giant tower I used as my server before I acquired the Dells. I will use it as a temporary NAS to move all files to so that I can reimage the other machines.
  • One Dell is going to get TrueNAS Core installed to it, with a single virtual machine running for Proxmox Backup server.
  • The other will remain Proxmox, and run all of my virtual machines. These Dells have plenty of resources to where one of them can run all of my compute, especially if they aren't also trying to handle storage.
  • The Raspberry Pi will be reimaged with a 64 bit OS. I have yet to settle on exactly what, but the current idea is to remain with their OS.
  • Regarding the VPS, I plan on doing some research to see if I want to stick with Linode, or migrate elsewhere. Either way, I will likely rent a higher spec one, and utilize Debian like all of my other virtual machines.

And since most, if not all, of my stack will now be newly installed and configured, this is a perfect time to update all of my internal documentation. Or, in many cases, write it down for the first time. I can also finally get my off site backups running properly (they exist, just not in a state I like).

All of this lends itself to good fodder for blogging! Rework my server stack, document the process for myself, and share the experience and knowledge with the public. Seems like a good idea.

As before, I am not going to commit to any particular cadence. But I do intend to post somewhat regularly as I proceed. I've already ordered the last couple hard drives I need for the new NAS. This week I plan to start configuring the temporary NAS so I can start the long process of copying all of my data to it. So even if they are only micro posts, I am sure there will be some on their way soon-ish.

Keep Learning,
-Tack

What Media am I Consuming?

This is just a little idea I had, to have a blurb at the end of every post naming some book/music/movie/show/game I am enjoying at the time. May seem a little left field for a tech blog. But at the end of the day, this is my blog and I do what I want.

Castlevania (TV series)

After starting it when it came out, but never finishing it...I restarted it this past week and am now on season 3. I sadly never played many of the video games in my youth, but I am enjoying the show. Well voiced and animated. Avoid if you are squeamish about violence.