Quad8

So after having a poke around the unit i found out that “On buck” basically means that the incoming voltage from the wall was higher than the output voltage of the unit, so after reading the PDF manual I discovered that I had to set the rear switches to a specific way in order to accommodate the voltage and clear the “On Buck” warning. Switches are now set at 240V based on the conveniently placed diagram However upon testing the batteries of the unit and how long it would last I discovered that the “good” batteries were, in fact, no good! I tested them by putting my laptop charger on the UPS and then unplugged it from the mains, within 30 seconds it died and I was confused and assumed that the unit was dodgy. But I thought I should at-lease check the batteries when the unit was under load to check they were outputting the correct voltages! I pulled the front panel off the UPS and found the battery tray just slides out, handy! The batteries were stuck to the tray and each-other w...

So I was updating my home network now that I have a separate server to handle the pi-hole and DHCP/DNS requests, I decided to fix my VMWare setup. I was using IP addresses because I did not have a proper DNS setup and it caused all sorts of issues (i was running a pi-hole VM inside ESXi off my server), now that all that has been updated and sorted, ESXi was all happy and I could use its name in the web browser! However after updating my vCenter IP, I have run into the Error 503 page, after a quick google, the internet said I should check if the vSphere client service is running! I went to the appliance page and that was running, so I enabled SSH and BASH then SSH into the appliance to check of the service was running. service vSphere-client status While I was in the shell, the internet said I should check the HOSTS file if the IP is correct and matches, turnout it does not match… vi /etc/hosts Using VI I changed the IP to match the one on the appliance page then stopped a...

Did some quick research on how to update my ESXi host since I have run into some problems running the first release version of ESXi 6.5 (Build 4564106), such as not being able to deploy OVF files through the web client. Bit of a pain, but I found another blog (Link down below) that linked me to another site that tracked the ESXi patches and offered a copy paste CLI commands to updated ESXi Hosts to whatever patch was outlined. This is great for me because it was super simple to do and quick (great for a home-lab environment), however, if you were in a production environment I dunno if I would be updating your ESXi hosts using SSH. The site was  https://esxi-patches.v-front.de/ESXi-6.5.0.html So I went to my ESXi webpage to check my version number (i had already tested it out and put a few patches through to test how it works) and enabled the host SSH. I had already tested it out and put a few patches through to test how it works. After matching the build number with ...

So after doing some reading, I decided to take the advice from others that I needed a UPS for the FreeNAS project, I'd rather not lose my entire data store because of a power outage. I went through my usual sites and could not find anything that stood out, I’ve only seen Eaton and APC UPS units used in office environments and data-centres so I decided to aim for one of those since I assume they would have a good rep. Thought I might give Gumtree a shot, never used the site since I like having a fall back if someone decides to sell something dodgy. As I was going through gumtree I found one UPS unit that stood out (HP t1500 G3), so I decided to call the guy and ask a few questions about it. Had a chat on the phone and asked the following questions How old is the unit? – “it was bought in 2012 and used as a UPS for the VOIP phone system”. What are the condition of the batteries? – “they were good” (more on this later) Asked if the unit was heavily used at all – ” no it was mayb...

So the microserver arrived on Friday! like a kid in a candy shop I have been performing tests (memtest/CPU test and all the ports using a boot USB) to ensure there was nothing wrong with the item and as far as I can tell the seller was spot on about it being brand new. The shiny glory of new hardware I could not find a single fingerprint on the thing and even the drive caddy screws felt band new as I had to ‘crack’ them with a proper screwdriver because the supplied HP tool felt a bit inadequate. They use those apple Torx screws so that was a little frustrating. guess HP took a page outta apple's book I loaded a bunch of old exNAS drives into the server to see if the server would pick them up. I had 2x4tb and 2x2tb collecting dust in my room so I figured I would check them out and make sure that they were suitable for the NAS/microserver (make sure that the SMART was good on them etc.) and you can see by the picture I already did a check on the 2 4tb drives...

So I ended up buying one of these last night on a whim. After hearing my instructor and uncle rave about these things a while ago, I saw a good deal on eBay that once again was one of those rare things that are great to snap up. It was going for $290 but thanks to eBay they had a 10% off so I paid around $260 for a new(or so the sale claims) Gen8 G1610T HP Microserver and to top it off it had free postage! The guy even messaged me after informing me of when he would be posting the item out! I am hopeful that I won't get bitten from this deal, but I feel mostly safe dealing though eBay + pay-pal. Its reasonably safe but everything has its risks and I’ve only ever gotten stung once (by a generic Chinese seller none the less) who sold fake micro SD cards. I’ve learnt my lesson with the eBay sellers of SD cards, but that is for another day. Why a HP microserver when I already have a powerhouse of a server you ask? Well, I’ve been reading up on FreeNAS and NAS solutions and the ZF...

After playing around with a few domains, and domain hostlers I've fallen to google domains. Its been easy to work with and has had a surprising amount of features, DDNS inbuilt was one of them! As apart of this move I've decided to give blogger a shot, test it out for a bit and see how it goes.  I'll be moving over content from my old blog to test it and If I like it I will end up likely moving everything here.