Something Random

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,564
Location
I am omnipresent
I took my cat Sugar to the vet this morning. I thought I was going to have a wart removed. The vet looked at her, told me she needed an X-ray and more or less came back to tell me she had every kind of cancer.

The last of my cats is the anxious three-year-old. He's been looking and calling out for Sugar all day and it's actually breaking my heart.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,590
Location
Eglin AFB Area
I don't have usable AC anyway. Were I by myself, my wintertime thermostat would probably be set as low as possible, but that doesn't work for my roommates. I am RIGHT on the tip of Lake Michigan, and when the lake is cold, everything here is cold.

My file server takes 5 - 10 minutes to become fully usable if it gets shut down and it's mildly terrifying every time that happens because it probably means my UPS ran out of juice and I'm worried about whether or not all the drives are working OK or if an array needs rebuilt.

Moving that part of the discussion here as it'd gone a bit off the rails.

Meanwhile, I have practically no insulation, so most of my energy is spent just keeping my place barely hospitable. I'm hot in the summer, cold on the actually cold days of winter. The only saving grace is that it usually stays in the 70s through winter here so it's a somewhat rare occurance that the heat comes on especially since I believe it's monitoring my office for the thermostat anyway, and that room always trends a few degrees warmer due to my network equipment and server.

Speaking of the server, I shuffled around my storage devices and ended up putting the MP510 in my work laptop since I needed the storage there more, I spent last night cloning the drive over the network with Macrium -- we use it for work anyway, so it was conveniently already installed -- the retention mechanism for m.2 drives is rather bizarre in that machine but I got it working in the end. Unfortunately the stock drive was a 2230 PM991a, so it's going to be annoying to use in a desktop where the smallest m.2 most boards will let you mount is a 2242. I have an adapter bracket on the way to let me use it with the board I've got coming, meanwhile the EX920 I was using in my main will become the boot drive for the server, holding the images I'll be using to boot the VMs. I think I'm going to use Proxmox there -- I'd use ESXi since I'm more familiar with that, unfortunately the NIC on that board (a RTL8169) isn't supported by anything past 6.7, which EOLed back in, what, September I think. I've figured out how to control the bottom PCIe slot on that board independently of the rest and force it to PCIe 1.0 mode for the capture card, so I'll pass that through to the fileserver VM for convenience and just use it with OBS on there through SSH X-forwarding I guess.

I'm torn as to whether I want to upgrade the drives now -- I really would like a 3x8TB RAID5 of good WD Red Pros or IronWolves. I just need them to be CMR and have ERC, which I'm given to understand at more than 4TB is kind of difficult to come by (CMR that is). On the other hand, I really am not in the best spot to spend upwards of $400 on hard drives right now, and the 3x2TB array has surprisingly held up rather well since my early difficulties with it. I've got about 30% free on that array and the persistent growth has more-or-less stopped.

I moved my home LAN's subnet to 10.254.0.0/24 after getting frustrated with how my original setup at 192.168.0.0/24 was getting usurped by the local network when I'd connect my laptop through to the VPN on some networks. I'm aware you're supposed to be able to do some sort of subnet translation, but the documentation for OpenVPN flat-out suggested moving the subnet to a less-common one, so there we go. My VPN subnet was at 192.168.8.0/24 but I moved that to 10.127.0.0/24. Surprisingly, making those changes went without a hitch -- I started by changing the address in /etc/network/interfaces on the server, knowing I'd break the SSH session when I called for the networking service to restart, then I set the range up in the configuration on my router, then quickly changed the static IP I'd set on my main, and all's well now. I say surprisingly because I'm quite used to having to fight with equipment for hours to make simple changes like that, but my own LAN was quite well-behaved. I restarted most of my devices to make sure they all got new IPs with DHCP, and so far, I haven't had any issues.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,624
Location
USA
But you are still young, so there is expected suffering. I did not have a career position in my degreed area(s) until well into the 20s. I was also stationed in various regions and countries with either no heat or no AC and occasionally neither.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,590
Location
Eglin AFB Area
I don't really think suffering builds character. Call me an entitled millennial if you will (I'm not, I'm very early Gen Z) but I personally think suffering is just... suffering. I don't think it's that much to ask, that my place of living be adequately insulated and brought up to modern building codes, as well as, you know, comfortable, considering I pay almost $1500 per month just to live here. I'm well aware that I'm quite fortunate, but having expectations for dwellings that you pay for isn't unreasonable.

All that said, hopefully this discussion is rendered moot here within the next couple years as I'm trying to line up for a mortgage on a house. I don't want anything huge, but I also don't think anything with less than three bedrooms is worth pinning myself to a 30-year loan for.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Hi all, it has been a while. Santilli reached out in a PM and I thought I'd reply here and say hi.

My family sold everything in California, quit our jobs, and moved to Denmark about 3 months ago. We'd known we were interesting in living somewhere else for about 5 years, and had been looking around. Out of the whole planet, the Nordic countries seemed to have their shit together the best, and Denmark is the warmest of those countries. Decided to take advantage of the top of the housing market about 6 months ago to cash out (before interest rates changed).

Didn't know any Danes, but a friend lived here. Sent him a bunch of money, he formed a company and hired me, I am now a resident on a work visa.

So now he and I are doing consulting with system administration, software development, and some electrical design. Our side project is converting cars to electric.

I haven't been keeping up with the posts, but will be reading the back-catalog for the last 5 years or so.

Glad to see you're back Merc, sorry about your loss.
 

Newtun

Storage is nice, especially if it doesn't rotate
Joined
Nov 21, 2002
Messages
465
Location
Virginia
Whoa, DD, you narrowly missed Cali falling into the ocean. Good move!
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Yeah, that was close. Also close was the house losing $250k+ of value since I sold it. Most of our clients are still in California, so we're getting plenty of billable hours talking people through troubleshooting generators and getting Starlink connections bootstrapped in the rain.
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,737
Location
USA
Congrats on your huge move and life change, that's awesome! Glad to hear from you and hope you all are doing well!
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,624
Location
USA
Yay, the Dude is alive! I was thinking you were gone for good. I was stationed in Europe in the 80s and 90s, but never all that good with languages. Obtaining permanent residency was infeasible at the time (post cold war era).
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,590
Location
Eglin AFB Area
Let me join the chorus!

I thought you'd decided to leave permanently as well. It's good to hear from you and hopefully you all are holding up alright, but from the sound of things, you're doing at least okay.

Here's hoping the real estate market is reasonable by the time I'm ready to plunk down the cash. Knowing my luck thus far, it won't be, but the sad part is, right now, even with prices being what they are I'm better off with a mortgage than renting.

I'd wanted to live in one of the Nordic countries myself once upon a time, but I'm pretty sure that's not about to happen anytime soon. I don't think I'm special enough to even be able to move to Canada long-term and they're our upstairs neighbors.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
I do apologize for the absence; there was a lot going on. Mostly my daughter who is now 9 and semi-autonomous for the first time thanks to the free-range kid culture here. That combined with a job of 100-hour work weeks and 24/7/365 on-call-ness just led to no time.

That said, life here is amazing. Part of my new "work life balance" goals involves things that aren't work, so hopefully I'll be able to be a regular here again.

Getting into the Nordic countries is hard. There is no "I want to live there please" visa, nor is there even the "I want to invest xxx and make yyy jobs" visa. You need to either marry a Dane (that position is already occupied) or have a potential employer apply to the government on your behalf. They have to demonstrate their business plan, demonstrate that it makes sense to have you, that they have the bank balance to afford you, and that you've accepted it. Then they look at the applicant's CV to make sure they are qualified, that it would be difficult to find someone with that skill set inside Denmark, and that the pay they are being offered is in-line with what a Dane doing that job would expect. That pay must be cash; there is no startup culture of shares or options. And whatever that pay is (and Danes are well paid), 6-12 months of it needs to be in the bank account of the company already. After all that and a $200/hr immigration lawyer for 8 months finally got us here. I'm now only allowed to work for that company in that position for that amount of money without re-filing. If that company is ever unable to pay me, my residence permit lapses immediately.

So. Job one is making that company solvent (we are looking for new clients wink wink), and job two is my wife getting a job here that would be willing to file the same paperwork for redundancy. Then we have to maintain all that for 4 years and demonstrate mastery of the language to get permanent residency so the pressure is off. 4 more years gets us citizenship.

One of the goals was to give our daughter more options. If she can move out with an EU passport to go with her US and RU ones, that would be pretty cool.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,590
Location
Eglin AFB Area
Yeah, I'm not really anything special and don't really have much prospect of becoming anything special, so I'm stuck in the US, probably forever. I don't have much interest in travel that isn't work-related, so I don't even have a passport, much less a path to a residence permit. The big problem there is the idea that it'd be difficult to find a Dane (or a Canadian, or a Swede, or what-have-you) with my skillset when officially I have a very basic skillset, regardless of what I'm actually capable of. I'm working on knocking out certifications, but I'm probably going to end up actually having to go back and get a degree if I want a path to ever getting out of here, and I'm just not financially prepared for that nor will I likely ever be. School is far too expensive and I'm far too loan-averse after the endless troubles that caused me during my first go-around.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,624
Location
USA
Yeah, I'm not really anything special and don't really have much prospect of becoming anything special, so I'm stuck in the US, probably forever. I don't have much interest in travel that isn't work-related, so I don't even have a passport, much less a path to a residence permit. The big problem there is the idea that it'd be difficult to find a Dane (or a Canadian, or a Swede, or what-have-you) with my skillset when officially I have a very basic skillset, regardless of what I'm actually capable of. I'm working on knocking out certifications, but I'm probably going to end up actually having to go back and get a degree if I want a path to ever getting out of here, and I'm just not financially prepared for that nor will I likely ever be. School is far too expensive and I'm far too loan-averse after the endless troubles that caused me during my first go-around.
You should at least get a passport in case an opportunity to travel arises. The initial application times are inconsistent, but complaints indicate it is slow lately. I was fortunate in that a friend convinced me at the age of 20 to take a holiday (mostly to Europe) and it changed my life. I had at least visited all seven continents by my mid 30s.
 

jtr1962

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 25, 2002
Messages
4,168
Location
Flushing, New York
Nice to see you back, Dave. Smart to get out of CA. That state is heading to disaster. It's overpopulated for the resources available in the area.

Since you're playing catch up on what people here are doing, I more or less retired in 2017. I had a good consulting gig with Exxon which ended then. I was able to put aside enough to just call it quits. Besides that, I had already been caretaking for my mother for a few years. The demands of that got worse once she stopped walking. No physical reason for it, but mentally she just lost her will to walk. Combine that with the fact I wouldn't even know how to begin looking for another gig like the one I had, so I figured it's time. I was 55 at the time. I'm strong on work-life balance myself. I think people should work no more than 40 hours a week, but ideally 15 to 20, and no more than 3 days, is even better. And retirement should be at an age where you're still relatively young. 55 was good. Truth is if I had done well when I was younger I probably would have called it a day by my 40s, even 30s, if I earned enough. To me work is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. I'd much rather do hobbies and ride my bike than work given a choice.

Nothing else to report on my end. Still single, but I gave up on girls anyway after getting my heart broken when I was 19. Didn't cross paths with anyone I found even remotely interesting after that anyhow, so that kind of made it easier.

If NYC turns bad I'd consider leaving the US entirely. In fact, NYC is really the only place I'd want to live in the US. My short list of places I'd want to go to would be mostly far eastern megacities like Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong, etc. No idea of their policy for immigrants, however. I'm obviously no longer of working age, so my skill set is moot.
 

jtr1962

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 25, 2002
Messages
4,168
Location
Flushing, New York
You should at least get a passport in case an opportunity to travel arises. The initial application times are inconsistent, but complaints indicate it is slow lately. I was fortunate in that a friend convinced me at the age of 20 to take a holiday (mostly to Europe) and it changed my life. I had at least visited all seven continents by my mid 30s.
The farthest I ever got from where I was born was Montreal. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I'd consider traveling once I'm no longer taking care of my mother, but that's contingent on finding a SO to travel with. That's not easy thing for me. I've always been amazed how easily people seem to hook up, while I have zero luck in that area.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,624
Location
USA
There is plenty of travel to be done as a single. Most of the people on the tours I attend are active seniors traveling without a spouse. The challenge is ocean travel where the single supplements are very high, but boats suck anyways if you are a landy-luber.
 

jtr1962

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 25, 2002
Messages
4,168
Location
Flushing, New York
There is plenty of travel to be done as a single. Most of the people on the tours I attend are active seniors traveling without a spouse. The challenge is ocean travel where the single supplements are very high, but boats suck anyways if you are a landy-luber.
I don't even enjoy short trips alone. Trust me, without someone special to share the experience with, I wouldn't enjoy it one bit. I'd probably be crying myself to sleep each night. Everyone is different. Some are fine traveling alone because they're more comfortable mixing up with new people. I'm not. I'm a wallflower. I need to be with at least one person I know well to feel grounded.

Traveling with a group of friends might be fun too but I haven't really have a "group" since high school.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Yeah, I'm not really anything special and don't really have much prospect of becoming anything special, so I'm stuck in the US, probably forever. I don't have much interest in travel that isn't work-related, so I don't even have a passport, much less a path to a residence permit. The big problem there is the idea that it'd be difficult to find a Dane (or a Canadian, or a Swede, or what-have-you) with my skillset when officially I have a very basic skillset, regardless of what I'm actually capable of. I'm working on knocking out certifications, but I'm probably going to end up actually having to go back and get a degree if I want a path to ever getting out of here, and I'm just not financially prepared for that nor will I likely ever be. School is far too expensive and I'm far too loan-averse after the endless troubles that caused me during my first go-around.

A) Even if you aren't leaving the US, you should get your passport. It is significantly easier to steal your identity by applying for the first time than them having to claim it was lost.

B) Everyone is special with enough qualifications. In my case it was 20+ years of experience with a specific software/electronic/hardware stack used in a specific industry, along with relationships with those vendors in California.

C) I have no degrees or certs whatsoever. I got through high school with a 0.7GPA and my last cert was MCSE on Win2000. For me it is all about maximizing opportunities. Most recent example: I met my business partner playing Eve Online 7 years ago when he lived in Romania. Our biggest potential clients we also met in that game. I saw some potential and invested a significant amount of time and energy building up an in-game corporation, attracting members, and eventually organizing a physical meet-up at a convention in Las Vegas. This whole thing was essentially an audition for this potential client, demonstrating management, organizational, and leadership skills as well as some outside the box thinking. Now I'm recruiting some possible talent from a Danish-language Rust server.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
I don't even enjoy short trips alone. Trust me, without someone special to share the experience with, I wouldn't enjoy it one bit. I'd probably be crying myself to sleep each night. Everyone is different. Some are fine traveling alone because they're more comfortable mixing up with new people. I'm not. I'm a wallflower. I need to be with at least one person I know well to feel grounded.

Traveling with a group of friends might be fun too but I haven't really have a "group" since high school.
Learning to be comfortable alone totally sucks. Especially if (like me) you're the type to review your choices and let any sub-optimal play fester. For me travel actually made this easier; if I order food I can't eat and spill my drink and accidently insult the bartender, I can never to back to that place again. When I did that last month it was in a sketchy neighborhood of Paris and I never have to go there again ;)
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,564
Location
I am omnipresent
re: Travel.
I'm really big on just heading out to O'Hare on a Wednesday (cheap flight day) afternoon and using my phone to find either a cheap flight on Spirit/Frontier or standby on a major carrier; I have friends in Denver, Phoenix, Atlanta and Tampa, so transit is less an issue in those places. I take a backpack and just go. AirBNB can usually find me a bedroom, or I can sometimes get in a Youth Hostel. I've gotten this down to enough of a science that I can usually swing three days (Saturday is the other cheap flight day) out of town on $200 including all food and transportation. That's not horrifically expensive.

Since I currently have someone who wants to come with me on these trips, it's a little more structured, but we're going to Tampa in a couple weeks and NOLA in March.

re: Getting around European visa regulations.

My older brother wound up in a job that was 100% telecommuting. He was able to move to Prague, where he chose to enroll at Charles University and over time he has obtained a BS, MS and PhD in Psychology and he was able to complete those studies while maintaining his normal job. As a PhD, he was able to open a therapy practice and, if he ever works out his cryptocurrency-related tax issues, qualify as a permanent residency there. That's definitely a non-standard path, but there are ways to get out of the US. European Student Visas definitely seem one of the most abusable options.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,590
Location
Eglin AFB Area
Oh, right, catch-up.

I spent some years spinning my wheels in a retail job I hated, then moved to Florida in early 2021 -- no particular reason for Florida other than I had family to rely on down here -- and after a surprisingly short time spent spinning my wheels here (in the restaurant industry, blegh) I'm working as a network engineer for a small local MSP. Because we're so small I do quite a few jobs, ranging from remote support, server administration, running cable, hardware repair, etc. I'm finally in my industry and while I do have my frustrating days, I'm just happy to finally be in a field I'm competent at, on-paper qualifications or no.

I'm probably going to need to get my passport sooner rather than later not just because of the above identity issues, but because I'm also probably going to need to go out-of-country for work at least once this year. My boss has been to Columbia twice just in the last month trying to help out a contact of his with a ransomware infection. Here's hoping I don't get too lost given I'm nowhere near fluent in anything but English. I really ought to fix that sometime, but I don't really find cramming languages into my skull fun, so we'll see.

Regarding relationships, I'm at the point where I could take or leave them. I used to be afraid to live alone, but actually, y'know, living alone cured me of that. I'm finally at a point where I can say I'm proud of where I am in life and don't loathe my own company, so I'm not all that keen on immediately nuking all of that by adding a second person and possibly kids into the mix and being responsible for their emotional well-being as well as my own physical and such. Put bluntly, I can finally support myself, I'm not really ready to support anyone else, and I don't think it's all that responsible to date until such time as I can.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,564
Location
I am omnipresent
My mental health is much, much better when someone is around, so I choose to let people live with me. This isn't difficult. I have more space than I need and I don't need help keeping bills paid, so there are usually one or two others who are to some degree staying with me. My place stays cleaner and having people around keeps me from having intense depressive episodes. There's benefit to be had from domestic partnerships, even discounting relationship-level activities.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Yup. Knowing that someone is going to see my space every day certainly helps me keep it reasonable. And that someone is going to appreciate/call me out on my choices helps me think about them more.

Doing the whole married with kid thing takes it to another level, but that core bit above has always helped.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,590
Location
Eglin AFB Area
I mean, I do fine keeping my place if not spotless, then at least reasonably clean. Sometimes I drag my feet a little doing dishes but that's more because it's tough sometimes to get enough together to make doing them worthwhile, living alone. I don't live like a typical bachelor I guess.
 

Chewy509

Wotty wot wot.
Joined
Nov 8, 2006
Messages
3,327
Location
Gold Coast Hinterland, Australia
Hi Dave, Welcome back!
Are in you Copenhagen (or near), and if so, did you go to the Tivoli Gardens at Christmas?
Did you try glögg and what did you think of it? And did you have any Tuborg Julebryg?(The latter is so hard to get here in Australia).
My wife was born in Rønne, and her most of her family is still in Denmark or Canada (there are a lot of Dane's in Canada). So Christmas for us, is pretty much a Danish affair.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,624
Location
USA
Is glögg like Glühwein? The latter is like hot cough syrup with a little spice, and not in a good way. Sometimes a 1L bottle was a holiday gift at work or from friends in Germany.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Hi Dave, Welcome back!
Are in you Copenhagen (or near), and if so, did you go to the Tivoli Gardens at Christmas?
Did you try glögg and what did you think of it? And did you have any Tuborg Julebryg?(The latter is so hard to get here in Australia).
My wife was born in Rønne, and her most of her family is still in Denmark or Canada (there are a lot of Dane's in Canada). So Christmas for us, is pretty much a Danish affair.
I'm on the other side of Denmark in a city called Horsens, but the country is small enough that it is a 2.5 hour drive. We were in Copenhagen between Christmas and New Years and the family did go to Tivoli. My wife loves glögg and has purchased a supply to carry her through until it is available again, and Lunar's representation is roughly correct by my understanding. I picked up Covid in early march of 2020 and haven't been able to taste or smell since.

We moved with just a suitcase each, so all the stuff is IKEA fill-ins unless I can convince my wife to just forget all the stuff still in a container in California.


20221102_114723.jpg
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,624
Location
USA
Oh, right, catch-up.

I spent some years spinning my wheels in a retail job I hated, then moved to Florida in early 2021 -- no particular reason for Florida other than I had family to rely on down here -- and after a surprisingly short time spent spinning my wheels here (in the restaurant industry, blegh) I'm working as a network engineer for a small local MSP. Because we're so small I do quite a few jobs, ranging from remote support, server administration, running cable, hardware repair, etc. I'm finally in my industry and while I do have my frustrating days, I'm just happy to finally be in a field I'm competent at, on-paper qualifications or no.

I'm probably going to need to get my passport sooner rather than later not just because of the above identity issues, but because I'm also probably going to need to go out-of-country for work at least once this year. My boss has been to Columbia twice just in the last month trying to help out a contact of his with a ransomware infection. Here's hoping I don't get too lost given I'm nowhere near fluent in anything but English. I really ought to fix that sometime, but I don't really find cramming languages into my skull fun, so we'll see.
Be careful in Colombia, assuming you don't mean Distric of Columbia. If you are offered a ridiculous fee and it is a small outfit, maybe think again. ;)
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
It is unfortunate, but I feel like I'm missing 20 or so IQ points ever since, that seems worse. Still able to do all the things, it just seems harder.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,590
Location
Eglin AFB Area
I've had COVID twice so far, I almost think I'd prefer still being unable to taste to the lingering shortness of breath I've got -- 90% sure it's all mental, my O2 saturation never drops below 95. No brain fog to report, though. That actually reminds me, I'm overdue for my booster.
 

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
21,564
Location
I am omnipresent
One of my friends developed what might be a life-long heart condition after having long covid. I've also heard of otherwise healthy people becoming Type 2 diabetics. If only we hadn't had the most spiteful and incompetent people in charge of public health at the start of the pandemic. As it is, we'll have side effects from just the last couple years as a multi-generational issue.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,590
Location
Eglin AFB Area
It's been a learning experience, working with Proxmox on the new VM server, but I've successfully retired my old NAS box at least. I currently can't pass through any PCI-E devices or, curiously, the whole machine seems to lock up, despite having the kernel modules and parameters configured correctly as far as I can tell. Maybe it's just not something I'm meant to do on my decidedly consumer-grade motherboard I'm running it on. In the end I passed through the physical drives from the RAID to reassemble them in mdadm on the new NAS VM, and it's actually maxing out what gigabit ethernet will realistically do now -- clearly this means I should invest in a pair of 2.5 or 5GbE cards. :p

I finally have the HTTPS-HTTP proxy working for my vintage hardware. That was something I fought with for hours only for it to continue not to work beforehand. I can even render this website in glorious IE 5.5 or 6! It gets some interesting ideas about how to render the formatting. It's a little confused, but it's got the spirit.

I ended up splitting the VMs up thus:

Arwic - NAS, 2c/4GB RAM/32GB root, 3x2TB passed through for mdadm RAID5
Ayan Baqur - Misc/Games, 4c/8GB RAM/100GB root
Candeth - Network services, 1c/1GB RAM/32GB root

All three are running Debian stable. Arwic is hosting files through SMB, NFS, FTP, and running the Jellyfin media server. Candeth is hosting a ProtonMail Bridge instance, with stunnel set up to allow access to it from the rest of my LAN, PiHole, and the WebOne SSL-stripping HTTPS proxy.
 
Last edited:

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
I just got my first Proxmox server running a couple weeks ago. Running Home Assistant and Docker (and Docker is being managed by Portainer). Pretty happy with the setup so far. Server is just one of those cheap low-powered units with a bunch of ethernet ports sold on Amazon as routers.
 

sedrosken

Florida Man
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
1,590
Location
Eglin AFB Area
Yeah, I'd have liked to get one of those for fooling around with, but my budget was as close to Zero Dollars as it got, the whole name of the game was reusing hardware I'd gotten for free. With the VM server now I'm easily covered if I ever do get smart home devices or decide to swap my current router setup (a Belkin AX3200 running OpenWRT) for a pfSense box with some Ubiquiti/other APs, which I may well do should I ever need to move to a bigger place -- this router does great in my apartment, but I'm well aware of how badly 5GHz travels through walls, or should I say, doesn't travel.

I should probably clarify that the Misc/Games VM is meant more for staging stuff and running game servers rather than games by themselves.
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,737
Location
USA
I'd skip 2.5Gb and 5Gb and just jump to a proper 10Gb with a point to point DAC cable.
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,737
Location
USA
I've been meaning to try Proxmox but haven't figured out what it will gain me over my current esxi setup other than to learn something new. I run about 8 VMs on it now and have an entire second ESXi that I leave powered off most of the time since I don't use it for anything. I could use that for ProxMox to demo it I guess.

Intel S2600CP (2 x Intel E5-2650 v2 @ 2.60GHz | 128GB RAM)

2 x Linux desktops 4c | 16GB each
1 x gaming server 4c | 48GB
1 x TrueNAS (demoing it) 4c | 16GB
1 x Ubiquiti unifi controller 2c | 8GB
1 x Plex server 16c | 24GBRAM
1 x Web server 2c | 8GB
1 x Pi hole (which I never use any more)
 
Top