Getting Ready to Spin Down the Rack

I am getting ready to spin down the rack for when I am on vacation at the end of this month.  To be honest, the only thing really running is the file server that I have connected to my laptop. I wish I could set this up to trade files from my iPhone and iPad but I will have to try that combination on for size at a later date.

Right now I need to not focus on the rack itself, but focus on what I am doing on the cruise.  I have also found out that my idea for using an external drive to run all of my applications has been twarted by Google Chrome. Moving the drive to another Windows computer invalidates the login, probably because it stores everything in the registry. Wish I could make that go away.

Project #38 - Integrate the Edgerouter-12p into the Rack

 I have had an Edgerouter-12 POE router in my toolbox for a long time.  It is time to integrate this router into my Rack.  I will start by making the router integral with the xPod RPis and will incorporate a master switch in the rack to activate it.  I am thinking of:

• Using it to be the router of choice for the xPod
• Using it to be the octorouter for the Monitoring Network (EXP6 and EXP10)
• Will have to setup the octorouting ability via CLI
• Plugging in EXP6 and EXP10

Update: I have placed this project on hold until I am able to get the Edgerouter-12 POE to play nice.  It seems to be randomly losing it's mind and resetting my configuration.  I will have to play with it some more to get it integrated into the rack.

Project #35 - Adding VLANS to the FLINT1 and FLINT2 routers

I have finally come to the point where I need to setup VLANs on the FLINT routers in my network.  I have noted for some time that people have problems with setting up VLANs on GL-iNet routers in general.  I mainly want to do this so that I can have some vlans that are outside of my normal Edgerouter-12 controlled space.  This would also enable me to get more into the fine tuning of these routers.  I can see having a couple of guest vlans on each router which would connect over iBGP.  I am currently reading a book on the ins and outs of GL-iNet that might give me some better information on how to do this, however at the moment it seems to be more of a word salad than a how to book.

I also need to be careful to document the entire process so that I can reproduce it.  To that end I will document the process in the RedNotebook app.  I intend on noting differences between the FLINT1 and FLINT2 setups. The main changes should be limited to one or two vlans on each router:

• On FLINT1 I will add two VLANs; Guest1 and Arbitrary1 that will not have access to the basic vlan
• On FLINT2 I will add two VLANs; Guest2 and Arbitrary2 that will not have access to the basic vlan
• The setup should be able to be altered to accommodate iBGP or VXLAN in the future (or any other items I might want to experiment with)

Update: I am placing this project on hold for the moment until I have more time.

Moved the xPod power connections back to a PDU that I have in my rack

 After I changed the xPod RPis to connect to my main switch.  I went through the exercise of moving my main router and main switch to a rack PDU connected through my UPS.  I then moved the second PDU off of my UPS and connected it to my switched power panel (connected also to the same UPS).  I am in talks to have a new Electrical cable run from my main box to my back bedroom.

Checking out the previous effort at a File Server on Proxmox

The LXC #101 was created some time ago (debian 12, turnkey fileserver, 18.0-1).  The last time it was used was in July and I am not sure if I had tried to integrate it with #106 NextCloud; I may have.  So from here it looks like there was a try, but I need to review what steps were taken to set it up.  Also what is the current setup of the Proxmox drives: 2@1TB and 2@4TB drives in the case.

Update: I was able to get it working again and this time as well as connect LXC #101 to Tailscale.  I was then able to pull up a Z drive on my laptop.  Now I can access this Z drive from anywhere.

Project #37 - Setup a File Server on Proxmox

 This is a case of the cart before the horse.  It occurs to me that I need a files server in the network.  I would buy a NAS to integrate, but short of that I am going to utilize my Proxmox server to create a File Server.  Fortunately, there is a Turnkey file server that I can utilize for this purpose.  So this project is to setup a file server using the Turnkey File Server template.  Of course, I need to get the drives setup correctly on Proxmox before I can begin this.

Moved the xPod connections back to my main switch

After thinking about it for a while, I was convinced that I needed to add the other Edgerouter-12p that I have which has a POE capability.  In order to do that, I will need to remove the 8 port switch and 2 ER-X routers which are on the shelf that I need for the ER-12p.  So that means that I will need to rearrange the xPod RPis to connect to the main switch and disconnect the 8 port switch and 2 ER-X routers.

Update: completed