Changeover of Ubuntu Server to Proxmox Box

 I have been wanting to try my hand at a Type 1 hypervisor for a while but it was too expensive.  I looked at ESXi, but decided that each change of the software meant a world of hurt for the VMs that would be running.  I do like to use KVM and have wanted to learn LXC containers, so I decided to change out the Ubuntu Server and go with Proxmox.

I changed the HW for the Proxmox server to have a 1TB SSD, repurposed the 4TB spinner from the Ubuntu Server to use, and reconnected the DVD drive.  I did a fresh install from the Proxmox 6.3-1 iso that I downloaded from the site and came up running very quickly.  I then added a number of OS isos, including CentOS, Ubuntu, and Fedora.  I was able to quickly spin up Ubuntu and start working on the challenge of other VMs and LXCs.

I connected the GUI/SSH port of the Proxmox to my admin vlan and ran the first Ubuntu VM on my Pers vlan.  So far so good.

The Network is Starting to Show Signs of Life

After much pushing and proding, I can now see the network coming back to life.  I was very quickly able to get the Media portion of the network back online.  But I was having trouble getting the other things like the printer and the WiFi working again.  The main culprit was the Netgear switch that controlled the printer, HA Server, and UniFi WAP.  When that went down I couldn’t control anything because of the multiple vlan nature of my network.  The switch had all the appearance of being fried, and since I had not succeeded in gettin extra port connections in one of the patch panels upstairs I was limited in what I could do.  Fortunately, I found out that the switch I used on the Ubuntu server was still operational.  Since the Ubuntu server is currently down I decided to use the switch as a replacement for the one upstairs.

So I obtained the text configuration of the switch that failed, changed the IP, and pushed it onto the replacement.  By replacing the previous switch, I now have a working system - at least in part.  This has also given me time to think about how to get my network back and running should I have such a disaster happen again. First, I need some things to make sure that a power outage doesn’t decimate things again.  I ordered some coax surge protectors to put on the TiVo Edge and Mini. Those are installed and I should not have a problem from the coax side of things.  I also purchased a couple of Ethernet surge protectors.  Lastly I have a whole house surge protector on order that should protect that part as well.

Checking Power for the Computer Room

So today I am checking the power coming to my new computer room.  I have cleared out most of the things that were in the room, enough to be able to get around and move my equipment into the room.  There were two lines that I uncovered coming from the main panel that went into the tool room.  One went to two outlets through a breakout box: power for the main managed switch and a 4 socket setup on the workbench.  Since I will not be using the workbench much after I move the 3D printer into the computer room, I should be okay with the power draw.  The line is on a 20 amp circuit and the switch does not draw that much.  Having the 3D printer in the computer room allows me to setup an exhaust outlet for when I start doing stinky plastics like ABS, nylon, and PETG.  The other line coming from the main panel goes to a breakout box that is tied to power going into the computer room.  I need to trace down the wires to make sure that I understand where they are going to.  I am hoping that there is not a lot of activity on this power line.

I have been looking for a power meter that I can use to determine what the current draw is on each of these lines so that I can make sure not to exceed 80%.  That should keep the lines cool enough for continuous usage.  I went to Loews last night and got some 12 gauge power wire to hook the first line I mentioned to some of the other outlets in the room.  I need to determine what the power requirements are for the following groupings of equipment:

1. Computer Rack

- 1500 watt APC

- Server One - generic PC with 7 Ethernet ports

- Server Two (future buy) - probably a NUC device

- Raspberry Pi Cluster: 4 RPis, plus 6 usb connector power supply

- 16 port 1GB managed switch

- 8 port 1GB managed switch

- 8 port 1GB switch

- Two WD myCloud devices (4TB and 3TB) plus One backup usb drive (4TB)

2. Hutch

- Smaller APC unit

- Mac Mini

- Two monitors: one with dual HDMI inputs

- powered speakers

- PC laptop docking station

- external 4TB drive

- external DVD burner

- old 3in1 printer for scanning

- Apple TV 3/Roku

- 8 port 1GB managed switch

3. DIY Electronics Table

- Smaller APC unit

- 8 port POE switch

- 8 port 1GB managed switch

- 4-unit HDMI switch

- PC power supply for bench

- One monitor w/attached RPi

- 6 usb connector power supply for RPis/Arduinos

- RPi with 7" LCD screen for monitoring

4. 3D Printer (in Lack table enclosure)

- 3D printer

- OctoPi setup with camera

- power supply for OctoPi

- Ethernet connection from OctoPi to the Hutch managed switch

Alterations, Alterations in the Network!

Well I'm back after a long hiatus.  I was consumed with some Security Engineering projects at work and it pretty much took all of my time.  Now I can come back to this network and continue on with my projects.  However, I have a wrinkle in the matrix - I now have to consolidate a lot of my equipment into a space that is much smaller than what I originally had available.  Fortunately, having the layout that I had through the judicious use of vlans and vlan switches, the logical movement is not going to be that complicated.

My big problem with the move is getting rid of things that were in the area that I will be moving into and consolidating the things in other areas that will be necessary to continue this HomeLab project of mine.  I am vacating a room that will shortly be made into a bedroom for the potential of having either my granddaughter or my grandson and wife stay with us.  I am all for that, and it won't happen for another year, giving me time to accomplish what I need.  I am just a hop skip and jump away from retirement anyway.  But now I have to figure on not only my servers, but my main computer in my Personal vlan, and my desk where I piddle with Raspberry Pis and Arduinos.  I also have a new hobby of 3D printing which I will be adding to the HomeLab through an OctoPi interface.  Now I have to deal with lack of power for all these devices in that one room.  I also have to think of possible future inclusions such as servers and whatnots.  I will have to run one or two Ethernet cables to support the move, but that is the least of my problems.  Fortunately, I also have enough APC devices to power up everything.

I have decided that three areas should be enough to do what I want.  I am moving my RPi Cluster and Server/NAS to a shelf unit which was already in place in the room.  I will deposit my main computer that is behind the second firewall into the hutch.  I will then bring the table that I have been using for the main computer into the room and place it where I can do experiments with electronics and small computers.  I am also thinking that I need to setup a terminal at the desk to connect to RPis and computers with VNC over SSH and RPN over SSH.  Seems like I will need to setup a localized certificate authority for everything.  I really have grown to the point that I do not trust anything anymore in terms of moving information across a network, even if it is my own network.

I don't really want to buy any more equipment so I am going to repurpose one or two switches to fit into the network.  I do need to clean up the switches to not reference vlans that are not being used.  In addition, I have to be careful to keep an administrative vlan going between major systems.

OpenWRT KVM Setup

I was able to eek out a little period of time this weekend to work on the Ubuntu server.  My concentration was on getting some vlans setup coming into the server from a trunk line.

But before that I attempted to setup some OpenWRT VMs using instructions from the openwrt website.  First, I downloaded https://downloads.openwrt.org/chaos_calmer/15.05/x86/64/openwrt-15.05-x86-64-combined-ext4.img.gz, then I moved it to the Ubuntu server and unpacked it.

gunzip openwrt-x86-generic-combined-ext4.img.gz
qemu-img convert -f raw -O vmdk openwrt-x86-generic-combined-ext4.img openwrt-x86-generic-combined-ext4.vmdk

Once that was done, I converted it to qcow2 using the script here.  Once that was accomplished I pulled the qcow2 file into KVM and cloned it three times.  The three clones are for additional router functions in the future.

Once I had the KVMs generated I then updated the ethernet connection going to the card that had the No-Mans Land vlan on it.  I added several more tagged vlans to the trunk that I had formed using the Netgear switch.  I then setup a number of vlans using the instructions from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/vlan.  I then updated the /etc/network/interfaces file to setup the new vlans from the trunk line (truncated):

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*

# The loopback network interface
auto lo br0-vlan6 br2-vlan300 br1-vlan200 enp3s0 enp4s5 enp4s6
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
iface enp3s0 inet manual
iface br0-vlan6 inet static
    address 192.168.0.133
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    broadcast 192.168.0.255
    network 192.168.0.0
    gateway 192.168.0.2
    bridge_ports enp3s0
    bridge_stp off
    bridge_fd 0
    bridge_waitport 0
    dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 192.168.1.1

iface enp4s5 inet manual

...

iface br2-vlan300 inet static
    address 10.100.30.50
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    broadcast 10.100.30.255
    network 10.100.30.0
    bridge_ports enp4s5
    bridge_stp off
    bridge_fd 0
    bridge_waitport 0

auto enp4s5.4
iface enp4s5.4 inet static
        address 10.10.4.45
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        vlan-raw-device enp4s5
(and so on ...)

Now that I have the vlans (tagged) setup on the same Ethernet as the No-Mans Land vlan, I can concentrate on setting up the OpenWRT VMs to point to the correct vlans.

Built Up a VM Server Over the Weekend

So my company has an e-recycling day coming up and my wife has been bugging me about getting rid of old computers and the like.  It turns out that after looking over everything I ended up with 6 towers left after removing hard drives and extracting parts for use later.  I also added a whole bunch of misc. motherboards and other obsolete equipment to the stack.  This will go out on Earth Day for e-recycling.

Which brings me to what I did over the weekend.  I built up a server using one remaining tower.  I populated it with a AMD FX 8320/motherboard/8 GB ram/1TB hard drive.  My objective was to build up a Server which I could use to host a number of VMs which would run continuously in my network.  I am also interested in setting up an Ethernet interface on the Server which would connect to a number of VLANs from my home network.  The VLANs would be routed to one or more of the VMs.  I hope to have an internal Hacking VLAN setup in this manner since I know that I can get vulnerable VMs from different sites on the internet.

To start this off, I was able to setup an Ubuntu 15.10 Server using my portable USB DVD drive from my Mac Mini.  I changed out the power supply and added a SATA based DVD drive and a SATA based removable hard drive.  I then installed KVM and attempted my first install of a VM from an ISO file.  That took a very long time.  So, I now know that if I can get the VM already made I should do so.

More info later.