Categories
Networking

10 inch 3D printed homelab minirack

I have been wanting to build out a 10″ rack for my little homelab. Better to situate the networking and homelab gear I have. And also do some upgrades to some networking equipment. It doesn’t house my two Synology 7 bay units, but it houses all of my other equipment.

Inspiration goes to this reddit post: https://old.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/1j25l1t/my_camper_rack/

FRONT VIEW

On the top are two Nuc 13th generation i7’s, 64GB of ram and 4TB NVME drives. They sit on top of a Geekpi 10inch rack tray.

Below that is the GeeekPI throughpass/cable manager .5U

Then the GeeekPI .5U keystone patch panel

And then I have the Unifi Fiber Gateway

And then the USW-Flex-2-5g-8-POE switch to POE power everything. I bumped that up to the 210W PSU so it has ample power for my 3 AP’s and protect cameras.

Below that is the USW-Flex-XG for the 4 10GBe ports. I really hope Ubuiqiti comes out with something denser. But that handles my 10GB needs for now.

My favorite part is the side. I was able to get a power strip to fit perfectly. Which made for very easy power cable management.

RIGHT SIDE VIEW

REAR VIEW

That power strip is a: HHSOET 16 in 1 Recessed Power Strip that you can find on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXGXFYV2

The 4 metal posts are Gator Rackworks. You’ll want a total of 4. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072B9H3FC

And then you will want to get some screws M5-0.8 x 10mm. The Gator Rackworks rails are threaded, so no need for nuts, unless you want extra security. If you do, get M5-0.8 Thread Size, 8 mm Width.

And then I used multiple 3D printers to get the sides, unifi gear, etc, links below:

UCG FIBER:
https://www.printables.com/model/1220530-ucg-fiber-rack-mount-bracket-1u-10-inch

USW-FLEX-2.5GB 8 PORT POE
https://makerworld.com/en/models/1024496-usw-flex-2-5g-8-poe-10-inch-rack-mount#profileId-1006423

USW-Flex-XG switch:
https://www.printables.com/model/1089225-unifi-usw-flex-xg-10-inch-rack-mount

SIDES:

https://www.printables.com/model/275203-10in-home-server-project/files

I plan to upgrade to these sides though, they will likely hold better:

https://www.printables.com/model/1279862-remix-diy-10-inch-rack-for-gator-rackworks-rails/files

Categories
Networking

Migrating from pfsense to Unifi Fiber

This is a bit of a continuation from my previous post about Adguard. Because the whole reason I changed over to Adguard Home was to replace pfblockerng. Which meant I actually replaced my edge firewall with something new, the Unifi Fiber gateway. I wanted to write up a quick review on it an a high level recap.

I have 3 unifi AP’s, and a few Unifi protect cameras. I like it because I was able to consolidate my cloudkey gen 2 plus features into it. So the protect NVR, wifi/network management and Unifi management pane. Key things I used pfsense for that I needed in Unifi fiber, and it’s done them all so far.

Took me a hot second to figure out the new zones method you can do for firewalling and routing. But I am able to do all of the same fancy policy routing I was with pfsense. So specific devices go out specific wireguard VPN’s and pass dnsleak tests properly with a kill switch if the VPN goes down. I was also able to setup VLANS for my IOT, non internet devices and guest usesrs for wifi.

I also overall like being everything unifi now, that was the big push. I did lose pfblockerng, but I opted to go for Adguard Home, instead of pihole or technitium. Adguard had built in DOT/DOH for DNS lookups, so nothing in the clear, cause why give away DNS lookups to my ISP for free. It imported all of my block lists and started working immediately with minimal setup requirements actually. It also has much better reporting and a user interface over pfblockerng. So that was a nice upgrade.

The only thing I lost from my pfsense over unifi fiber was tailscale on the edge. I had to spin up a VM on my proxmox box to handle that. It works fine, but I always preferred having it on my edge.

Bonus points for when I get our 2gbps internet it’ll handle it like a champ. And hopefully I can SFP straight in without an ONT as others have done.

Categories
General Computing

Forcing AdGuard Home to disable 53 lookups at bootstrap

I am migrating from pfsense to a Unifi Fiber gateway. The first thing I needed to do was to figure out how I was going to get away from the feature rich pfBlockerNG. That thing was a beast, combined with unbound, very customizable. But i’ve been using it for 6+ years, it’s had its quirks and I am ready to try something new. The internet seems to be saying AdGuard Home is the new champion in DNS for selfhosters. It is no longer pi-hole (thick and heavy php stack requirements), nor is it technitium (to new, not open source) and I would never use nextdns due to its cloud/internet requirement. AdGuard Home is written in go, has a sleak reporting function and it has DOH and DOT built in, unlike Pi-Hole. For whatever reason, the developers of Pi-Hole do not think DNS needs to be encrypted, so they’re off the list.

Setup of AdGuard Home was super simple. I threw it on a pi running latest raspian. Went through the quick wizard and off I went. First step was to setup my upstream DNS servers. I chose these:

https://dns10.quad9.net/dns-query
https://dns.cloudflare.com/dns-query
https://dns.mullvad.net/dns-query
https://dns.google/dns-query

To get DOH to work, you need to do a 53 DNS lookup. I did not like that idea. So in the bootstrap section, you can actually use an 853 TLS/DOT look up. So I put these in:

tls://1.1.1.1
tls://8.8.8.8

I watched the traffic with tcpdump on my current router, and boom, all 853 to 443 traffic for lookups. I blocked all 53 traffic on WAN and it’s functioning perfectly.

I then dumped in my custom DNS black lists I have accumulated over the years. As well as a few DNS rewrites and then my preferred DNSBL. If you need help with a good set of lists, I would start with the green section for firebog:

https://firebog.net

That was it, now i’ll let AdGuard Home slowly cover all my internal DNS needs and watch it work. So far I enjoy the metrics over pfBlockerNG. I will miss pfBlockerNG, but it’s nice having something built quite simply.

Categories
General Computing Operating Systems

Format USB drive to FAT32 in a 32GB and larger thumbdrive world

I always need a FAT32 formatted drive so that I can upgrade some firmware or BIOS updates. I also need FAT32 for things like network equipment that only take FAT32 still, even the new stuff, looking at you Cisco. You can format a larger 64GB+ thumb drive with Microsoft Windows 11 natively, no need for extra apps. You can use the built in diskpart utility.

First step is to hit your windows key, and type CMD. Right click CMD and run it as administrator. Then you can drop into diskpark:

diskpart
list disk
select disk X (select the disk you know is yours)
clean
create partition primary size=32768
select partition 1
format fs=fat32 quick
exit

Done, now you have a drive that is fat32 formatted and you can dump your files on it that you need.

Categories
Linux

AlmaLinux 8 fails GPG key check

Are you getting these errors trying to install new packages or update your existing packages? Does it look something like this?

sudo dnf upgrade almalinux-release
Last metadata expiration check: 1:48:55 ago on Tue 28 May 2024 08:39:46 PM PDT.
Dependencies resolved.
=========================================================================================================
 Package                        Architecture        Version                    Repository           Size
=========================================================================================================
Upgrading:
 almalinux-release              x86_64              8.10-1.el8                 baseos               27 k

Transaction Summary
=========================================================================================================
Upgrade  1 Package

Total size: 27 k
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
[SKIPPED] almalinux-release-8.10-1.el8.x86_64.rpm: Already downloaded
AlmaLinux 8 - BaseOS                                                     3.3 MB/s | 3.4 kB     00:00
Importing GPG key 0xC21AD6EA:
 Userid     : "AlmaLinux <packager@almalinux.org>"
 Fingerprint: E53C F5EF 91CE B0AD 1812 ECB8 51D6 647E C21A D6EA
 From       : /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Key imported successfully
Import of key(s) didn't help, wrong key(s)?
Public key for almalinux-release-8.10-1.el8.x86_64.rpm is not installed. Failing package is: almalinux-release-8.10-1.el8.x86_64
 GPG Keys are configured as: file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux
The downloaded packages were saved in cache until the next successful transaction.
You can remove cached packages by executing 'dnf clean packages'.
Error: GPG check FAILED

There is a quick and easy fix that works as of Aug 2024. Run this on your OS, this will import the latest GPG keys:

rpm --import https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/RPM-GPG-KEY-AlmaLinux

Then run this to update yum/dnf:

dnf upgrade almalinux-release

Then you should be all good for you yum upgrade and install needs!

Categories
Google chrome Software

Removing google Chrome drop down in tab bar – March 2024

Updated chrome to 123.0.6312.58, and they re added the drop down in the top left, again. OY, this is getting old Google. They need to stop forcing these UX changes. If you see this:

and want to remove it, open up a new tab in chrome and go to chrome://flags and disable “Customize Chrome Side Panel” If this is your first time dealing with these changes, also disable “Chrome Refresh 2023“. Once done, it will look like this:

Relaunch chrome and the drop downs in the tab bar is gone.

Categories
Electronics

Intel i226-v performance and interface issues with Intel NUC 13th generation

I have an Intel NUC 13th generation NUC13ANHi7 with the attached goritre GR-LAN-1785 i226-v m.2 interface to give it 2 2.5gb ethernet ports. It works great, except for some interface drops I would notice randomly on pfsense. Initially I couldn’t even get auto/auto to work on one port. I ended up going into bios and changing PCIe ASPM support to disabled and that solved all of my issues. Like in the picture below, remove the check mark, save settings and reboot.

As an FYI, you can get Intel NUC BIOS updates and latest drives from Asus’s website. Intel may have dropped the line, but Asus is picking up all support functionalities. They’ve released 3 different BIOS updates already for the 13th generations. https://www.asus.com/us/support/download-center/

Categories
Hosting Services

Gusto.com referral code – $100

We just migrated www.madgenius.com payroll over to gusto.com payroll services. I really wanted to do something that was not Intuit and gusto seems to have gotten rave reviews. It has a lovely UX work flow, and pretty brain dead setup. The costs are also more manageable for a smaller company as well. Once I get a few months run under this system, I will likely post a larger review. I also like the fact it has the ability to owner/Div withdrawals directly, outside of the payroll system. Super simple for small business S-Corp owners to do.

The deal, you get $100 VISA gift card if you use my link when you sign up and run your first payroll. I get $300 for some reason! I hear the referral offers change though, so if you check and it’s something else, let me know so I can update this.

https://gusto.com/r/anthony23eecee3

Categories
Gaming Uncategorized

Transfer CS2 settings and configuration to another account

Sometimes I use a second account to play with lower ranked friends. To copy settings to the other account, make sure you’ve logged into both on your computer, and opened CS2. You need to know where you install games/STEAM. The default is in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam . Once in there, navigate to 

C:\Games\Steam\userdata\STEAMID\

Then for the new account, navigate to

C:\Games\Steam\userdata\STEAMID2

Now copy all of the 730 and recursive contents of folder into STEAMID2.

Categories
General Computing

Google search results showing incorrect date stamps and calendar – updated Sep 2023

I run into this a lot when I travel, or live in different parts of the world for a little bit. Example, my search results are showing up as BE while I am in Thailand. And as of Sep 22 2023, it looks like Google changed the way you modify this. So this is an update to what I previously posted November of 2022:

Google search results showing incorrect date stamps and calendar

Same issue, slightly different way to fix it. Caveats, you will need to be logged into a Google account to fix. And protip, set your homepage to ncr, as that will not give you a region lock either: https://www.google.com/ncr

Click on Settings then Search settings in the bottom left:

Select other settings on the left, and then Language & region

Then select results region

Then search for and select your region and click on confirm

Then you are good to go. Enioy your search results.