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Servers

VeloCloud 520 (5×0) to Opensource (WIP)

I was lucky enough to find and purchase a Velocloud 520 for $5AUD at a swap meet. After some research here and removing the case, I was able to work out enough of the systems specifications to get Ubuntu to boot reliably. Firstly I removed the press out plastic cover for the onboard USB serial port. This helped working out the bootup sequence. From there I tried installing any Linux distro that output to a serial console, but they all failed and rebooted after a few minutes. After a while I worked out it was approximately, if not exactly the same length of time. Thanks to bubbadestroy for this idea, I purchased a mPCI-E to PCI-E adapter so I could get video output using a low end NVidia graphics card. This allowed confirmation on the… Read More »VeloCloud 520 (5×0) to Opensource (WIP)

Samsung Smart Aircon and MRTG

We’ve had 4 Samsung Smart air conditioners for a few years and every once and a while I revisit trying to automate them using scripts and a like. This time I was successfull using perl scripts written/edited by Daniel (CloCkWeRX) and Shannon (freman) to deal with the transmission protocol and token management – I personally would’ve never been able to work it out – so thanks and full credit to them. To start with, you have to discover then register the aircons to get a token for each, to discover them you can use this script get_samsung.pl, which was obtained then slightly modified from here. That script output: perl get_samsung.pl Waiting for responses $VAR1 = { ‘modelcode’ => ‘SAMSUNG_DEVICE’, ‘mac_addr’ => ”, ‘cache_control’ => ‘max-age=60’, ‘decoded_nickname’ => ‘Office’, ‘spec_ver’ => ‘MSpec-1.00’, ‘notify * http/1.1’ =>… Read More »Samsung Smart Aircon and MRTG

Cheap Pickups – Box of Server Parts

Found a shoe box sized box of random PC parts for $10. I wasn’t able to see the entire contents, but was assured it was all related. I’m always looking for cheap cables and assortment. Cut the tape on the box when I got home and found: 1x Supermicro X7SBE motherboard. 8GB of DDR2/677mhz ECC RAM (2GB sticks). 1x  Dedicated IPMI card for the board. 1x Quad core Xeon X3360 @ 2.83GHz. 1x rear Double USB motherboard extender. I also bought from the same seller for an extra $10:  Low profile dual 36pin SAS card – cant find the model number yet, but compared it to images online and I think It’s an LSI MegaRAID 9261-8i. I assume the model is under the battery pack. Plugged it all (except the SAS controller) in and found… Read More »Cheap Pickups – Box of Server Parts

LinuxMCE/Ubuntu Vlan tagging with Cisco Switches

The server I’m using for my LinuxMCE setup has the 1 NIC so I’ve been using eth0 and eth0:1 (eth0:1 is a virtual interface for eth0) for internal and external. It works fine, although not ideal to have 2 broadcast domains running on the switch ports. By using Vlans  I can designate the devices that have access to which interface. This gives a closer configuration to having 2 cards without the need for an additional NIC. Considerations I read that not all NIC drivers support Vlan tagging. The one I used:  Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5723 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 10).To support Vlans you need to be using atleast 1 managed switch, the switches I’m using are Cisco 2960-24-TTL’s. This post was also written using LinuxMCE 10.04 and the Vlans I’m using are 2 and 3.… Read More »LinuxMCE/Ubuntu Vlan tagging with Cisco Switches

Network UPS Tools Screen Shot

Cheap Pickup: HP T1000RX (1KVA UPS)

I bought a HP T100RX last year, but when testing it, it’s alarm activated for seemingly no reason after about a week. So it was considered faulty and to be disposed of. The recent power spikes and bad weather lead me to look at it again, which lead me to this page: FIRMWARE UPGRADE RECOMMENDED In Summary: “T1000XR and T1500XR UPS with Firmware Version 2.00 or T2200XR UPS with Firmware Version 2.02 May Falsely Report Fan Failure and Shut Down After Running for Several Weeks” So I applied the firmware update from a windows XP machine, then spent 45 minutes to get the management software installed in XP,win7, and LinuxMCE… All failed due to the age of the java used to write both the installer and applications. I did find this gem though: “HP T1000XR… Read More »Cheap Pickup: HP T1000RX (1KVA UPS)

Universal Live Linux Backup

I’m I strong believer of making backups of backups, etc.. But not willing to down my LinuxMCE server for ‘x’ amount of hours/days to do it. I used to use Seagate DiscWizard to do it in 8.10, but 10.04 only comes up with kernel errors and I gave up. So I’ve come up with a few other ways of doing it, although some of them are more appropriate to use for milestones or once offs due to the mucking around required to do it. Live Media RAID backup This was easiest, I just peiced together a server with enough storage space to hold every thing. PXE boot the server and setup it up as an additional unmanaged MD. From there you can either manually create a software RAID or try to do it in the… Read More »Universal Live Linux Backup

New Server Arrived

To summarize, we were away for 4 weeks and all computers (including server) were turned off, this in turn saved us about $70 off our power bill, so with that, and the average 380-400W of power the server uses I figured a smaller server would pay for itself in no time. Firstly I looked at getting an ITX mobo, then buying RAM, CPU, CASE, etc.. Turned out to be cheaper to buy it as a complete system or buy them second hand. So I bought it as a package, and the one I ended up buying was HP ProLiant N40L from eBay, paid slightly more than the cheapest quote I found, Harris Technologies (Office Works in Perth). It didn’t come with an optical drive, or OS (didn’t need either), I was looking forward to the… Read More »New Server Arrived