Author: Andy

Posted on

Finally getting the house put back together

After months of not having time to work on technology projects, I managed to get a few hours today and yesterday to get the home lab (mostly) back online.

So far I have:

  • Linked the external servers to the home network with an OpenVPN site to site link using Vyos and a Ubiquiti Edge router. I had this working before, but the router had to be reset when I moved from Africa to here. IP addresses all changed on this side too, so made all the changes and it is 100%.
  • Installed HTML5 RDP server on a Windows 2016 server and it seems to be working very well. This could replace Horizon for the home lab and limit costs of the VMUG subscription needed to keep that up. Tested with Libre Office and Mailbird and it all works in Chrome or Firefox well.
  • Installed a new NextCloud instance using Docker and YAML. Still lots to learn on YAML and Docker, but I am making some progress.
  • Setup a new SSL and domain for andywalsh.xyz. This seems like a better place to put things than my andywalsh.com domain since it gets hammered by DDoS all the time.
Posted on

Hello world!

Welcome to the new WordPress site. I had an old site that ran on GoDaddy, but I never really worked on it or liked the  performance. For this new site, I am hoping to do a better job of capturing my ideas and thoughts instead of just using gadgets to display my content from Twitter or fitness data from Garmin. I did like some of the features of the old blog, but I think it is time for a change, and I really like the Linode systems and how they work.

The big question previously was how to host all the projects, sites, and technology I was testing. I tried entire servers with ESXi and multiple virtual machines as well as dedicated Linux machines with Docker, but I think ultimately I like the way Linode allows me to isolate different projects and easily spin up something and take something else down without impacting other projects.

I still have some servers at TurnKey Internet, which are a great value considering how much horsepower they offer, but I think when I move back to the U.S., I won’t have as much of a need for servers or have as much time to set them up and take them down. Time will tell if this works out better than previous methods I have tried.