It has been a while since my last post. I have completed some updates over the past few months to my Homelab. The biggest addition is using Docker, which was a challenging but rewarding experience. I also changed from Hyper-V back to ESXi, while also running vCenter Server, upgraded the RAM from 48GB to 64GB, which allowed me to have more VM’s running. Docker My Docker instance is running on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux VM, which gave me a chance to learn more about Linux.
Docker
My Docker instance is running on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux VM, which initially started out as something to learn more about Linux. Transforming it to Docker allowed me to learn even more about Linux.
I currently have UNMS (Ubiquiti Network Management System) and the UniFi controller running to actively configure and monitor my network, I also have the entire Monolithic Lancache set up, that receives forwarded DNS requests from Pi-Hole when the DNS requests are Steam, Blizzard, Riot, Origin etc CDN's, and it caches all the downloads, including updates to the 12TB storage through SMB.
The PostgreSQL server was used when I was developing a web application using Django (Python) to learn Python.
The speedtest container, is a simple HTM5 web instance, that will allow me to perform quick speed test on any device internally.
Watchtower is a great addition, as it automates image updates for my running containers, which requires no administrative effort.
Hyper-V to ESXi
I moved to ESXi, as Hyper-V was becoming less of a challenge. I couldn't utilise SCSI Bus Sharing, which gave me another reason to switch Hyper Visors. It was simple to do, I used Starwind V2V to convert the VHDX's to VMDK's and then used VMWare standalone converter to reduce the size of the VMDK's from 127GB each to their respective sizes.
I installed the vCenter server appliance to try and setup an LACP group, which took a lot longer than expected, but I eventually sorted that out, and now have an active LACP connection up and running with 2x1Gbps ethernet connections.
Automation
Previously I was using a VM with Backblaze to backup my 12TB of data, and it would require me to turn the VM on when I know my network was not being used. I have now moved to installing PowerCLI, which is VMWare's PowerShell modules to connect and interact with VMWare servers. I wrote a couple of PowerShell scripts to automatically turn on the backup server and then turn it off again at specific times using Task Scheduler on LINDS-DC2. An example script is below.
