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The home lab

After reading about others home lab environments, I was inspired to write about mine. It’s nothing too fancy but maybe somebody out there will find it interesting.

I’ve flipped-flopped several times between various operating systems and hypervisors trying to find the solution that best fits my needs. I’ve tried everything from pure Debian (kvm/libvirt, lxc), and Ubuntu (kvm/libvirt, lxd), to FreeBSD 11 (jails, bhyve), and SmartOS (zones, kvm).

At this point, I’ve settled on SmartOS, using project-fifo for my management layer and scheduler. I briefly tried out Joyent’s Triton, but it requires an entire machine be dedicated to running the head node with (at a minimum) 64GB of DRAM. Further, while it does provide an operations portal for configuring the system, the end-user portal requires you to sign-up for a support contract.

Why? SmartOS provides many benefits including running completely from DRAM. This is nice because I don’t have devote entire disk(s) for running the OS. The OS boots from a simple USB key where it loads its configuration and imports the ZFS datasets responsible for running your VM’s (zones/kvm). I won’t dive into the many benefits of ZFS here, but if you’re like me and value your data, you’ll appreciate it.

Because it boots from a USB key and the config is a single file, upgrades are extremely easy, just insert another USB key with an updated image and reboot. Boom.

So let’s get into the physical gear.

Servers:
* 1x Dell R720xd = 64GB RAM, 24x 300G 10K SAS + 1 SSD L2ARC
* 2x Dell R610 = 64GB RAM, 6x 250G SSD

Firewall/Router (not pictured):
* PCEngines APU2 = 2GB RAM, 30GB mSATA, 3 intel (igb) gigabit ports

Switch:
* Quanta LB4M 48port GB switch +2 10GB ports

Networking:
* Intel x520-da1 10Gbe (ixgbe) NIC on seach server
* Broadcom quad port 1gbe nic (bnx)
* Each server has two links to the switch. The first is a 1gbe link for the admin_nic and the second is a 10gbe for the trunk_nic which connects my zones/VMs to their respective VLANS.

I’ll layout the various VM’s I have running and why in a later post, or I’ll simply update this one at a later date.

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Starting out in IT

I recently received an email from a family friend asking what courses or certifications he should look into for getting started in IT. Without knowing what particularly interests him about IT, I wrote the following email and decided it might be useful for others just starting out.

TL;DR: Learn Linux, a scripting language of some kind (Python, Javascript, Bash, etc.), and basics of networking.

I’d whole-heartedly recommend starting with some sort of Linux certification/course. This will provide a solid foundation for whatever direction you decide to take in the I.T. field, be it developer, networking, operations, sys admin., cyber-security etc. They all take root in Linux/Unix systems and having a solid background in it will definitely get you off the ground running.

After this, I’d recommend picking up some sort of scripting language (Python, Bash, Javascript), it doesn’t really matter which, just get really good with at least one and build some stuff with it (even silly/stupid stuff). As you progress in your career/education, you’ll naturally pick up others along the way.

Things I’ve learned the hard way:

– Be a team player and learn from each other. Nobody makes it on their own and everyone is better than you at *something*, learn from this.

– Don’t get discouraged. Everybody in IT was once where you are right now. You’ll never learn everything there is to know, and any employer or individual that expects you to, isn’t worth your time. IT is a life of learning.

– Leave you ego at the door. This can sometimes be a difficult one and it may just be something you learn over time. I’ve interviewed several individuals that we passed on due to ego. Some of the best technologists I’ve worked with are those that always kept an open mind to different ways of doing things and didn’t succumb to one-up-man ship. It’s okay to be right, but be willing to entertain other points-of-view.

– Use the best tool for the job. There’s no single piece of technology for every task. Don’t pigeon-hole your skill-set. Just because you can make something work, doesn’t mean you should.