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---
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title: "Self_centralizing"
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date: 2022-06-24T09:08:58-08:00
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description: Home Server - Remote Access
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categories: ["Top_of_the_Stack"]
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tags: ["Home Server", "Remote Access"]
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---
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I have been pretty busy the last couple of days getting my home server
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configured. The reason I\'m converting my old workstation to a server is
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because I recently purchased a pretty beefy laptop. I\'ve recently found
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myself in need of more mobile computing power for projects and
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recreation **\[as much as I love my Thinkpad X220, it doesn\'t cut it
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when I am trying to get some games in with the boys\]**.
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This week I did quite a bit of research on software that would allow me
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to be more self sufficient **\[in a digital sense, won\'t be any help if
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the grid goes down\]**. I was able to install some software **\[with
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some troubleshooting\]** but have yet to test them enough to conclude
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whether they are overkill for my purposes. A summary of what I\'ve done
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- Install Hypervisor - *Proxmox*
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- Purchase and reconfigure storage for redundancy and increased
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capacity
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- Install and configure a remote work environment
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- Install a NAS OS to trial - *Open Media Vault*
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I\'ll do a quick rundown of all these points.
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#### Hypervisor
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A
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[hypervisor](https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/virtualization/what-is-a-hypervisor),
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from my understanding, is the software that
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hosts and manages the guest OSs **\[guest OS is the fancy way of saying
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virtual machine/container/etc\]**. There are Type 1 and Type 2
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hypervisors. Type 2 is software like [Virtual
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Box](https://www.virtualbox.org) that run on top of another OS. For example,
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you have Windows installed and would like to try out Linux. You can
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install VirtualBox *ON* Windows and install Linux within VirtualBox. The
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point is the Virtualbox has to go through Windows to interact with the
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bare metal. A Type 1 hypervisor *IS* the OS that is running without
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other software between it and the bare metal. That\'s why Type 1
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hypervisors are sometimes called bare metal hypervisors. The benefits of
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a Type 1 hypervisor is less overhead supporting the host OS as the
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software is typically extremely lightweight.
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I settled on using
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[Proxmox](https://www.proxmox.com/en/)
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which is a bare metal hypervisor. This is so
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I can stage and deploy a good number of containers and VMs without being
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throttled by the host OS. Additionally, Proxmox is an open-source
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project which is always a plus **\[pretty close to a must in my
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book\]**.
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#### Storage
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My old tower had *two 512 GB SSDs* for the main partitions for both my
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Linux **\[which was my daily driver during the pandemic\]** and Windows
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**\[which was basically just for games\]** install. It also had a *1TB
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HDD* which was used for storage on my Linux install.
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Because I want to implement a self-hosted cloud storage solution and/or
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a media server, I wanted not only to increase the capacity, but also
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wanted to implement some redundancy in case of a drive failure. So I
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went out and got myself *two more 4TB HDDs*. I actually 3d printed two
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hard drive caddies for my case that I found on
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[Thingiverse.](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4712276)
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I had another two 2.5 inch drive caddies
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that where meant for a different case but I just secured them where I
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could fit them with some zip ties.
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So storage in total currently consists of *two 512 GB SSDs* - one that
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will be used as a *boot partition for my hypervisor* and the other will
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be used as a *cache*, *scratch*, or *boot partition* for the guest OSs -
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*two 4TB HDDs* - which will be configured to be a single 4TB mirrored
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volume for data storage **\[basically this means the data will be
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written twice, once on each drive, to ensure that failure of one drive
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wont lead to any data loss\]** - and *one 1TB HDD* - which will just be
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used for slow, low priority data **\[no redundancy, no speed, kinda the
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odd one out\]**.
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I implemented the redundancy listed above using *ZFS*.
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[ZFS](https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/virtualization/what-is-a-hypervisor)
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is a filesystem which allows for the disks to
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be collected into *storage pools* which then can be divided cleanly into
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distinct sets of data. I find myself always returning to this
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[video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLbtJQmfumI)
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by *Linda Kateley* that explains the system
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extremely clearly.
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Here are the list of commands I used to create the configuration
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mentioned above.
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``` code_block
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zpool create fastpool /dev/sda
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zpool create safepool mirror /dev/sdb /dev/sdc
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zpool create badpool /dev/sdd
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```
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I created three pools, one called *fastpool* - which is the other SSD
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that isn\'t my boot drive for Proxmox - another called *safepool* -
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which is the mirrored 4TB storage pool - and *badpool* - which is the
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one that is neither fast nor redundant.
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#### Installed Operating Systems
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I fired up two guest operating systems to get myself started. One is an
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Arch Linux installation that copies my dot files from my old
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workstation. This just means that my configuration - window manager,
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terminal emulator, keybindings, etc - are transferred from my old daily
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driver. The other is a instance of Open Media Vault where I\'ll be
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storing my data **\[media server data?\]**.
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For the workstation install I downloaded the Arch Linux ISO and uploaded
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it to *homeserv* through the Proxmox web gui **\[which is reached on
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port 8006 by default\]**. I chose to make this a container because they
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are a little more lightweight and I don\'t plan on doing any intense
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computing on it. I\'ll have to delve deeper into the significant
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difference between VM and CT are in the future.
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I\'ll give the details on the OpenMediaVault installation in a later
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post because there are some bugs in the installer that required some
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interesting workarounds **\[and this post is 300000 lines long and a day
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late sooooo\....\]**.
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I\'ll try to write up some guides this weekend to document the entire
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process while its still fresh in my mind.
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