Hi there: After months of thinking, I took the step to switch my lab to Proxmox, I’ve been a Vmware “guy” for many years, but I knew the time came to give it a try, after many companies switching to it.
I decided to re-use the hardware I had from previous projects, to see the capabilities and “how tiny” the setup could be.
After some time trying and playing around with the Nutanix CE in Nested mode in my lab, I finally put my hands into a little monster able to handle a Single Node Cluster, My Supermicro E300-9D!
Im going to show you the process of Installation, cluster (Single node) creation, in future posts, we will continue seeing new stuff, step by step.
Let’s get started:
First of all, as we already know, lets download the Nutanix CE from the community portal, to do so, you must be registered, and after installation, you will need your restoration to make it work properly.
after downloading the CE ISO, lets boot from the ISO and get started…
Server SpecsBoot from USBNutanix CE BootBooting, loading the necessary filesNow is time to add some data, I havee 3 disks, Boot, CVM and Data, choose the ones you would like to use, and then, configure the IP Details as shown, You need 1 IP for the AHV Host, One for the CVM, gateway and subnet mask.EULA….Installation processafter few minutes, done! Now, is time to remove the boot media, answer with a Y, and continue…
Now, after the first boot of the server, we are going to ssh to the AHV host, with the IP we setup earlier username: root password: nutanix/4u
then, from the AHV host, we are going to ssh to the CVM to the IP we also setup earlier, in this case username: nutanix password: nutanix/4u
Now, we are into the CVM via ssh, its time to create the Cluster, in this case, Single node cluster the command I used is the following:
Cluster creation process startedCluster created successfully!!
Now, the cluster has been created successfully, lets see the server console.
Now, lets connect to the web UI to continue working on our new cluster
to connect, we will use the CVM IP Address and the port 9440
Default username: admin Default password: nutanix/4uNow, is time to change the admin password And loginHere is an important step, we need to provide our Nutanix Community credentials, as we created them before to download the ISO, if you don’t have any, its time to create an account, 😉
Done!
Here is our beautiful WebUI of our Nutanix CE Single Node Cluster!!
I hope you like it,
this setup is in a physical server, Supermicro E300-9D, 128GB RAM, 3 SSD disks.
After remodeling the lab, which became a “clean slate,” I missed having a DNS server. I wanted a simple DNS server for testing and internal name resolution, and a little filtering at home.
My first thought was a Windows Server, but that seemed like too much for a VM that would need to run all the time. I want to be able to shut down the lab to save power (and avoid getting kicked out of the house!).
So I looked around and—boom!
An old, old Raspberry Pi… with a “big” HDMI port and RCA video output!
I thought: if all I need is DNS, something quiet and low-power, maybe I can get this running…
My trusty Pi booted, so now I needed to find a “large” SD card.
Do you remember this? An SD card! XD
All that was left was downloading the app to prepare the card. Since I use a Mac, we’ll use Raspberry Pi Imager:
After a few simple steps, you’ll reach a final screen showing the password for the web console. Save it, because it disappears; if you need it later, you’ll have to reset it. Read the prompts. They’re straightforward, such as whether to install the web administration console. The wizard also lets you assign a static IP address to the Raspberry Pi or leave it on DHCP. The choice is yours. I set a static IP because I plan to use it as a DHCP server later too!
Open the console, and it should look like this:
Now change the DNS server handed out by your DHCP server to the Pi-hole’s IP address, and you’re up and running.
It’s intuitive and easy to use. You can enable several DNS providers, such as Comodo, OpenDNS, and Google. You can block domains from adlists, add your own blocked domains, create custom DNS entries, and more…
I had a case during this week, and I wanted to share my experience / workaround with y’all.
I wanted to export a backup to an external drive, the VBR was a virtual machine, and no access to the Hypervisor to plug the USB and push it to the vm.
Now you may think, mount it somewhere and share it over the network as a shared folder…
I did, and was not working, some windows stuff that we were not allowed to share any unit, and was driving us crazy!
We did some research, and remembered that there was a way to share / mount remote USB Devices over the Network! now, time to give it a shot!
The idea is very straight forward, a Server machine, where the USB Devices is located at, and a client, to mount the remote resource as “local”.
USB SERVER(Local USB Drive)→NETWORK→USB CLIENT“Remotely mounted USB Drive”
You simply download the Server and client, and execute them in the decided machines, couple of easy configs, and you are good to go, let me show you some screenshots.
VirtualHere Server running in the workstation out of the Vsphere environment.Client running in the VBR ServerWe right click into the device we would like to mount remotely – locally.Boom! now shows the USB Drive like being plugged locally, its not!VBR Sees the unit from the system, so now we are good to export the backup to it.Some networking traffic going on, sending the files to the USB drive.After the usage, we unmount the unit by right clicking and stop using the device.Now we can see here at the “Server” that the unit has the files into it! worked perfectly.Finally, you can see that the USB Drive is unmounted in the VBR server, all the files copied ok.
Hope you liked this little workaround,
now, planning and thinking in future usages for this great tool.
Just wanted to highlight that I used the “Free” Version, which only allows to mount one USB Device at a time, there is a licensed version, but not used for now. Also wanted to tell you that I have no relationship at all with them, just found it and wanted to share it with all of you.
I was lucky to get a TerraMaster NAS to test in my lab.
In this post, I’ll show you how it arrived, what it looks like inside and out, its basic specifications, and finally a few photos of my current setup and my impressions.
The four-bay F4-423 is designed for users who need high-performance storage. This performance lets users handle demanding workloads, while multiple enterprise-grade backup options help protect data and reduce the risk of data loss.
It is a high-performance storage solution that provides expanded virtual storage and a database for SMB users. It uses a quad-core Intel Celeron N5095 processor running at 2.0 GHz, with a maximum turbo frequency of 2.9 GHz. It includes integrated GPU graphics and AES-NI hardware encryption. It also has two 2.5 GbE network interfaces and 4 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory (expandable to 32 GB). In addition, it has two built-in M.2 NVMe slots, which accelerate SSD caching and double the storage efficiency of your RAID.
Let’s look at a photo of the box and how it comes out:
Simple, clean packaging.Protected with plastic.Sealed.Here you can see its ports: two 2.5 Gb Ethernet ports! 😍Simple, attractive, clean, and elegant.
My first impression is very positive: a robust product with a clean, simple, and elegant finish.
I was pleasantly surprised by the connectivity: USB 3.0, two 2.5 Gb Ethernet ports, and HDMI, which we’ll use later to view the system and explore the internals of this little device.
Here’s an initial photo of the inside, showing the two M.2 NVMe expansion slots on the board, followed by a closer look at the rear ports.
With this network capacity, four 3.5- or 2.5-inch bays, two M.2 NVMe expansion slots, and RAM expandable to two 16 GB DDR4 SO-DIMMs, it’s a very capable unit that’s easy to expand.
If you’re interested in taking a look or buying one, you can click here.
We’ll keep testing this great unit, from its own operating system, TOS, to installing other systems and integrating it into the homelab.
Hi Folks, recently I wanted to “upgrade” my home lab, and I was thinking the best way to have an affordable, low consumption usable home lab for a ESXi Cluster, nothing fancy, just to be able to deploy a couple of little VMS, play with HA, DRS, shared storage and so on.
I started checking out the Intel NUCs, but then I realized that it comes “empty”, so it becomes costly at the end.
Then, what about HPE Gen 8-9 Servers, “the wife would kill me” They are noisy, expensive and consumes tons of electricity!
So, looking over the hardware I have, I looked into my Workstation, a Lenovo P320 which it has 64GB of ram, more than sufficient to run a Nested lab, but I wanted something more realistic, with wires and lights, you know, Im a hardware and wires lover!
I kept the Workstation as base Server, Planning tu run there the base or foundational vms I normally run like: vCenter, DNS, AD, a Storage Appliance and a Veeam Server.
lets keep it “low profile”, so, Nowadays normally we do have a laptop or workstation capable enough to run a vmware workstation or a ESXi to place a vcenter instance and a Windows Server machine, pretty basic.
Then, I though, I need a switch, and I had an “old” 1Gbps Router – switch capable of Vlans, so perfect for this task.
Now Im just missing some hosts to add to the picture, and I found these little guys:
Looking at them, they were quite perfect, the top performing setup has a 4C processor, 8GB of RAM, and a local NVME 32GB, so perfect for a ESXi mini server. Ah! forgot to say: it has a 4x PCI-E and 2 SATA Ports!! Amazing!!
Everything was going soooo good, until the tragedy came, Realtek Gigabit Ethernet, not supported by vmware vsphere…. nooo! but wait a second, I told you already they’ve got a PCI-E port?
Exacly, I looked over into my warehouse, and there you go! a 4 Ports Intel NIC card! Fully compatible and ready to be installed!!
Now, with all setup, lets get into it, installing Vsphere 8, no problem!!
NIC Card, OK, system ready and first boot OK!
Then I did the same operation with the other two Zima mini CPUs I’ve got! Configured the initial parameters, IPs, Hostnames, DNSs, etc. and ready for next steps!
By the time, I setup a vCenter instance and a Software Appliance for Storage, Simple NFS datastore for home lab experiments, a Quantum DXiv Community Edition.
After a few configurations, added those three ESXi hosts into my vcenter instance, create the cluster, and let it build, and…. Voila!
The cluster was up and ready to be used!
Let me show you a few pics of how it looks now, externally and from the vCenter perspective!
The normal electrical consumption for this little guys is around 6W each, pretty low, a little more with the Ethernet PCI-E card, but nothing overkilling like a full server, and not counting noise and hit!
My overall cost, taking into count that I do own the workstation, switch and I made the Ethernet cables, around 200$ per Zima Server, so around 600$.
if you plan to start low, you can do it with only two Systems, so around 400$ + shipping.
Hope you enjoy it, and don’t hesitate to give them a try and have some fun! will try to follow this up, and upload some future info, tests and ideas.
Let’s take a look at a “toy” that caught my attention and that I wanted to test to improve or expand my homelab!
This little device comes in several configurations. I have the top model, with a quad-core Celeron, 8 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of onboard storage! It’s a great fit for my homelab!
It comes with built-in connectivity, making it flexible for many uses! It’s great to have two network cards and two SATA ports! PCIe (x4), USB 3.0, and a heatsink make it quiet and low-power! NAS, firewall, server, and more. The possibilities are endless!
You’ll see in the specifications that it’s small and powerful!
The price is great: $120, $160, or $200.
Given everything it includes, I think it’s a great device and wanted to share it with you.
Here’s a screenshot of the two ways I’m using these little devices:
ESXi 8 (with a network card added to the PCIe x4 slot)TrueNAS with SATA disks connected directly to the ZimaBoard
Here are a few photos of the product right out of the box! It comes with a SATA + power cable for one disk and a power supply with plugs for different countries. Manual and stickers!!!!
We’ll keep playing with these “toys.” Having a low-power server with enough power to run our labs, home pfSense firewalls, and more… is fantastic!
Forget noisy servers, big PCs, or mini-computers with CPUs that don’t always offer the versatility of an Intel Celeron Apollo Lake x86 processor!
