Thomas Jensen

Now that everything has been moved away from my old Hypervisor — it can be repurposed as a dedicated #ProxmoxBackupServer

#homelab

Powered up the new server yesterday, and migrated all VMs and containers over. It's not running as my main hypervisor 😎 Next is to repurpose the old server as a dedicated backup server, running PBS.

Took a few thermal images of the new server before closing the lid.

#homelab #server

Zeta is back! In the fall of 2022 I turned off Zeta, my file server, due to the extreme price of electricity. I migrated all the data to a 3x18 TB raidz1 pool on Alpha instead. But last year I brought it back — and...

The resurrection of my file server is complete 🍻 blog.cavelab.dev/2025/01/zeta...

#homelab #zfs #fileserver

Netdata warnings — tracking down dropped packets When I was trying out Netdata last year — I noticed I had lots of inbound_packets_dropped_ratio warnings, on multiple nodes. Time to investigate 👇

When testing #Netdata last year — I noticed a constant 1 drop/s on inbound packets. It turned out to be RRCP (Realtek Remote Control Protocol) broadcasted frames from a TP-Link switch with enabled "loop prevention". blog.cavelab.dev/2025/01/netd...

After only a few evenings' work — I am getting close to seeing my desk surface again 🥳

#homeoffice #electronicslab

Lately I've been thinking a lot about fire detectors. We have Nest Protect in the house, works great. But there are locations where they aren't suited; attic, garage & shed. What to do there? Integrate into my DIY security system, but is it foolproof enough? I have acquired some things for testing.

Moving videos to Bunny Stream I’ve looked into different video solution for this blog before — and, at the time, settled on using Coconut.co for encoding, AWS S3 for hosting, and Video.js for playing. Bunny Stream was on the table...

Here is the #video implementation for my blog — #gohugo and #BunnyStream. blog.cavelab.dev/2025/01/bunn...

Finally getting fiber between the house and garage Getting network to the garage is a story with many chapters. I started out with Wi-Fi mesh, then CAT6 — and now, finally, fiber!

The #fiber between the house and garage is finally operational 🥳 blog.cavelab.dev/2025/01/fibe...

#homelab #networking

Using the Shelly Plus Plug S to measure homelab power I’m using a Shelly Plus Plug S smart plug to measure the power usage of my homelab. I added it as a device in Home Assistant — and the power readings began! Kind of… Within a few days; I noticed somet...

Using a #Shelly Plus Plug S to monitor the #homelab power — I got much better results using an #MQTT sensor than the integration in #HomeAssistant 🔌 blog.cavelab.dev/2025/01/shel...

Implementing series navigation buttons — in Hugo As I have written before; I like the concept of blog post series. Break a large topic, or ongoing project, into multiple posts — while maintaining the chronological order. But one key factor for a suc...

I've added navigation buttons to my #gohugo series taxonomy, making it much easier to navigate ⏮️⏭️ blog.cavelab.dev/2025/01/hugo...

Hue motion sensors in a box.

3D printer printing.

On my #RaspberryPi security alarm: I will be replacing all #Aqara motion sensors with #PhillipsHue — they seem to be more reliable, have better battery life, short cool-down and I like the mounting options better. 3D printed corner mounts!

Making a pub table — with an old oak tabletop Sometimes, when I’m not too busy with my homelab or some other electronics project — I pretend to be a woodworker or carpenter. This time I made a pub table, using an old kitchen tabletop of oak. I go...

Sometimes I do non-computer related projects — like turning an old oak tabletop, from my friend's barn, into a pub table. blog.cavelab.dev/2025/01/pub-...

#WoodWorking

Homelab Most of my computer projects includes, or revolves around, my homelab — a 29U, 600x600 mm, rack in my home office.

My #homelab page is now up to the with all the recent changes 🖥️ blog.cavelab.dev/homelab/

Server: Beta HP Z440 Workstation — Hypervisor running Proxmox VE. Located in my homelab rack.

The computer page for the new #server is published 🤓 blog.cavelab.dev/computers/be...

*notably for me

The @mikrotik.social CRS510-8XS-2XQ-IN power draw isn't so bad:
Max power consumption 45 W
Max power consumption wo/attachments 27 W

Depends on the optics of course. 100 Gbit has it's own challenges — most notably for be is the required PCIe width and speed to accommodate enough bandwidth.

Optimizing WireGuard on MikroTik CHR I’ve been having a strange problem with outgoing WireGuard traffic, the problem has probably always been there — I just haven’t noticed, until now. Outgoing WireGuard traffic is very slow, while incom...

I solved my #wireguard problem — slow egress through my #mikrotik #chr. I was "working" with the @kagi.com Assistant while troubleshooting. My first time using an AI assistant, I am fairly impressed 🙂 blog.cavelab.dev/2025/01/opti...

#homelab #networking

The #server is up, with 4xNVMe (mirror #ZFS special device, Intel Optane ZFS SLOG, and #Proxmox datastore). 2x8 TB HDDs, and 2x25 Gbit NIC, with cooling.

Now to configure the ZFS pool, and I need a #25Gbit switch.

#homelab

Underground conduits to garage and shed Two years ago we dug and laid three conduits from the house to the garage, and from the garage to the shed. Primarily to get more power to the garage — and any power to the shed. I used the opportunit...

Finally managed to get the blog post about the underground conduits between the house, garage, and shed published. More on the #fiber in the not-so-distant future. blog.cavelab.dev/2025/01/unde...

I'm using #Shelly PRO 2 and a 24V relay to control my garage door from @home-assistant.io. The Shelly controls the interlock, allowing me to disable the motor, and button push — activating movement. The 24V relay is active when the door is moving, triggering an input on the Shelly.

When we dug new power to the garage and shed a few years ago, we put down an additional conduit for #fiber. Currently have single mode 1 Gbit fiber from the #homelab rack to the garage. I have the optics for 10 Gbit, just need a new switch in the garage.

My @raspberrypi.com security alarm will close the main water valve and cut power to the dish washer if the water alarm is triggered. I'm using #Aqara water sensors, and a manual override switch in the entryway.

My cable management isn't quite there yet...

I also have a dual 25 Gbit/s NIC and Intel Optane NVMe ready to install. I suspect this #zfs pool is going to be pretty fast 🤓

Installed proper rails on my #fileserver, freeing up 1U. Rearranged the #homelab rack to fit the new Z440 server.

Successfully tested the 4xNVMe card in my new Z440 server. Now waiting for a new 1 TB drive to use as a #Proxmox datastore. The two 250 GB drives will be #ZFS special devices. Soon ready for the #homelab 👍

My homelab rack — a 20 year history I built a rack out of wood in 2004 — it was at home, and a lab, of sorts, so I guess that makes it a homelab 🙂 Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at 20 years’ worth of homelabbing ❤️

20 years of #homelab ♥️ blog.cavelab.dev/2024/12/home...

Chasing Mikrotik CHR bottleneck While doing some WireGuard testing between local peers; I noticed weird performance issues on my virtual Mikrotik router. This lead me down a rabbit hole of testing the layer 3 throughput on my virtua...

Troubleshooting low throughput on @mikrotik.social CHR in my #homelab — I made an interesting discovery about interface queues, that had a big impact. blog.cavelab.dev/2024/12/mikr...

I've tried some alternative search engines over the years, but always ended up going back to Google. I've been using @kagi.com for 2.5 weeks, on a 3 month trial. I can confidently say I'm not going back to Google. @kagi.com is awesome, clean and uncluttered. After the trial I'm a paying customer 👍

Upcoming homelab projects My homelab rack has been running as is for a while now — it’s time for a few new projects. I’m rearranging stuff to better utilize the space, looking into 25 Gbit networking, and putting a HP Z440 ser...

I have a few ongoing projects in the #homelab this winter. blog.cavelab.dev/2024/12/home...