[TravisT]

Thid,
What are you using prior to handbrake? I've been using only handbrake to rip DVDs to add to my fileserver with good results, and keeping the multiple soundtracks/subtitles as well. Curious to know if there's a better way.

[thideras]

Originally Posted by TravisT

Thid,
What are you using prior to handbrake? I've been using only handbrake to rip DVDs to add to my fileserver with good results, and keeping the multiple soundtracks/subtitles as well. Curious to know if there's a better way.

MakeMKV is my initial ripping tool. This does absolutely no compression and the file sizes are huge (5.0+ for just the DVD and one audio track). You can select exactly what you want to keep in the MKV file. I then run this through Handbrake. Since I only select one audio track, I fire up Handbrake, change the container to MKV and add it to the queue. This should work with BluRay as well, if you have the proper decoder for it, but I have yet to test it.

[thideras]

Got the RAID 10 array created. I'm using six of the 1 TB drives as the main array and a hot spare sitting idle. I then split the array into three section. Two 250 GB partitions for the VM servers that will access this via iSCSI. The rest is backup. All partitions will be EXT4, and I'm not sure why parted is showing EXT3.

Code:

[root@thideras-server ~]# parted /dev/sda print

Model: INTEL SRCSASBB8I (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 2997GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags
 1      17.4kB  250GB   250GB                primary       
 2      250GB   500GB   250GB                primary       
 3      500GB   2997GB  2497GB  ext3         primary

[thideras]

The power supplies for the Yonah VM machines arrived. I had to test, fix and install them. The testing portion was easy, fire up the server. Cables are an absolute mess, but I'm pretty sure I can fix that.




There are two "problems" with using this power supply. The first is that the airflow goes backwards. The second, which isn't as big of a problem --but still annoying-- is the power connector is up-side down. Both are easily fixed and require the power supply to be open. Since these power supplies at $40 each, I don't mind voiding the warranty to make it work better in the setup.



Here is the fan flipped around to reverse airflow.



The fan is fully installed and the power connector is now turned properly.



Power supply put back together.



Here is the power supply installed and all the wires routed.



Aynjell wants power data, so I'll hook up the Kill-A-Watt later to see how much they pull. I also forgot to put the CPU-z screenshots from when I was testing them.














The Dell Powerconnect 5224 also arrived today and it seems to work great. Total cost: $30 shipped. I got internal pictures, just as you wanted, Aynjell.

[thideras]

I got idle numbers, as promised. This is both servers sitting idle after posting.



77.5 watts each isn't bad.

[madhatter256]

nice...

[thideras]

Rewired the network for the rack today. After firing it up for the first time, one of the fans decided to die. Got a replacement ordered. I still need to get hard drives and rails for the Yonah VM servers.

I'm also very likely to switch my firewall to pfSense. Astaro is good, but I think there is a possibility of having more than 50 devices.

[Adragontattoo]

Originally Posted by thideras

Rewired the network for the rack today. After firing it up for the first time, one of the fans decided to die. Got a replacement ordered. I still need to get hard drives and rails for the Yonah VM servers.

I'm also very likely to switch my firewall to pfSense. Astaro is good, but I think there is a possibility of having more than 50 devices.

Make sure you check the HCL for PFsense. I havent had any issues but some folks have with certain non Intel NICs...

I mostly love Pfsense, I forget which version I am running but an update along the way without dependancies included kind of broke some of the packages.

[thideras]

Didn't know they had a HCL. Already got it up and configured. Seems to work fine, but I haven't dropped it in the network yet. I'll probably do that tomorrow morning after I get my new bumper installed on my car.

[Adragontattoo]

Originally Posted by thideras

Didn't know they had a HCL. Already got it up and configured. Seems to work fine, but I haven't dropped it in the network yet. I'll probably do that tomorrow morning after I get my new bumper installed on my car.

Awesome part of pfsense, is the built in captive portal.

FYI though, one "bug" I found is that you have to add the MAC AND IP for the system to the passthrough list or it doesnt always cooperate and you will be prompted.

I run the captive portal, static IPs, and WPA2 on my network at home. even if someone managed to crack the WPA2 part, they still cant connect enough to packet sniff for a MAC/IP to clone.

[thideras]

Which version do you use? I'm on 2.0 RC3, which does not seem to have this issue.

[Adragontattoo]

Originally Posted by thideras

Which version do you use? I'm on 2.0 RC3, which does not seem to have this issue.

IIRC 1.something.something.else....

I dont really mind that issue, it is a bit of a extra safeguard in the barely any sense of the word.

MAC+static IP+WPA2+captive portal = too many hoops for all but the utterly bored. Considering my neighborhood has a total of 4 SSIDs(and I am 2 of them), I doubt I have 733+ H4><0rz living next door.

I should rebuild my pfsense box with an upgrade to 2.0 and run an open connection (with logging and captive portal), the amount of info I could harvest would be interesting to data mine.

[thideras]

Just fixed the dead fan on the PowerConnect 5224. The new fan fit in perfectly. It is a bit louder than the others; good thing I don't have any hearing.


The victim switch.



Spot where the new fan will run.



Test fit of the new fan to make sure it works.



Bare wire tails trimmed and put some sleeving on it for the stock look.



Pins installed on the new fan.



Connector pulled from the other fan.



Fan completed.



Fan installed.



Great success.

[onefstsnake]

Looks great.

This build may just get me motivated to finally build a media server.

[thideras]

I updated the table of contents on the first page. It should be fully up to date now.

In addition to that, I ordered 5x 2TB Hitachi 5k3000 drives. That will leave me with a 14 TB RAID 6 array.

[thideras]

Drives arrived, but I'm watching one slowly die. I'll only be able to add four of them today.

[thideras]

Reconstruction started on the four good drives.

[Ben333]

The small things do make a difference IMO. Even if it's just for you, there's good satisfaction to do some DIY that looks like it came that way from the factory, especially if you sell it later on.

Nice cleen work!

[thideras]

Originally Posted by Ben333

The small things do make a difference IMO. Even if it's just for you, there's good satisfaction to do some DIY that looks like it came that way from the factory, especially if you sell it later on.

Nice clean work!

Agreed and thank you.


I just got the array expanded. I'll have to do this again when the replacement for the DOA drive gets back. I did run into some issues (again) with resizing the disk. GParted explodes and wastes time, so don't use it. Instead, use parted and simply issue the "resize" command in the program.

Code:

[thideras@thideras-server ~]$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3             2.3T  469G  1.8T  21% /mnt/hitachi10
/dev/sdc1              11T  1.4T  9.5T  13% /mnt/hitachi
[thideras@thideras-server ~]$ parted /dev/sdc print

Model: INTEL SRCSASBB8I (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 12.0TB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags
 1      17.4kB  12.0TB  12.0TB  ext4         primary

[thideras]

Been a while since I posted and a bit has changed. I got the replacement Hitachi drive the other day and I'm testing it now. I'll add it to the array tomorrow if it passes.

On Thursday, I reformatted the server to CentOS 6.0. With this change, I decided to go with Virtualbox instead of libvirtd (KVM/QEMU) as my hypervisor. I'm using this in conjunction with phpVirtualBox so that I can administrate the systems from a browser, much like VMWare server did before they stopped updating it.

I found that MakeMKV has the ability to rip Bluray disks, so I decided to take advantage of that and rip all my disks in. After a bunch of trial and error, I got all but one on the server and run through Handbrake. The raw rip size was 1.0 TB in size and after compression, my total video library is 840 GB in size (this includes what I had prior). It took a few days to process all the video. For compression only, Bluray took roughly 1.5 hours. DVDs took 35 minutes and show episodes were around 15-20 minutes.

The main HTPC has been giving me some problems. If I let it sleep like I normally do, it lowers the resolution, which causes XBMC to crash. I've "fixed" this by doing a full shutdown, but the system has been having problem with XBMC crashing immediately on bootup or the system not joining the network. What doesn't make sense is this is a completely clean install of Windows 7 that is updated. I haven't changed anything software wise on the system in months; so I suspect it to be a hardware issue or something inside Windows that decided to stop functioning. It also takes 2 minutes to identify a movie and pull down all the information when my computer can do it in a few seconds each. The last problem is going to be the main reason that I get rid of it, it can't play compressed Bluray movies. It will play around 15 seconds completely fine, then the cache runs out and the movie stops. It fills up the cache, plays a few seconds and does the same thing. I'm unsure what I'm going to use in place of this one, but I'll need to do it soon-ish.

I also need to also test out the iSCSI setup with the new servers, which I haven't even touched since I put the power supplies in them. Once I verify that is a working option, I need to get drives for both of them and get everything installed. Once I get the server back to the state that it was (which I'm nearly done with) in, I will probably move on to this. I also need to get rails for the servers, so that I can get all the cables routed.


Thanks to Visbits, I have a script that will configure a client with NRPE, so that I can easily get a system added for monitoring. He wrote and provided the original script, and I had to make some slight modifications (some for personal preference) to make it work. The only thing this does not do is configure what checks are allowed to run, which I have to do by hand. I could probably have a generic one that it pulls down, which is something I'm considering. Below is the code:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

#Make temp directory
mkdir nagios_nrpe_install;
cd nagios_nrpe_install;

#Download and install RPMForge for the next part
wget http://pkgs.repoforge.org/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm
rpm -Uvh rpmforge-release*

#Install packages needed for NRPE.  Could probably trim this down
yum install -y gcc make openssl-devel xinetd perl-Nagios-Plugin perl-Number-Format perl-Readonly perl-version perl-Array-Unique perl-File-Slurp perl-List-MoreUtils vnstat units -y

#Cleanup RPMForge install
rm -rf `find / | grep rpmforge`

adduser nagios;

#Download packages needed to compile
wget http://thideras.com/downloads/nrpe/nrpe-2.12.tar.gz;
wget http://thideras.com/downloads/nrpe/nagios-plugins-1.4.15.tar.gz;

#Extract packages
tar xvf nrpe-2.12.tar.gz;
tar xvf nagios-plugins-1.4.15.tar.gz
cd nagios-plugins-1.4.15

#Configure and install
./configure && make && make install

#Set Permissions
chown nagios.nagios /usr/local/nagios
chown -R nagios.nagios /usr/local/nagios/libexec

cd ../

#Configure and install
cd nrpe-2.12
./configure && make all && make install-plugin && make install-daemon && make install-daemon-config && make install-xinetd;

#edit /etc/xinet.d/nrpe and /etc/services
line=$(expr `grep -n pcanywherestat /etc/services  | grep udp | cut -d: -f1` + 1)
sed -i "$line inrpe            5666\/tcp                        # NRPE" /etc/services
sed -i "s/only_from       = 127.0.0.1/only_from       = 127.0.0.1 192.168.0.15/" /etc/xinetd.d/nrpe

#Restart service
service xinetd restart
chkconfig xinetd on

cd ../../

#Cleanup
rm -rf nagios_nrpe_install
rm -rf install_nrpe.sh