Tanner's Tech

Configuring Homer Dashboard

In a previous post, I showed you how to get Homer up and running as a self-hosted dashboard in Docker to easily manage and see all of your self hosted services at a glance. I did not, however, go into depth on how to configure Homer. This guide will cover

How to Set Up vMotion in ESXi

VMware's vSphere as a whole has been an awesome addition to my homelab but vMotion, in particular, is one of my favorite features that it has to offer. In short, vMotion allows a user to easily transfer a virtual machine between two different ESXi hosts without the virtual machine needing

Setting up Rclone with Google Drive

Introduction – What is Rclone? Rclone is a fantastic and free command-line tool to manage files in cloud storage. It has the capability to work with over 40 cloud storage products and is much more feature rich and and powerful than the traditional web interfaces that most cloud storage providers offer.

How to patch ESXi

Intro:In the past, I've covered many different topics pertaining to vSphere and other VMWare products but I recently realized that I haven't ever covered how to patch an ESXi server. Patching ESXi, just like any other system, is important to fix bugs and security vulnerabilities as they are discovered.

Launching VSCode from the Command Line in MacOS

While getting hands on with Terraform and doing a bit of learning about it (blog posts to come!), I found a neat trick to opening a specified file with VSCode using the MacOS command line. While it initially didn't seem very helpful to me, I've found this new method of

Career Update

While this post is long overdue, I wanted to make a quick update covering some exciting developments that have been unfolding behind the scenes in my career. Back in May, I was fortunate enough to secure a string of interviews with a financial technology company that led to my new

Updating a Container with Docker Compose

IntroductionDownloading and using docker containers with docker compose is a very easy process and, continuing in that trend, the same can be said for updating your docker container with it. PrerequisitesIt is important to note that during the container update process, unless you specifically have persistent volumes configured in your

Install Magento on Ubuntu 20.04

IntroductionThis document covers the installation process of Magento 2.4.2 on an EC2 instance of Ubuntu 20.04 PrerequisitesBefore beginning the installation process, you must create an account at https://magento.com/ After creating an account, acquire your public and private keys, needed for a later step, by visiting

Backing up your Homelab with Veeam

While RAID, ZFS, and other storage technologies do an excellent job of providing redundancy in the case of a drive failure, it is important to remember that redundancy is not a replacement for backups. Instead, it is more of a means to maintain uptime. Because of this, it is important

windows server

Converting a Local Windows Account into an Active Directory Account

IntroductionIf you're anything like me, you might have a handful of PCs or VMs with local accounts on them from an era prior to you having an Active Directory domain. Until now, it seemed to me that there was no reasonable way to get the contents of these local accounts

Monitoring Homelab Services with Uptime Robot

As I've begun hosting more services that close friends and family have found useful, I decided it would be handy for them to be able to easily check on the status of my services at a glance. Uptime Robot has filled that role perfectly, letting me create a free status

linux

How to Self Host a VPN with PiVPN

Self-hosted VPNs are an extremely helpful tool when it comes to having a homelab. Whether you're at a coffee shop and on public wifi, like I am right now, wanting to securely tunnel back to your own network before accessing a more sensitive site, or even just wanting to be

ansible

Updating an Ubuntu EC2 Instance with Ansible

A while back, I wrote up a post showing how you can easily and automatically update your servers using Ansible. More recently, I've started to familiarize myself with AWS and have been tinkering with EC2 instances. Having become accustomed to easily updating all of my server with a simple command,

Adding Existing Projects to GitHub

This evening, I decided that I'd like to start utilizing source control on some of my projects. I figure that this will have the additional benefit of letting y'all easily view some of my projects and emulate them in your own labs, since I'll be using public repos on Github.

Installing Homer Dashboard with Docker

While I've had a fairly solid understanding of docker for a while now, I've been tinkering with it far more than usual over my extended weekend. One of the containers I've found to be interesting is Homer, a "dead simple static HOMepage for your servER to keep your services on

How to run any iOS/iPadOS app on your M1 Mac

With the recent transition to the new ARM-based SoC known as the M1, Apple's newest line of Macs are more closely related to their mobile devices than ever. Unlike previously, users are now able to download (some) iOS apps directly from the App Store. The problem that I ran into,

Generating and using new SSH keys

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you're wanting to switch out your current sent of public/private SSH keys for a new pair, this guide will run you through the process, step by step. To preface, this process could easily lock you out of servers if you

windows server

Upgrading Windows Server 2019 Evaluation to Standard

Over the last year or so, I've been running my limited number of Windows Server instances using Windows Server Evaluation, letting me run Windows Server 2019 free for 180 days at a time, with a simple rearm to extend the free license for another 180 days (up to 5 times)

windows server

Creating a Secondary Domain Controller on an Existing Domain

Over the weekend, I was performing some system maintenance which resulted in the ESXi host that houses my domain controller, svr-dc-01, going offline for an unexpectedly long period of time. This ended up causing frustrations on my end due to many of my devices relying upon my internally hosted DNS.

vmware

Creating a macOS VM in ESXi

Today's post will cover the simple process of creating a MacOS VM within VMWare ESXi. As you may or may not know, by default, ESXi will not let you run macOS virtual machines. This has to do with Apple's TOS requiring that macOS VMs only be run on Mac hardware.

Enabling the HTML5 iKVM in iDRAC

I don't commonly use the iKVM in iDRAC on my R720xd but when I do, it's typically a pretty unpleasant experience. In the year 2021, nobody should be forced to use a Java application to remotely manage their server. What I run into when trying to remotely connect to my

ansible

Creating an Ansible Playbook

IntroductionIn my previous post, I showed you how to prepare your Linux environment for the use of Ansible and the running of a basic test to ensure its functionality. Today's post will cover how to make use of this new setup with the introduction of Ansible playbooks, which you can

ansible

An Introduction to Ansible

While I've been doing the occasional quick write up on new hardware I've obtained or neat tricks I've learned in Linux, it's been quite a while since I've written about new technologies I've been familiarizing myself with. Today, I will be introducing you to Ansible – a really neat tool to

Transcoding Plex Streams in RAM on Ubuntu Server

You may or may not realize it but transcoding streams in Plex causes a lot of writes to occur on whatever disk the server is running on. If your Plex server is similar to mine, and running on an SSD, this can over time significantly shorten the lifespan of your

hardware

A Breakdown of my Hardware Setup

I've done a lot of referencing to some of my hardware in previous blog posts but I wanted to have a dedicated write up over some of the hardware that I'm running, after having a couple of y'all ask for details on my setup This is a picture of my