Dell C2100 – Michael Groff

Home Lab 2.0

Michael — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 00:22:12 +0000

This post will serve as the 10,000 ft overview of my environment and what it all consists of. I plan to follow up this post with a series of smaller posts breaking down my Home Lab into the following sections:

(as I update these blog posts, links will appear and become active)

Home Lab Servers & Storage
Home Lab Routing & Switching
Home Lab Access Points
Home Lab Surveillance
Home Cat6 Cable Wiring

Home Lab Servers & Storage

In this post I go into details about the server and storage that I use in my Home Lab environment.

The current hardware I use is:

Dell PowerEdge R710 SFF & LFF
Dell PowerEdge C2100
Dell PowerEdge CS24-SC (Essentially a 2950)
Dell PowerEdge R510 LFF

The operating systems that I use are:

VMware esxi 6.5
VMware esxi 6.7
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2019
FreeNAS 11.1 (U7 if you care)

I have purchased or otherwise acquired some Gen10 and Gen11 Dell PowerEdge Servers throughout my years in IT. I enjoy having a Home Lab to work in and learn new things without repercussions of really messing something up. In my environment, nuke and pave is not frowned upon at all. I do my best to say up-to-date and using the latest and greatest trial software, but due to the hardware I am running, that goal comes with some limitations.For instance, my C2100 servers simply cannot be upgraded beyond esxi 6.5. The processors are not compatible with esxi 6.7. However, I was able to upgrade my vCenter Server to 6.7 and still have it manage my 6.5 hosts.

Most of my servers are running Windows Server 2019, but some are still running 2016 as I havent had the time or need to update them. (Such as DC’s and DB’s)

My Storage devices are all PowerEdge Servers running FreeNAS. I set them up with FreeNAS and configure the iSCSI service for MPIO to my esxi hosts. I find it is a set-it and forget-it type of thing. I am subscribed to some FreeNAS emails and RSS feeds, so I look out for OS updates and install them accordingly.

Home Lab Routing & Switching

In this post I will cover all the networking equipment that I use in my home lab and how I use it.

The networking hardware that I use is:

Unifi USG-PRO-4 (Gateway)
Unifi US-24 (Switch)
Unifi US-8-150 (Switch)
3 x Dell PowerConnect 7048P (Switch)
Netgear ProSAFE GS108Ev3 8-Port

For most of my networking equipment, I run Ubiquiti Unifi equipment. This is marketed as “Enterprise” networking equipment, but imho, it is far from “Enterprise”. I would place it solidly in the “prosumer” line of networking equipment. Dont get me wrong, their WAP’s are pretty awesome. But their switching and routing devices leave much to be desired. Their GUI is quite pretty and you can do enough to get by through it, but for really advanced setups, you are required to edit a json file. Often the editing of the json file is unsupported and a PITA the figure out.

For the rest of my networking equipment, I run some classic Dell PowerConnect switches. I run the 7048P’s. For the most part, I dont need the PoE feature, but for under $150 per switch, I couldnt not get the PoE feature. I just disable it on the ports where it is not needed. The language is pretty similar to Cisco so getting by in command line is my preferred way to manage these.

Oh, and I have a Netgear managed 8-port switch. This little guy has kept up with the other two brands of switches afaic. I like the little guy and it works great as an under the desk switch.

Home Lab Access Points

In this post I will cover the Access point that I use in my home, discussing wiring, port and physical placement.

The hardware access points I currently use are:

Unifi UAP-AC-PRO
Unifi UAP-AC-M-PRO
Unifi UAP-IW-PRO

For all my Wireless, I trust in the Ubiquiti Unifi line. They are a great “prosumer” product at a price that I can afford. And they definitely do their job for my home needs. I have even installed these at a few businesses with very solid results.

Home Lab Surveillance

In this post I will cover my Home Surveillance Solution using my Home Lab equipment.

Some of the equipment I use is as follows:

Home Server (Sometimes virtualized, sometimes standalone)
BlueIris NVR Software
Reolink IP Cams
- RLC-410
- RLC-411
- RLC-420
- RLC-423
HikVision IP Cams
- DS-2CD2142FWD-IS 4MP
Ring Pro Doorbell

When I first got into the surveillance game, I was purchasing Hikvision IP Cameras from a specific re-seller in my area. Since then, Reolink has become quite a mainstream prosumer product and I can get them from Amazon. So as of late, all of my Reolink cams have been purchased from random amazon sales.

Overall I enjoy both cams, but prefer the Reolink branded cams over Hikvision.

As for the Ring Pro Doorbell. I got it because it’s easy for the wife to use and not answer the door if she doesn’t want to. I have it on a “security device” vlan, so it is segmented off. I actually do enjoy the device. It is nice having something in the cloud separate from Blue Iris.

Home Cat6 Cable Wiring

In this post I will go through what it takes to wire up your home with Cat6 cabling. This is currently an ongoing process for me and may be for some time yet to come.
The materials you will need to complete wiring in your house are as follows:

Cat6 cabling
RJ45 Cat6 Jacks
RJ45 Boots
RJ45 Crimping tool
RJ45 Punch Down tool
Cat6 Wall Plates with Jacks
Pull String

Wiring your house is a process. If you have unlimited amounts of money, then hire a company to do it and they will charge you a few grand to go in there and get it done. They will most likely run the cables in a manner that works, but is not tech approved bc they are dudes who just know how to run cables, not why they are run or consequences of how they are run. If you are like me where money is not an endless pit of fun and you like having control over things, then you will want to take on wiring yourself. Overall you can do this for a fraction of the cost compared to contracting it out, but it will be a lot of work and sometimes, a complete, PITA. If you live in Texas like me, only plan on doing this kind of work from late October through late April… It gets hot in there.

Overall, I have found wiring my house to be quite rewarding, both financially and emotionally. I am able to “put a stamp” on my work and be proud of what I have done.

Identify Failed Port and Replace NIC

Michael — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 02:03:15 +0000

This past week, I had a failed port one one of my C2100’s. The specific part was a Intel PRO/1000 VT Quad Port Gigabit PCI-E Ethernet Network Adapter (HM9JY). Now just one single port failed and I was using all 4 ports for iSCSI from my FreeNAS C2100 to my esxi cluster. Luckily I have 4 ports so naturally MPIO is configured and I didnt notice the failure immediately. I first noticed this in my cluster and also saw the port was failed in FreeNAS. Since there is no OMSA for BSD, I was unable to gather more information about the status of the port.

This is how I noticed the failed port on an esxi host

I went onto ebay and ordered the new part for $20 with free shipping. It came in today and I took some time to replace it this evening. It is a pretty simple process, I will walk you through it below.

The first things I am going to do is power off my server and then remove all the cabling from it. Some people choose to not remove networking when doing this, but I am running PoE switches, and even though PoE has been disable on the ports, I dont trust it. I remove all potential of electricity running through the system other than the CMOS and RAID batteries.

So, Power off your server, remove all the cabling, pull it out of the rack and remove the cover.

The new part looks like this. It will just slide right into a PCIe slot and I will screw it in.

Here we are with the top open.

I am going to pull out that part in the upper left hand corner to replace.

Here is the empty slot that we will plug back into.

The top device is the one I pulled out and replace.

It is the top device due to the photo orientation and the fact that I pulled it out of the server. When I put it back in the server, it will “on the bottom”. I find placing NIC card below RAID card make it easier to unplug booted cables from the server.

Now that the NIC has been replaced, all iSCSI paths are available!

Set a Static IP on your ESXi Host

Michael — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 07:09:19 +0000

Set a Static IP on your ESXi Host V5.5

Assigning a static IP to your ESXi host is extremely easy to do, and is highly recommended as you will always want your host to have the same IP.

Notes:
- If your network is set up without DHCP, then you will have to do this from the physical server itself, or the KVM.
- When assigning a static IP to the host, make sure that you do not assign an IP that has already been used if your network does have DHCP enabled.
- If you do not set up a static IP, you will likely have issues when you reboot the host or your router reboots.

For this tutorial, I am making the changes from the host’s console itself, as setting a Static IP is one of the first things to do in the configuration of a new host

First Click on F2 Customize System/View Logs:

Enter the password for the root user when prompted and hit Enter:

Choose the third option, Configure Management Network, and hit Enter:

Again, choose the third option, IP Configuration, and hit Enter.
Here you will change the option to Set static IP address and network configuration: and hit the Spacebar to apply that option. Then enter the fields for the IP address appropriately and hit Enter to apply those settings:

Next scroll down to the DNS Configuration option and hit Enter.
Here enter the appropriate DNS information for your server:

Hit Escape to exit this screen and then hit Y to apply the changes and restart the management network:

Now hit Escape again and you will be back at the main screen and you will now see the Static IP and some of the DNS information that you just configured:

You’re done, now you can go back to your computer, and access your ESXi host from the newly assigned IP.

VMware ESXi 5.5.0 on Dell C2100 FS12-TY

Michael — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 06:18:09 +0000

The Installation and Basic Configuration of VMware ESXi 5.5.0 on Dell C2100 FS12-TY

Server Specs:

Dell PowerEdge C2100 FS12-TY
2 x 2.13GHz Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5506
6 x 4GB RAM – Total 24GB’s of RAM
RAID Controller – SAS 6iR
- 4 x 250GB WD RE 4 HDD’s

I have already set up my RAID Array as follows:

2 x RAID-1 (mirror) Virtual Disks setup

For this install I am using the Dell Customized Image of ESX as it fixes known issues and loads drivers for Dell PowerEdge systems. Google if you don’t have the customized Image.

First you need to install the Dell Customized Image onto a USB. I use Rufus on a Windows PC to do so. See the settings I chose for Rufus below:

(Download Rufus)

Eject the USB from your OS and go plug it into your C2100 and boot it up.

The first thing you will see when your USB is finally booting, after the BIOS and RAID controller info, is the following image:

Hit (Enter) on the Installer:

Next ESX will proceed to boot into the installer, you will see the following two screens load all the way through and disappear:

Once those two screens finish loading we will begin the installation.

On the following screen hit (Enter):

Then you will need to read through and agree to the EULA by hitting (F11) to proceed with the installation:

ESX will then scan attached devices that it can install on:

Select the USB drive that you inserted, not your Virtual Disks, and hit (Enter):

ESX will scan the drive again and then hit (Enter) to confirm the USB drive will be overwritten:

Next select your keyboard layout and hit (Enter):

Type in the password for the root user twice and hit (Enter):

ESX will scan yet again, and when that is finished hit (F11) to initiate the installation of ESX onto the USB:

ESX will begin to install and once it is finished hit (Enter) to reboot the server and complete the installation:

This may take a couple minutes.

After the reboot, ESX will boot into the following screen:

NOTE: For this tutorial I have DHCP enabled so ESX already has an IP issued to it, but you will want to set this to a static IP for many reasons, so I have covered this in my post: Set a Static IP on your ESX Host

Now go back to your computer, open a web browser, and browse to the IP that we saw in the previous step and you will see the following page:

Click on the “Download vSphere Client” link and Install that on your local computer.

Once VMware vSphere Client is installed, open it, and fill in the fields appropriately.

IP address / Name: IP of ESX Host
User name: root
Password: Password you created

You will be prompted by a Security Warning, check the check-box for Install this certificate and do not display security warnings for “Your IP”. Then click Ignore

Next you will come to a screen like the following:

First thing you will need to do, is create a datastore. To do so, click on the blue link, click here to create a datastore…:

This will bring up the following window, where you will choose the Disk/LUN option and click Next:

Select one of the disks that you would like to create a datastore out of and click Next:

NOTE: I selected one of the two RAID-1 Arrays I set up prior to this tutorial

On the next screen leave the VMFS-5 option selected and then click Next:

Confirm the disk layout settings by clicking Next:

Name your datastore with a naming scheme that you see fit. I have named mine VM1-RAID1. Then click Next:

Leave Maximum available space selected, unless for some reason you are not applying all the RAID-1 to this host, and click Next:

Click Finish to create the datastore:

Next we are going to add an image to the datastore so we can create Virtual Machines off of that image.

In the VMware vSphere Client click on the Configuration tab and then click on Storage under the Hardware Section.
Here you will right click on your new datastore and click Browse Datastore…:

Create a folder in the root of that drive named Images and then click the Upload Icon and choose Upload File…:

NOTE: You can also choose to set up an NFS datastore to store your .iso and other bootable files. If you choos to go that route you can skip this step. I have already covered how to accomplish this in my tutorial: How to create and ESX Datastore from a Windows NFS Share

Once the .iso, for whatever OS you have chosen, has finished uploading, you will simply right-click on your host and select New Virtual Machine…, and proceed to set up your VM according the the specs that you need.

In the last step of creating the VM, where the tab on the left reads Ready To Complete and you have a Finish option, check the check box for “Edit the virtual machine settings before completion” and then click Continue.

In the popup window you will need to browse to the New CD/DVD (Adding) section and then select Datastore ISO File to Connect at power on. You are going to want to click Browse… and browse to the .iso that you previously uploaded, then click Finish.

That is it, wait for your VM to create and then power it on.

Once you power it on, you can open the console and set up network connectivity to the server as it meets your needs.

NOTE: After you complete the installation of whatever OS you chose, you will want to go back into setting, and set either set this setting to “Client Device” or remove the check next to “Connect at power on”.

If you have any questions, please contact me through the site.