Welcome back! Today we’re going to be starting a series about my homelab adventures and exploring some of the lessons learned, thoughts behind it, and how I’ve put these technologies into practice to make my life easier and more secure. We’ll start with the basics: What’s a homelab and why did I start making one?
Blog
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Gaming Rig updates
Hey all, hope things are well. Making a quick post as I’ve done some work on my gaming rig and wanted to share!
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Graylog: Syslog aggregation for free?
Welcome back! Today, I’ll be discussing one of my favorite homelab projects: Graylog.
Graylog is a free for personal use syslog aggregator. What does that mean? Well, we’ll start with syslogs. Syslogs are system log messages that various operating systems use to document what is happening with the system. This includes Linux syslog (/var/log/syslog) and Windows Event Logs for both server and home editions of Windows. These come in handy when troubleshooting issues or when you need to check specific time frames to see what a system was doing. But, this requires going into each system individually to read these; If there’s an issue affecting multiple systems, you’ll need to check out each system and correlate time frames to troubleshoot. Enter Graylog.
Graylog allows us a way to receive all syslogs from across a single or multiple networks. In the case of my homelab I run about 25 virtual machines of Windows and Linux varieties. Trying to nail down an issue across multiple servers can be a bit of a pain, but with Graylog I can see everything in one spot. But that’s just scratching the surface.
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What life is like with Linux as my primary OS
I say this a lot: but something I’ve wanted to do for a very, very long time is run a Linux OS as my primary operating system for day to day usage. I took the plunge recently and have learned a lot. One of the biggest things learned? How much easier Linux has become after last trying this around a decade ago. Here’s what I learned…
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It’s 2024! Celebrating 10 years of AASullivan.com
Hey all, welcome to my site and blog. I realized recently that I’m coming up on ten years here with this website and wanted to post some of the history and challenges I’ve run into while running this site.
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AI Comprehensive Guide to pfSense
Introduction: In today’s interconnected world, network security is paramount. Whether it’s for home or business use, having a robust firewall solution is essential to safeguarding your network from cyber threats. One such solution that has gained immense popularity is pfSense. In this article, we’ll delve into what pfSense is, how to install and set it up, and weigh its pros and cons.
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State of the Network: 2023
Welcome to AASullivan.com! I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, so here it is: The State of My Network. I’ve been planning to do an overview of my entire set up for some time now and I’ve finally kept everything in a consistent state now for a few months after many years of tinkering. A little background…
My home network (also known as my “home lab”) has been a long term project of mine to both try out new technologies and keep my skills sharp in a real server environment. It started in 2014 with a single server in my apartment running ESXI 3.5 on a system with a 6 core AMD CPU and 16GB of RAM. It was a blast to try new things (DNS server, file server, Plex, etc) and I’ve learned a lot since those times. My current Home Lab is considerably bigger now and is larger now than many small company systems; My poor power bill will never be the same. Let’s take a look at some of the set up!
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VMWare Kubernetes Cluster Build Notes
I built a Kubernetes cluster tonight to try and learn a bit about this technology, here are my notes about building it!
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Using Uptime Kuma for Network Monitoring
Welcome back!
Today I’m looking into Uptime Kuma, a monitoring tool that in my eyes is perfect, simple and intuitive and does exactly what I need for monitoring my home network. What is Uptime Kuma? I’m glad you asked.
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Tekkit2 Minecraft Build notes on Ubuntu 22.04LTS
Assuming a fresh install of Ubuntu 22.04LTS, accepting default options and no extra packages except OpenSSH server to login.