Chapter 1: The Cooler Master PC Continued from THSP: Beginnings Cooler? Master? Fresh from a 10 hour overnight flight, I got to business right away. First order of business? Open ’em up and see what’s inside. I opened the Cooler Master Elite 130 case. And the first thing that struck me was how compact the case is, and how everything has been stuffed inside. I’ve only built one PC before, that was with my brother, in a full size ATX case....
What and Why? The What: Objective To have a physical server available to me locally, that can run VMs/containers for my various homelab needs. Needs to be cost effective, and power efficient too, as far as possible. Essentially something to scratch my itch for homelab experimentation. The Why Dabbling in the homelab/home-server game for almost two years now, I wanted to have a physical computer/server for myself available locally. A homeserver/homelab has multiple uses:...
A console connection could be required to troubleshoot a misbehaving instance, to change BIOS settings, or even install a new OS using netboot.xyz Though the Oracle Cloud panel gives an option to launch a Cloud Shell connection, it doesn’t load on my system with Chrome on Linux Mint. Alternatively, one can create a serial/VNC console connection using SSH. I detail how to create a serial console connection below. The method is quite easy, but there’s a gotcha....
What and Why? The Government of India has setup a nationwide COVID-19 vaccination appointment booking system via Co-WIN. There’s an app, a website, and API access too for checking slot availability, getting beneficiary details, appointment booking and also for downloading vaccination certificates. Vaccination started in January this year. However, vaccination for all residents over the age of 18 only commenced on the 1st of May. With sparse availability of hospitals and institutions that could participate in vaccination for 18+, appointment availability is a challenge....
A lot of VPS providers don’t provide the option to either select your distro/upload ISO for your distro. On the VPS I have, provided by Oracle Cloud, Debian is not provided as an option. I have hence installed Ubuntu 20.04, but need to install Debian on it. This is an easier way to do that using iPXE. All you need is the ability to have a console connection/VNC connection to the VPS, and the ....