homelab

I’ve had an interest in accurate timekeeping and NTP, the Network Time Protocol for quite a while.

At one time or another over the years, I’ve run the original ntpd, xntpd, and OpenNTPD. I currently have the chrony NTP server running on my old server, to aggregate NTP needs on my home network.

I decided to try the kea DHCP daemon on my production server.

My Arch Linux laptop started rebooting when I closed the lid and re-opened it.

As Ben Franklin noted, “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources”. So it was with this problem.

I’ve used Internet Software Consortium’s dhcpd for a while.

When I was setting up my new server I found out that dhcpd was past end-of-life. ISC wanted me to use kea instead.

I’ve got a Linksys WRT3200ACM WiFi router. Of course it runs OpenWrt, but it should bridge the associated WiFi clients to my LAN, not NAT them.

I bought a Qotom Q20332G9-S10 fanless server, which I hope will eventually replace my older Dell PowerEdge R530, which was manufactured in August - December of 2014.

This started me on a journey of discovery that I could scarcely have imagined six months ago.

I updated my laptop, which runs the simple, lightweight Arch Linux distro. I did not note the low battery reading.

I found a blog post about Millisecond accurate Chrony NTP with a USB GPS for $12 USD.

Wow! I’ve had an interest in NTP since about 1994, when I had to prove that a system my (somewhat shady) employers were selling to an NSA cut-out could synchronize to an NTP server.

As I’ve written before, now that I’ve retired, I can devote time to my hobbies. I’ve set up a “home lab”, what we home computer enthusiasts call our computer and router setups. This is different than gamer’s “rigs”, in that a “server” is required, and it’s not allowed to have disturbingly-illuminated keyboards and cases. The aesthetic is completely different.

We often try to emulate corporate data centers by purchasing depreciated business-class machines from refurbishers.

Here’s my homelab: