Author Archives: Chris

Using old disks to serve data using a VM and Linux software RAID on CentOS or Red Hat 7

Posted on 1 February 2015 by Chris

I have been contemplating adding a 2nd NAS storage device to my home network for a while. I currently have a Netgear ReadyNAS 2100 system with 8 TB raw storage. The ReadyNAS works terrific but I have a few old … Continue reading →

Posted in Linux, Sysadmin | Leave a comment

Burning a Linux boot ISO to a USB drive on a Mac.

Posted on 16 October 2014 by Chris

I always forget the exact commands to use when I have to burn a Linux ISO to a thumb drive on my MacBook Pro. I am burning a SuSE boot ISO in the example but this procedure should work for … Continue reading →

Posted in Linux, Mac | Leave a comment

Repair a vCenter SQL Express Database

Posted on 27 May 2014 by Chris

The day before yesterday the power flickered at our house and because I had procrastinated installing a UPS in my home lab, my systems all powered off unexpectedly. Yesterday I went out and bought the UPS and powered everything back … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Lab, vCenter, VMware | Leave a comment

Linux Desktop for VMware Administration

Posted on 23 April 2014 by Chris

I recently replaced my daughters aging Toshiba laptop with a used MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro was much faster and she reallylikes working in OS X so it was a great fit for her needs. With the freeing up of … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Lab, Linux, vCenter, VMware, vSphere | 4 Comments

VSAN in the home lab

Posted on 17 April 2014 by Chris

Today I received the 3 mSATA drives I bought from eBay with some NCAA tournament winnings. I got the cheapest mSATA drives I could find which ended up being 32 GB Samsung disks for $25 each with free shipping. I … Continue reading →

Posted in ESXi, Home Lab, VMware, VSAN | Leave a comment

Home Lab Updated

Posted on 14 April 2014 by Chris

Since starting my new job at VMware I thought it would be a good idea to beef up my home lab a bit so I can test as much as possible at home. My lab had previously contained the following: … Continue reading →

Posted in ESXi, vCenter, VMware, vSphere, Vurtualization | Leave a comment

Script to Install Cacti on a CentOS or RHEL 6.5 host

Posted on 7 April 2014 by Chris

I while back I wrote a post about this script and it had since broken as some updates to RHEL/CentOS and rrdtool caused the script to crash. I updated it this weekend and verified it using a CentOS 6.5 x64 … Continue reading →

Posted in Automation, Linux, Scripting, Sysadmin | Leave a comment

MIA for a LONG time!

Posted on 25 March 2014 by Chris

I just found a backup of this site on a backup disk I thought I had lost! With the backup found, I recovered the site and brought it back to life. I plan on posting regularly again. A lot has … Continue reading →

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MacBook Pro 8,3 Linux Success… Kinda

Posted on 23 January 2012 by Chris

In my previous post about my frustration getting Linux installed on my 8,3 MacBook Pro I mentioned that I could not get an installer to boot. Well, with Open SuSE 12.1 I was able to finally get the installer to … Continue reading →

Posted in Home Lab, Linux | Leave a comment

MacBook Pro 8,3 Linux Frustration

Posted on 18 October 2011 by Chris

At my job one of the awesome perks (among MANY) is that I get a brand spanking new MacBook Pro. The machine is a maxed out 15″ with 2.2 GHz Core i7, 16 GB RAM, upgraded matte display and and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment