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Connectivity is up!

It needs a name. Actually, it needs to be motorized with control servos added so that I can get it to follow me around the house. <meep meep!>

Instead of the serial connections I was going to use as the primary connection between the offices, I found a few dual T1 cards that I want to use instead. Both will work exactly the same way however, the rj45 heads don’t stick out near as far as the serial connectors and, if I will eventually kick one so, I’ll the T1 cards instead. I am getting ‘deeper into the weeds’ with the netbox server we have at work. I really, really don’t want to admit it but, I like it. That being said though, one of the reasons for this entire project was to learn all things netbox so, once I get it setup here in the lab, I think it would be a lot of fun… well, entertaining, to learn to write code well enough to be able to develop some apps, or tools that we can feed netbox data too and see what comes out. Floor maps, cabling diagrams, etc…

DCIM baby… It’s all about the DCIM.

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The dust!

I dug out my CCNA lab this afternoon to get it setup over the weekend. I was happy to discover that I still had both my ‘console panel’ and, the serial cables! I was worried that I had tossed all of the cables out earlier this year. I can be impulsive when I clean and it’s not uncommon for me to absent mindedly toss out things I mean to keep. The little 12U rack I ordered should be here on Monday. I think what I am going to do is mount it underneath the desk. This floor is tile with adhesive carpet tiles on top. If I undermount the cage, I can keep from damaging anything.

As far as power goes, either side of the office is fed from a different leg so, three devices per leg. I have a couple of long corded power strips I can use to where I need it to go. I know, I know… I can hear the cringetards already losing their mind over the use of power strips. I hear you, I am doing it anyway. I know where all the power in this house is routed and what is connected where so… whatever.

While I am on the subject of power, I am on the hunt for a couple of ‘smart’ power strips. We have the big rack mounted RPDUs at work that are capable of spitting out all sorts of good info… just like the information I am looking to collect from this little project I am working on. I checked in the orange and blue ‘big box’ hardware stores near me and didn’t see anything like that. So, I might have to dig around a bit to find them. It would be cool to see what a tool like Grafana might see.

I have the lab server setup as well. Ubuntu, Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP, Python and Perl. I also installed a copy of Visual Studio. I went out looking for a decent editor and somebody suggested VS in a reddit. I have never used it and it’s free so, what the heck! Oh, I am planning on installing Netbox on it as well. I have a little experience with it at work on a lab machine and I’m kinda digging it. It has opened the door to a lot of ‘wouldn’t it be cool if’ statements and a whole lot of ‘what if’ to accompany.

Sooo, about those lab devices. Looks like I need a refresher on ROMMON mode.

Password:
Password:
Password:
% Password: timeout expired!
% Bad passwords

….

S2 con0 is now available

Press RETURN to get started.

That’s great….

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I need a lab!

Here is what I am thinking. I have a whole mess of things that I want to try. I am not even going to try list them all in a single setting but, with all the ideas bouncing around in my head, a ‘real-time’ lab would be a nice have. So, between my old CCNA lab, a tacklebox full of raspberry pi’s, a box of cable, some heads and crimpers, I am pretty sure I can come up with something! I ordered a small 12U rack from Amazon earlier. It won’t be here for another week so, that will give me time to work out a topology and bang out enough cables to make it work. My only concern now are the serial cards I have in the routers. I did a lot of clean up last spring which included some old pc parts, extra cables, whatever… Anyway, I am not completely sure but, I may have tossed out the serial cables for these cards. If I did, it will come down to ordering dual t1 cards or new serial cables…. whichever is cheaper.

-Jiggs

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The Jiggs… up!

thejiggsproject, that is. Sorry, that’s about as creative as I feel at the moment. A little too much ‘do’ and not enough ‘think’ caused me to spent a whole lot more time getting this thing deployed than it should.

This server has a couple of different purposes. First, the last time I set up a webserver, of any sort was in 2003, maybe? and before that, the last time I had to content with anything related to Linux was with SCO Unix, a few years before that. So, to say I’m rusty would be true but, coupled with all of the knowledge not gained over the past 20 years by switching career fields and <poof!>, you have a lost Jiggs. So, what a better way to sort it all out than to build! Second, I am chasing some education in terms of application development. I have some ideas that I would like to see come to fruition. Unfortunately, just ‘conjuring’ shit up doesn’t exactly work yet and paying for someone else to figure it out (buying a retail product) well, just kinda sucks so, I get to learn.

-Jiggs