homebrew Archives - ivobeerens.nl

Control (remotely) the power of your Home Lab

October 23, 2018February 15, 2013

I have a lab at home to test for example VMware vSphere and Microsoft stuff. Running your home lab for 24/7 will result in a high electricity bill. For a couple of months I use the Internet Control Station ICS-1000 (ICS-1000) to power on my home lab when needed from anywhere. The ICS-1000 controls (left picture) controls the receivers (right picture). The ICS-1000 is connected to my router. In the receivers are the power cables plugged from the devices you manage.

So when needing my lab environment I open the App on my iPhone and power on the home lab from everywhere. After a short time I can remotely access the home lab and connect for example to my:

NAS
VMware vSphere with ESXi servers environment
Microsoft Hyper-V environment

Using the web browser or the iPhone App for example you can program the timers to power on/off devices on specific times and dates.

I use different receivers through the whole house and control it with the ICS-1000. For example I control the light outside the house with timers I programmed in the the ICS-1000. The App has still some limitations and bugs. For example it is not possible to edit timers. To change the timers you need to delete and recreate them. Probably in March 2013 the App will be updated to solve some bugs and add new functionality.

Intel X79 whitebox for vSphere 5 and Hyper-V 3

January 2, 2015March 13, 2012

Updates:

Update August 8 2012: Added Microsoft Windows 2012 Hyper-V screenshots and link to blog post how to enable the Intel 82579V NIC

Update August 9 2012: Updating to the latest BIOS enables support for DirectPath I/O in VMware vSphere. Screenshot added

In an earlier blog post (found here) I mentioned that it is time for a new homebrew whitebox based on the Intel X79 chipset. With the X79 chipset it is possible to install 64GB of memory (8 x 8 GB). Because the 8 GB DIMMs are expensive on the moment, I decided to use 8 x 4GB DIMMs (total 32GB).

I decided to create one physical host for testing VMware vSphere 5, vCloud Director, VMware SRM, VMware View 5 etc. The possibility to create a physical ESXi5 server, create virtual ESXi hosts on it and start VM on the virtual hosts is great! This feature is called nesting. How to do this, can be found on William Lam blog found here.

Components used for the VMware ESXi 5 / Microsoft Windows Server 2012 whitebox:

Intel i7-3820 CPU 3.60 GHz, 4 cores, with Hyper threading 8 cores
Zalman CNPS10X performance cooler
Asus P9X79 s2011 motherboard. Some specs:
2 x Corsair Vengeance DDR3- 1600 16GB (4 x 4) kit, total 32GB memory (max 64GB)

The case, power supply, graphical card, RAID controller and extra NIC(S) are reused. Here are some photos of the configuration:

When the hardware configuration was done and tried to power on the system, nothing happened (black screen). The appears that BIOS of the motherboard didn’t know the i7-3820 CPU yet. The cool thing is that the motherboard has a function called “USB BIOS Flashback”. It is possible to flash the BIOS without CPU or memory installed. Here are the steps:

Download the latest BIOS from the Asus site;
Extract the BIOS on a USB stick;
Rename the BIOS file, example: rename “P9X79-ASUS-0906.ROM” in “P9X79.ROM” (important);
Place the USB stick in the USB port with the WHITE interior on the back;
Press the BIOS flashback button for 3 seconds and the light will begin to flash;
Don’t turn of the computer during the BIOS flash;
When the flashing light stop, the BIOS has been complete;

After the BIOS update was finished, the system boots and I was able to install VMware ESXi and Windows Server 2012 and enable the Hyper-V role.

vSphere 5 / ESXi 5 screenshots:


Hyper threading enables 8 cores	32GB memory

The onboard SATA controller is listed as Patsburg 6 Port SATA AHCI controller. Software-RAID does not work The hardware RAID controller is added as extra PCI card	The onboard Intel 82579V NIC is not supported in ESXi5. Use the procedure found here to add the NIC. Use at your own risk! The Intel 82574L NIC is added as extra PCIe card.
The latest firmware includes support for DirectPath I/O

Microsoft Windows Server 2012

It is possible to install Microsoft Windows 2012 and enable the Hyper-V role. Here are some screenshots:

The onboard Intel 82579V NIC is not recognized in Windows Server 2012 by default. How-to enable the Intel 82579V NIC is explained in this explained in this blog post.

This whitebox is a great extension to my home lab!

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VMware ESXi 5 whitebox NIC support

October 23, 2018December 13, 2011

I tested the NICs below in my VMware ESXi 5.x whitebox server at home. Here the status:

NIC	Recognized by VMware ESXi 5	Listed in ESXi 5 as
Intel PRO/1000GT Desktop Adapter PCI	Yes	Intel 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Realtek RTL 8111E	Yes	Realtek 8168 Gigabit Ethernet
Intel Gigabit CT Desktop Adapter PCI-e	Yes	Intel Corporation 82574L
Intel 82579 Gigabit LAN controller	No You need the make a customized ESXi 5 ISO or VIB file.This is a not supported configuration!	Intel Corporation 82579V orIntel Corporation 82579LM

To add for example the Intel 82579 chipset, create a customized ESXi 5 ISO. This is very simple because some people have already done the hard work.

Here are the steps:

1. Download ESXi-Customizer (create by Andreas Peetz) found here.

2. Download the driver (created by Chilly) found here.

3. Start the ESXi-Customizer and follow the 3 steps:

And you’re ready to create the customized VMware ESXi 5 ISO. The ISO supports the Intel 82579V and 82579LM NIC(s) found on many whitebox motherboards today. Possible future updated version(s) of the driver can be found in the following post.