All posts by john

Extending ubuntu lvm volumes in hyper-v

This is… trickier than expected. Here’s the process:

Expand VHDX through Hyper-V

Extend the partition (gparted helps with this)

Extend the logical volume: lvextend –size +40G /dev/vg0/foo

Resize the filesystem: resize2fs /dev/vg0/foo

Other useful commands: pvs lvs

Ubuntu 18.04 DHCP weirdness

It appears that Ubuntu 18.04 switched network stacks to Netplan.  This causes some strangeness when trying to set up DHCP reservations on Windows DHCP servers, as the physical address Netplan sends to Windows is not the MAC address of the interface.

 

From https://netplan.io/examples#windows-dhcp-server

Edit the config file under /etc/netplan/ to look like this:


network:
version: 2
ethernets:
enp3s0:
dhcp4: yes
dhcp-identifier: mac

Afterwards, run sudo netplan apply

Setting up WordPress

This evening I set up WordPress on my Nginx virtual machine.  I opted to go with WordPress, because while I’m a sysadmin by trade, I’m by no means a web designer, and I figured this would be a good way to learn the web server end of things.

Honestly, getting everything set up was pretty easy once I found the right guides.  I followed DigitalOcean’s guide found here to get everything going, after going through their LEMP server guide found here.

My Little Project

Welcome to my website!  This is mostly a project to learn the ins and outs of configuring Nginx and Ubuntu server.  I’ll likely blog about my projects both computer and automotive.  Hopefully I’ll post some items of interest, and maybe someone will learn something from it (other than me, of course).

I may end up posting some back-dated content to cover previous projects at some point.

The Servers Have a Home!

In January I picked up a Dell R710 on the cheap to use for my homelab endeavors (a VM on which is hosting this site).  Well now that I had a rackmount server, that meant I had no choice but to find a rack.  However, there was no way I was going to spend hundreds of dollars on a rack for the one or two pieces of rackmountable gear that I currently own, especially considering they’re already out of the way in the furnace room.  So I did what any cheap person would do, and set up Craigslist alerts to watch for a rack for sale, and man did I score big with this one.  I found a 24U Dell rack with doors and cable management hooks, on casters.  I really don’t need 42U and don’t want 42U given that this is going in my basement.

 

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That 24 port Netgear will get mounted as soon as I get some screws (fortunately there were already cage nuts in the rack).  As well the file server down and to the left will get rebuilt in a 4U rackmount once I get the chance (and I can finally get rid of that ancient full ATX Antech case).  Don’t mind the orange light on the R710… one of the PSUs is unplugged.

Some day soon I’ll lay out my exact network setup.

Replacing dash bulbs with LEDs

When I bought the Ranger, it had several dark spots on the dash from burned out bulbs.  I looked around online and found that a popular mod was to convert the bulbs to LEDs.  These both look brighter and should last much longer than incandescent bulbs.

I saw a lot of referrals to superbrightleds.com but their prices seemed a bit steep for LEDs.  I searched around and found these on Amazon.  I only needed 6, so the 10 pack for $8 seemed like a price I couldn’t beat.  For reference, the main bulbs in the dashboard are size 194 wedge type.  The green tint of the dash is actually done by the dash, and the bulbs behind it are white.  You’ll notice on the old picture the needles and whatnot have a sort of orangeish glow which appears to come from the temperature of the incandescent bulbs used, as the LEDs changed these all to a much more modern looking white.  The 4×4 and headlights switch are a special Ford only bulb that from my research can only be replaced by purchasing a whole new switch from Ford for way too much money, however a user on the Ford Ranger Forums “Buggman” makes a custom LED that fits the housing on the switch.  I ended up ordering a couple of those from him to light those switches up and they were well worth the $25 or so I paid.

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What the dash looked like with the OEM lights. As you can see, several bulbs are burned out.

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The back of the dashboard. The black caps are the bulbs I’m looking to replace here. You just twist them a quarter turn counter clockwise and they pop out. Pull the bulb out of the cap, replace, and reverse the process to put them back in.

I found out the hard way by putting the dash back in and lighting it up that unlike incandescent bulbs, LEDs care about polarity!  Half of my lights didn’t work and I had to pull the dash and flip them to get them to light up!  This is why we test things before reassembly.

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Left: Factory incandescent. Right: New LED. I went with this style that had some on the sides to try to get a more even light spread since 6 bulbs need to light the whole dash.

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All finished! Look at how the needles and odometer turned white compared to the orangeish they were before. Much better.

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The HVAC controls are still stock bulbs as they take a different size and were functional at the time. They’re a bit dimmer than the LEDs but not enough to be a huge deal. I was also able to color match my head unit pretty well, I think. In this photo it looks blue-er than it does in person.

Plastidipping the Ranger grill.

oday I decided it was time to do something about the faded grill on the “new” Ranger.  It started its life silver/chrome, but in the past 13 years had turned to a horrible yellowish plastic color.  I decided I’d give plastidip a shot after hearing great things.  I pulled the grill (which was held on by the most brutal clips) got it masked off.  Lacking any sort of proper paint studio, I decided to use the bed of the truck and a tarp to get the job done and it worked great.  I applied probably 10+ coats in the end, mostly due to the honeycomb pattern which required a lot of sprays at a lot of different angles to cover.  In the end I think it turned out pretty good!

 

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The starting point of the grill. It was looking pretty tired, especially against the black of the truck.

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I pulled the Ford badge, masked the trim (I was afraid if I tried to remove the grill from the trim I’d destroy the plastic clips that held it in place) and set it up and got to work in the bed of the truck.

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Nearing completion, just a couple more coats to go.

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The completed job with everything installed back onto the truck.

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I also “rejuvenated” the headlights. I forgot the name of the product but it involved wet sanding the lenses down and then applying an IR curing epoxy to them to gloss them up. Not bad for 13 year old lenses.

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Close up. That badge could use a good cleaning, I think.

 

In the end I’m really happy with how everything turned out.  I’m interested in seeing how well the plastidip holds up, but even if it’s not well, it was $5 and a couple hours wasted at the most.