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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.