HomeLab @Colo #1
I and my colleague/friend Fabio decided to workaround the limitations of our NUC based Homelab, especially because we have to try the VMware Cloud Foundation using the nested, test&learning oriented
It needs 256 GB RAM, and it’s difficult to find such a big NUC. I was already an OVH’s customer (not so happy, because my little linux machine has been involved in the well known “fire accident”), and we have been told about this offer
good for affordable, dedicated servers.
We have gone for one server with: AMD CPU, 256 GB RAM, 4 TB in softRAID1. The activation was a matter of minutes, and we immediately started with the installation. We have schoosen the OS install from the OVH panel, using an already available template
it was pretty easy and in 15 minutes, more or less, it was ready.
(yeah, it’s not licensed, sorry. We have the vExpert trial licenses, if you have not, I can only suggest to have a look at VMUG Advantage program)
When the installation is completed, OVH will send you an email with the url of your ESXi and the root password. Yes it’s on the internet! Before being published on Shodan, It’s a very good idea to manage the firewall via the OVH control panel to immediately restrict the access to a few well known IP. In this picture, I have allowed the access from one IP, except for the SSH because it’s configured automatically by OVH to use private/public key pairs, so it’s enough secure.
Well, I’m very shy andnow also the SSH access is restricted ;-)
But I granted access also from the IP of my old linux private server on OVH, and now I can access (quite) securely my ESXi using an SSH tunnel from my PC to my private server, and configure the browser to use the localhost as proxy. How to do it? -> https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-setup-ssh-socks-tunnel-for-private-browsing/
After all this stuff, I performed an offline update of the ESXi to the lastest build, using the cli procedure, i.e.:
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/how-to-upgrade-esxi-6-7-to-7-0-without-vcenter
Stay connected, more info on this project are coming!
continues in page HomeLab @Colo #2
