January 2024

Using powerd++ to reduce power consumption on a Dell R730

Yesterday, I changed CPUs in my main server. That server builds packages, is the database server for dev, test, and stage freshports, amongst other things. It is a generalized server. In this post: FreeBSD 14.0 powerdxx-0.4.4_1 Dell R730 2x E5-2699 v3 CPUs As folks started reading my tweets, crest pointed out that powerd++ may help. SPKaniu also mentioned cycling down. Straight out of ports After installing powerd++, I tried running it: [0:31 r730-01 […]

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Spreading thermal paste – replacing Dell R730 CPUs

On Sunday, I replaced the CPUs in r730-01 with something quite a bit more powerful. I have been thinking about doing this since before this September blog post: Can I really swap CPU and RAM between my Dell R730 servers? The answer was: Yes, I can. See also the next post: Using powerd++ to reduce power consumption on a Dell R730 In this post: FreeBSD 14 LibreNMS 24.1.0 2x E5-2650LV3 (old CPUs) 2x

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Adding another pair of drives to a zpool mirror on FreeBSD

Today, I’m ready to adding two recently obtained 12T spinning disks to r730-03. This host is the work-horse which houses all the main backups and database regression testing. It also hosts my newly-created but not yet-functional graylog jail. I will be following a previous post about adding drives because I don’t want to remember these things. They occur infrequently enough that documenting it is a good idea. In this post: FreeBSD 14 The

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r720-02

I’ve been given a Dell PowerEdge 720, which will be known as r720-02. It sits in a datacenter in New York, New York, and acts as a FreshPorts node. For example, if you’ve ever accessed dev, test, or stage [.freshports.org], then you’ve accessed this host. Partitions zpools The zpools: Filesystems The filesystems: dmesg And dmesg:

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Clearing out multiple drives – while watching Band of Brothers

The accomplished reader will first ask, how is this post any different from Clearing-out multiple drives concurrently – while Watching Fargo Season 5? Well, first, it’s a different server. This one is r720-01. Second, I’m watching Band of Brothers, which is completely different. However, the approach is the same: Boot the host using an mfsBSD thumb drive ssh in as root wipe the drives watch Band of Brothers profit What’s not to like?

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Dan adds 2 x 12TB HDD into r730-03

I know, I know. You can hardly contain your excitement as you read about my exploits. In this post, I add the drives into the host and run some simple tests. As in recent posts about 12T drives, these drives are not new. They are used drives. A later post will deal with the commands which add these new drives into an existing zpool. These drives came from serverpartdeals.com. They are used and

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Using a third party tool to drive tarsnap backups

I have used Tarsnap since at least 2017. The jobs ran nightly. It wasn’t until three years later, that I started cleaning up old backups. Now I’ve found a tool which manages this for me (sysutils/acts) courtesy of a toot by M W Lucas. The selling point of this tool: By default, 31 daily, 12 monthly, and indefinite yearly backups are kept. Sounds good enough for me. I’ll buy that. The install and

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Configuration for running poudriere in a jail on FreeBSD 14

I run poudriere in a jail on FreeBSD – it really is becoming the thing-to-do with all the cool kids. Everyone’s doing it. It is nifty. I will provide only the jail configuration, and not any file system configuration. That is left for you. I think these links might be most helpful: Using poudriere to create a custom FreeBSD repository for package installation Moving poudriere from the host into a jail In this

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