SYSLOG_25-W04
I’ve begun a major overhaul of my homelab setup. Eventually I'd like to write a "State of the Servers 2025" post but since most of my free time is in the winter I won't finish everything until the late Spring. My servers, containers, and backup routines have grown piecemeal over the past couple years so I want to bring coherence and sanity back to my "infrastructure".
1. A New Folder Hierarchy
I’ve been using Jellyfin, Navidrome, and Audiobookshelf to access my media library. Up to now, everything has been pointed at fixed directories to help keep things simple... but all of them are capable of handling multiple sources of files either as one unified library within the app (Navidrome, Jellyfin) or one directory per library (Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf).
I started by creating a new "Christmas Movies" directory to sit alongside the regular "Movies" so that my server doesn't recommend Elf mid-June. Likewise, a "Kids Shows" library to keep that off the main feed. I also made a "servarr" directory for the Sonarr and Radarr to download their stuff.
It feels a bit messy in the short term but I’m also mindful that Sonarr and Radarr have “manual import” features. I'd like to keep things separate until I'm confident things will work as I expect.
2. Tidying Up Old VMs and PBS Confusion
I discovered an odd leftover from my older “PBS” (Proxmox Backup Server) installation. At some point, I had a test VM named “PBS” that started automatically, and I conflated it with the real backup server and was wondering why I was unable to make backups or restore correctly. Lesson learned: label test VMs more clearly or remove them if they’re no longer needed. I shut the old one down and did a quick check in Proxmox to confirm it wasn’t interfering anywhere else.
3. Memory Shuffle Between Servers
My new-to-me Lenovo PCs came with 16GB of RAM each but for some reason I can only see 8GB. I pulled a stick of RAM from my main server (srv-cairo) and added it to one of them and both of the 8 GB sticks came to life along with the extra 16GB. If I added anything to the last slot the machine simply wouldn't boot. I tried every possible combination and in the end I can only use 3 of the 4 slots on all of the machines. Must be some sort of voltage/incompatibility issue since it affects all three equally (I tried different sticks of RAM, I tried four sticks of Lenovo RAM etc.)
4. Actual Server
This was easily done. Took a couple hours in total to experiment with and find some optimizations. Exporting from PikaPods and importing locally was trivial. Great software. I shared the install script in yesterday's post.
5. Year of Writing
I have tried different ways of documenting what I do to my servers and network. I use Obsidian and have a fairly convoluted system for organizing and thinking about what I'm doing. What works best for me is to keep a linear log for whatever day it is (eg. "2025-01-25.syslog") and just write down what I'm doing, what I'm thinking, and what I might try next in a linear fashion with minimal editing. If I'm working on multiple things at once I will slowly start to group them thematically as necessary to keep things coherent and legible. From those notes I usually write my "T" notes: numbered tests/trials/tinkering for each attempt at something. If they are successful I can just link to them from a master note. For example: Daily1 + Daily2 + Daily3 >> "zfs-boot-menu_desktop.T1" The "ZFS Boot Menu" note would then give an overview of what it is and a link to the steps I used to install and configure it for each attempt along with other relevant notes.
This year I want to write and post things publicly but the format I've just described is hell for trying to explain to someone else - you'd need the master note, the supporting notes, and snippets of each daily to be able to understand anything.
Instead I've chosen to write a weekly summary of the dailies. I will write more detailed posts on a single topic that are more thorough and atomic (and hopefully stay relevant in the long run).
A quick note about time and date: my regular non-daily notes use Unix time (eg. 1700123456 - Note Name. This keeps notes unique for the inevitable duplication of notes on a certain topic. The last day of the first week this year is 25-W01.7. These formats are the shortest notation I could come up with that was still understandable while also retaining the week and day numbering. I've been using it for years and it works well for me.