I've moved
While I’ve brought back my old neelc.org website, I’m now primarily posting on Mom & Pop Network. If you want new articles, please go there.
Neel Chauhan
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Running a Raspberry Pi DNS Resolver, or how I learned MikroTik DNS sucks
For quite a while, on my two Rocky Linux servers/hypervisors, I got the following message if I log in via my Samba Active Directory:
Domain Controller unreachable, using cached credentials instead
I upgraded both my hosts to Rocky 10 via re-installing, yet the same error still showed. I used a MikroTik core router, with a DNS resolver forwarding AD DNS to the domain…
Remapping the Copilot Key to Right Ctrl on Fedora 43
If you own a modern non-Mac system, chances are there’s a Copilot key on it.
As a Fedora user, there’s absolutely no way I’d use Copilot. And even if I could, I wouldn’t: I’ve worked at Microsoft yet barely used AI.
However, I do want a working Right Ctrl key for VirtualBox. How do I do that?
Step 1: Enable the Copr repository You’ll need to import…
Installing SearXNG on AlmaLinux/RHEL/Rocky Linux with Podman and SELinux
While I’ve never really used DuckDuckGo, due to me liking Google results better (although I hate the data collection), I was bored today and wanted something in my home lab.
When checking awesome-selfhoted I thought “why not try SearXNG” after seeing someone else run it too.
On my home lab, I run two Minisforum MS-01s as compute nodes, both running Rocky Linux 9 with a…
Virtualizor: Fixing the "Required number of IPv4 : 1 and I support : 0" Error
For a living, I run the VPS host Fourplex. I am launching a storage VPS service alongside our flagship Ryzen 9000 VPS.
When I added the new VPS group, I got this error in WHMCS:
Error: No server found which fits in the criteria for your VPS configuration ... Server ID: 8, Reason: XXX.fourplex.net | Required number of IPv4 : 1 and I support : 0 The funny part is in Virtualizor I added the…
Installing Incus on AlmaLinux, RHEL or Rocky Linux 10
When I set up Rocky Linux on my homelab, I initially set up LXD containers. But when Incus got Rocky Linux 10 images while LXD didn’t, I decided to switch.
After all, like most Linux users I never liked snap packages.
The problem? The Rocky Linux installation instructions for Incus points to a Copr repository for Rocky Linux 9, not 10.
While I have two Minisforums running Rocky…
Using QEMU with the virtio-net Internal Network for Network Simulations
For years I’ve primarily used x86 PCs. With that, VirtualBox had a unique feature called the Internal Network that could be used to isolate VLANs. But more recently I’ve been daily-driving a M3 Pro MacBook Pro on-and-off.
However, VirtualBox on Apple Silicon cannot run MikroTik CHR. While it does run on UTM, UTM doesn’t give me isolated non-DHCP VLANs. Also, attempts at using…
Setting up UniFi Controller on Debian 12
While I’m more of a fan of Red Hat-based distros, using a Fedora desktop and laptop, and multiple Rocky Linux servers, I decided to revisit UniFi after our NYC townhouse had poor Wi-Fi from MikroTik wAP AXs.
The reality is that UniFi is designed for Debian and Ubuntu as most hobbyists (and startups) use those. Trust me, I run a VPS host and like 90% of my customers (not exact) use Debian…
ASRock Rack B650D4U/1U2S-B650: Fixing the 0d error on AMD Ryzen 9000-series CPU
If you thought HPE support was bad, ASRock Rack support is 100x times worse. But for my startup Fourplex branded servers have become cost-prohibitive post-COVID-19. I remember when HPE servers were actually affordable for a homelab.
That being said Fourplex is planning to expand into VPS hosting and I have one 1U2S-B650 (using the B650D4U motherbord) and have three more shipping.
One of…
Mastodon vs Bluesky is a new standards war
With Bluesky’s apparent rise after the elections, I’ve heard a lot of criticism about Bluesky on the Fediverse. I’m starting to feel the Mastodon vs Bluesky war is a new standards war, one that is analogous to the cellular standards war.
While Gen Z readers are used to LTE and 5G phones which is based off the historically more popular GSM branch, there was another cellular…
MikroTik CAPsMAN v2 (WifiWave2) with VLANs
After a disasterous experiment with Ubiquiti UniFi APs, I decided to sell them on /r/homelabsales (because I’m not allowed to return) and buy MikroTik wAP ax APs. Interestingly, the Wi-Fi experience on MikroTik beats the UniFi one despite technically being “inferior” and the EU model.
But one issue with CAPsMAN is how hard it is to configure, especially with a home network…
openSUSE Tumbleweed and Sony WF-1000XM5/WH-1000XM5 Bluetooth Headphones
After my old Sol Republic earbuds died, all the headphones I daily drive are or have been made by Sony. This includes the WF-1000XM5 earbuds for going out and the WH-1000XM5 headphones I use on my desk or for plane travel.
While Sony headphones generally work well with Linux (I’m looking at you, Apple and Beats), I recently switched my Linux desktop and laptop back to openSUSE Tumbleweed…
Bypassing AT&T Fiber/Frontier/AU 802.1X with MikroTik and bridge interfaces
Although I now live primarily in Verizon territory, my family has a second home in Frontier-land at least for a few more months. Frontier in Connecticut inherited AT&T’s 802.1X setup so if you’re not on XGS-PON, you are required to use Frontier’s router, in my case an Arris NVG468MQ.
However, if you’re using a MikroTik CCR2004-series router, you can use that connected…
Have an ASN and IPv6 space? Build your own IPv6 tunnel!
For many years, Hurricane Electric was the de-jure IPv6 tunneling platform. If you wanted Netflix, just force Netflix on IPv4. For people without native IPv6, HE.net was truly a godsend.
Then HE.net tunnels became more problematic, now we have multiple streaming services and other services blocking HE.net tunnels under the “public proxy” blanket ban. I remember the pre-COVID and…
Building my own HPE SAS cable from Amazon because HPE won't sell me one
Remember when Reddit /r/sysadmin said HPE support blows? Well it does.
I got an open box HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen11 as a NAS. This is my second whereas my first is a compute server. To my surprise, there was no SAS cables in the open box server.
When sourcing the official sources, I was in back and forth conversations with HPE and their “part suppliers” to no avail. And no, I did…
Running ArchiveTeam Warrior in Podman on Rocky Linux 9
I don’t remember where I heard about ArchiveTeam from, but when I did learn about it I knew I wanted to join in.
I have run Tor relays for over a decade now but always wanted to participate in other volunteer-run services as well. I always felt good when my home servers serve more people than just me. I run an I2P node too, but CPU-and-GPU-heavy tasks like Folding@Home are out usually…
Taming Noise on HPE ProLiant ML-series Tower Servers
As mentioned earlier, my homelab server is a HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen11 which is a single-socket Intel Sapphire Rapids-based server. One problem with this server is how much noise it generates. I swear, the ML110 Gen10 was much quieter.
It’s a big trouble especially since right now I’m “houseless” meaning I’m living with my brother and have my ML110 in a bedroom…
Bypassing Frontier Connecticut GPON 802.1X with MikroTik
I’ve made it back eastwards! Yay! While my family looks for NYC hosing, I’m living in Stamford, CT in my brother’s townhouse/condo.
The condo has Frontier FiberOptic. But as Connecticut is a former AT&T market, unless you’re on XGS-PON which I’m not, GPON is based off AT&T Fiber with the infamous 802.1X requirement.
Initially, I used a Wi-Fi to Ethernet bridge…
Enabling Path MTU Discovery in MikroTik, or why my PPPoE/6rd was slow
For many years, I’ve stuck with OPNsense, first initially since until a couple of years ago I was a die-hard FreeBSD user. But more importantly, by default Linux-based firealls play poorly with CenturyLink’s 6rd.
I’ve been wanting to use a MikroTik as my core router instead of OPNsense for many years, but whenever I tried, 6rd browsing was just so slow for some reason.
A…
A MikroTik RouterOS v7 IPv6 BGP Config
As my long-awaited sequel to my MikroTik RouterOS v7 BGP configuration, I will do a RouterOS v7 configuration, but this time with IPv6.
The setup will have:
R1 with AS1 and R2 with AS2 1::/64 that R1 will advertise 2::/64 that R2 will advertise 3::/64 for the point-to-point link between R1 and R2 3::1 for R1 and 3::2 for R2 The ether1 interface for the R1 and R2 point-to-point links The…
An underrated ESXi/Proxmox alternative: Rocky Linux, KVM and Cockpit
In my homelab, I have a Rocky Linux 9 server/hypervisor. For quite a while, I’ve just used the command line to manage virtual machines. It was tricky to know which TCP port was used for VNC, and forward it to my Fedora laptop.
I’ve always been dreaming about a Web UI for virtual machines, but didn’t want ESXi or Proxmox, and was pretty dissapointed when I tried SmartOS and…
A Simple MikroTik RouterOS v7 BGP Config
While I’m not a professional network engineer at the time of writing, lately I’ve been playing with MikroTik’s CHR in EVE-NG.
One thing I wanted to set up is a basic BGP configuration between two ASes. In this setup, I will assume there are two neighboring routers with eBGP.
The setup will have:
R1 with AS1 and R2 with AS2 1.0.0.0/24 that R1 will advertise 2.0.0.0/24…
Install Folding@home on Fedora 39 with FAHControl
At the present moment, my desktop is technically a “gaming PC” but really a workstation for various non-gaming tasks. It’s a Mini-ITX homebuilt PC with an Intel i9-13900F CPU and a RTX 4070. It runs Fedora 39.
I’ve been wanting to run Folding@home on my main PC for a while now. I run Folding@home at my work systems, both Windows 365 and physical workstation (although I…
How to get multi-core PPPoE on your x86 router
One commonly-stated problem with PPPoE, especially done on x86-based routers like pfSense and OPNsense is they’re “single-threaded”.
The reason why they’re single-threaded is because of how NICs are designed. These NICs know how to sort IPv4 and IPv6 traffic, but not PPP traffic. combined with both Linux and FreeBSD processing PPPoE in the thread that process…
Want multi-threaded PPPoE in OPNsense/pfSense: Virtualize it with bridges
I am currently a CenturyLink Fiber customer in Seattle, WA and its well known that CenturyLink uses PPPoE. Yes, I’m aware of the migration to “Quantum Fiber” which uses DHCP, but I’ll probably move to NYC before I get shifted to Quantum and subsequently have Verizon FiOS (again), also with DHCP.
My home server, a massive HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen11 with a Broadcom 10GbE…
One year later, my statement on Twitter/X
If you are wondering why my Twitter/X account @_neelc is blank, it’s because of this reason: X is basically KiwiFarms, but mainstream: a platform to spread hate.
I have gotten politically conservative ads despite following tons of LGBTQ+ accounts, having a trans brother, and being non-binary and aromantic myself.
Pre-Elon Musk, I used to look up to Twitter as a company. Now, Twitter…
Taming Fan Noise on HPE Gen11 Servers and Third-Party NVMe Drives
I recently got a HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen11. While it cost far more than the previous generation thanks to COVID-19, the trade war, and supply chain issues, it is still an excellent server.
One thing with HPE servers is that by default, if you use a third-party NVMe drive, or any PCI Express card that isn’t blessed by HPE, the fan becomes very loud. By very loud, I mean I can hear it from…
Forwarding Ports 80 and 443 on OPNsense Correctly
If you’re like me and run your own home server, you might find yourself needing to forward TCP ports 80 and 443 on your router. I recently changed my firewall from OpenWrt to OPNsense and obviously needed to forward ports 80 and 443 to my home server, a M1 Mac Mini running Fedora Asahi Remix.
By default, OPNsense tries to listen it’s web UI on all ports, well sort of. Many…
The Decline of Net Neutrality Activism
For many years, telecom and Net Neutrality-related policies have been a hot-button political issue for me, to the extent that I, an ordinary software engineer at Microsoft have been blocked on Twitter by former FCC chairman Ajit Pai because I tweeted support for Net Neutrality publicly.
I also noticed that Net Neutrality is less of a hot-button topic than it was, presumably because of a…
Bypassing Gmail's spam filters with ChatGPT
If you haven’t been living under a rock, you probably already know what ChatGPT is.
I am an operator of high bandwidth Tor exit relays, and with that, I get a lot of abuse complaints. Combined with the fact that I have ai lease on a “/24” of IPv4 space, basically a block of 256 IP addresses, I have the IP space’s contact to my LLC’s email address.
What does…
How to clone your Calix GPON ONT (Optical Network Terminal)
UPDATE: I now live with my brother in Stamford, CT while my family renovates a NYC townhouse/brownstone and right now I’ll be using Frontier FiberOptic until the new home is ready. Frontier here uses a Nokia ONT and since it’s an ex-AT&T area standard GPON uses 802.1X. I’m currently “bypassed” to my MikroTik box, the older AT&T Fiber bypass method works here…
Setting up Login for Windows Server/Samba Active Directory on FreeBSD
Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Windows Server or Active Directory.
Recently, in my homelab, I decided to enable a single sign-on using Active Directory on my two servers. Despite my employment, my homelab is very FreeBSD-centric, due to me having used it for 9+ years versus 2+ at my current job.
While I could use OpenLDAP which is technically more Unix-centered than…
Optimizing FreeBSD Power Consumption on Modern Intel Laptops
My current FreeBSD laptop is a 2020 14" HP Spectre x360, which uses Intel’s 11th Gen CPU and “Evo” platform, although I previously also had the 13" 2020 version with a similar setup (but lacked working audio on non-Windows). This article isn’t specific to HP: your shiny-new Lenovo ThinkPad, Dell XPS, or Framework Laptop can also apply.
One thing with FreeBSD is that…
FreeBSD (or pfSense/OPNsense) on the HP t740 Thin Client
While expensive and hard to find on eBay (thanks, ServeTheHome), the HP t740 “Thin Client” is a great pfSense box if you want more power, or a compact home server.
While I could get away with a t730 or t620 Plus, but I have CenturyLink Fiber and PPPoE is more computationally intensive versus pure DHCP. That running a Tor relay, so I’d like some headroom and upgrade path to 10…
Tuning Power Consumption on FreeBSD Laptops and Intel Speed Shift (6th Gen and Later)
When running FreeBSD on laptops with a 6th Gen (Skylake) or later Intel CPU, for me these are HP Spectre x360s (sorry, I’m not a ThinkPad fan), one annoyance with the out of the box FreeBSD configuration is the fact that the fan is running most of the time.
In comparison, a HP Envy with an AMD Ryzen does not have this issue with an out-of-the-box FreeBSD.
One thing that Intel has…
Setting up a Signal Proxy using FreeBSD
With the events that the private messaging app Signal has been blocked in Iran, Signal has come up with an “proxy” solution akin to Tor’s Bridges, and have given instructions on how to do it.
For people who prefer FreeBSD over Linux like myself, we obviously can’t run Docker, which is what Signal’s instructions focus on.
Fortunately, the Docker image is just a…
FreeBSD 13: Fixing the installer "Failed to configure bootloader" error with Manual Partitioning and UEFI
On my laptop (HP Spectre x360 2018), I decided to install a second FreeBSD install, this time on the Intel Optane drive.
When I proceeded to install, I chose manual partitioning, and while it finished extraction, it proceeded me to this error:
This happened to me on a recent 13-CURRENT. I don’t believe it happened on earlier snapshots or 12.x. I had this issue with both UFS and ZFS…
Setting the IPv6 TTL/Hop Limit on FreeBSD
My current wireless service is T-Mobile and I use a unlocked (Google Store edition) Google Pixel 3 running LineageOS. I am a heavy user of tethering, and unlike Sprint (switched pre-merger), T-Mobile checks for the TTL to count for hotspot bandwidth if TTL<=64 (can be bypassed with TTL=65 on a laptop).
My personal laptop happens to run FreeBSD, so I initially thought that setting…
Fixing FreeBSD pkg errors when running "pkg update" on Microsoft Azure
I work at Microsoft, and with that, I get free Azure credits.
Considering where I work, I have no use for FreeBSD at work, only Windows. However, I spent seven years of my life prior to getting $DAYJOB using FreeBSD, going back to high school and basically built my personal setup on it. I haven’t bothered to switch my personal desktop or home server to Windows (yet*), so I’ll…
Use dummynet in a VM? High latency? Set kern.hz to 1000
As a hobby, I play with software routers in virtual machines (always FreeBSD). One recent project of mine was to emulate DSL bandwidth and latency in a VM, from varying bandwidths of 1.5 Mbps (ADSL) to 50 Mbps (VDSL2).
By default, when using FreeBSD on a hypervisor, the kern.hz tunable is set to 100. This is to prevent additional CPU use from idling.
But dummynet recommends kern.hz=1000…
Using Office 365 Mail on Android With 2FA Without Outlook or InTune
I’m a recent Microsoft hire. That being said, it’s obvious that they’re using Office 365’s Hosted Exchange for their email, which is a departure from G Suite at NYU and CacheCash, and my personal FreeBSD/Postfix/Dovecot setup.
Like many big companies, Microsoft requires 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) for logging in to company resources. Well, okay, I done this before.…
A Simple IPFW In-Kernel NAT Setup on FreeBSD
After graduating college, I am moving from Brooklyn, NY to Redmond, WA (guess where I got a job). I always wanted to re-do my OPNsense firewall (currently a HP T730) with stock FreeBSD and IPFW’s in-kernel NAT.
Why IPFW? Benchmarks have shown IPFW to be faster which is especially good for my Tor relay, and because I can! However, one downside of IPFW is less documentation vs PF, even…
OPNsense/pfSense on the HP T730: Use Broadcom NICs, not Intel
I recently picked up an HP T730 as my OPNsense firewall, mainly to repurpose my previous HP ProDesk as a desktop. With that, I also initially tried an Intel NIC primarily because the de-facto NIC choice for OPNsense/pfSense is in fact Intel. To my surprise, the T730 froze with the Intel-based NICs I tried, both igb and em based cards.
Many people have reported on pfSense’s subreddit that…
Installing GENI Tools/Omni on FreeBSD
I have been asked to use GENI to test some software I have written at CacheCash/NYU. To communicate with GENI, you usually use a tool called Omni.
FreeBSD has been my choice of desktop operating system since 2012, and since I am using my personal machine, my work is being done on FreeBSD.
However, Omni only supports Python 2 while FreeBSD’s default version of Python is Python 3. Not…
Fixing the "Segmentation Fault" error when installing OPNsense on the HP T620 Plus
I have gotten a HP T620 Plus as a firewall box, replacing a Chinese “Mini PC” which barely handles my 300/300 Verizon FiOS. The T620 Plus is a very popular choice in the pfSense world, however I wanted to go with OPNsense.
One issue with the T620 Plus with OPNsense is that when you attempt to install, you get a segmentation fault in the installer. From forum posts, many other…
FreeBSD (or Linux) doesn't boot on a HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10 when using "Smart Array SW RAID Support" in UEFI mode
Note: I am using FreeBSD as the operating system in the article, but the information should be generic to Linux or any non-Microsoft operating system. This should also apply to most other current HPE ProLiant servers (as of 2019) other than the MicroServer (UPDATE: Don’t own one, but this article should apply to the new MicroServer Gen10 Plus as well).
I recently got a Xeon 4108 HPE…
Automatic Switchover between Headphones and Speakers on FreeBSD with device.hints
If you’re like me and run FreeBSD on a laptop (mine is was a HP EliteBook x360 1030 G2 before I broke it in a bothed “repair” job), one issue you may encounter is the fact that switching between speakers and headphones isn’t automatic. This isn’t a HP-specific problem as I also know this impacts Dell laptops, and probably impacts other laptop brands as…