Basement setup

Basement setup
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apollo8 @ 13th Oct 10:43PM:
Basement setup

I've lurked for quite some time, as I've always had the same "bug" myself. Even though my wife doesn't believe it, I like seeing I’m not the only hardware collector ;-) Up until now, I didn't really have anything I felt worth posting, but I just finished wiring locations and hooking up hardware I've had laying around for several years.

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Here's an overall of the cabling "MDF" in my basement. Cable is Systimax Cat5e with Siemon jacks/faceplates. Only 3 cable runs so far. Single cable to a PC location, and 2 "backbone" runs to a second floor office switch. DSL splitter is a Siecor. Catalyst 1900 was replaced by 2900 as in following pictures, and reused as a "lab" switch.

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Catalyst 2924M (just got for $20 on eBay) and Endian 2.2 RC2 firewall running on P2 266 (Compaq) w/256MB. Netopia in bridged mode. Performs perfect for what I need. Setup with interfaces for internal and test/lab segments. Will add wireless interface later for use with old WEP AP if I can get an ISA card to work in Endian. I saw that RC3 was just released as “final” so will probably rebuild this soon. Interfaces setup as VLANs on 2900 and trunked across to 1900. Small shelf underneath has an APC280 that provides power for short "blips".

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Old stereo cabinet repurposed as my lab rack. The 19" Trinitron fits perfect where the turntable used to sit, and binders and books where the LPs used to be ;-)
This was homebuilt more than 20 years ago from solid mid-80s plywood and real particle board. It probably weighs nearly 70 pounds empty, and is solid as anything. I cut down 2 of the shelves and used the top one for a keyboard shelf. The second shelf has full 18" extension, and is used as a mousepad, writing desk, laptop holder, or workbench. I have a nice, high barstool I use for sitting at the rack, or the keyboard tray is at perfect "standing" height.
- Belkin 4-port KVM and Microsoft wireless mouse.
- APC at bottom is currently dead...just using for surge protection, and I need to replace with larger unit.
- Gateway P3-800 w/512MB currently running Windows 2000. Has multiple harddrives I manually swap cables between for testing.
- Thermaltake Soprano case is MSI Neo2 mainboard P4 2.8HT w/3GB I use for VMware Server 2.0 on Ubuntu 8.04. Just started playing with VMs on this: multiple Linux and Windows versions.
- Old iMacG3-400DV: Just use to run OSX so I could get familiar with it...not running any applications. Loaded up with some old PC133 DRAM and has 640MB.
- HP laptop on second shelf isn't mine. I'm setting up for my mom. Has Vista...which I really don't care for at all.

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Cabling and hardware mounted on back of rack: KVM, power and network cables. The hole cut in the back for the stereo cable access works perfectly for the PC cables. I only needed to drill holes in the bottom-right to get power cables to/from the UPS. Except for the KVM cables run to the iMac on the floor, the rest is completely self-contained on the rack...I just unplug power to the UPS, and the trunk link from the media converter connected to the 1900, and can roll the whole rack out of the way. Catalyst 1912 VLAN'd and trunked to 2924 via fiber/media converter and light blue cable running up and across utility room to hardware shelf in earlier pics.
- Catalyst 1912
- 100FX/TX converter
- APC 7-outlet surge strip for additional power connections

Not pictured is the rest of home hardware. All self-built from purchased and surplus parts...nothing special:
- Family Room PC: AMD Athlon 2000XP w/512MB in Antec case. XP Home for kids games, general web surfing and RDP access to Office PC.
- Office supported by Cisco MicroSwitch 1548 linked to 2924M core switch:
- Office Kids PC: P4 2.7 w/512MB in Antec case. XP Home for kids, and dual boot with Ubuntu 8.04 I play around with.
- Office Main PC: AMD Athlon64 3000 w/1GB in Antec case. Windows XP Pro.
- All Samsung SyncMaster LCDs: 17" 731B, 17" 170T, and 20" 204B

jeffmoss26 @ 16th Oct 01:15PM:
Re: Basement setup

What is the gray patch cord next to the fiber for?
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apollo8 @ 16th Oct 09:22PM:
Re: Basement setup

Gray patch is for the "inside" NIC of the VMWare box. As the main system, I wanted to have it on the other 100MB port instead of one of the 10MB ones. It also has a "lab" VLAN NIC connection to a 10MB port. I need to spend some more time with the VMWare networking setups to really figure out what you can do with multiple NICs... Uplink to the 2924 and that system are the only 100meg links.
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d0nni3q @ 16th Oct 11:01PM:
Re: Basement setup

said by apollo8 :

I need to spend some more time with the VMWare networking setups to really figure out what you can do with multiple NICs...

The most common activity to conduct with multiple NICs in VMware is add multiple to a single virtual switch for redundancy.

It is possible to combine NICs (LAG) to increase bandwidth; however, the configuration is tricky and difficult to support (requires etherChannel).

Multiple NICs for the service console for redundancy is a best practice, especially if using HA.
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apollo8 @ 17th Oct 08:26AM:
Re: Basement setup

I'm not _that_ advanced yet ;-)

I had been thinking more along the lines of having one or two virtual machines on my "inside" network, while others would be test servers on the "lab" VLAN. In each case, I had been hoping to direct traffic to the NIC on the appropriate segment. I would think this should be possible...I just need to play around some more now that I installed the extra NICs.
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tubbynet @ 17th Oct 10:43AM:
Re: Basement setup

said by d0nni3q :

said by apollo8 :

I need to spend some more time with the VMWare networking setups to really figure out what you can do with multiple NICs...

i know that is possible using esx(i) or something similar, but can you add a virtual switch in the vmware server?

i have both sitting in my house and use the virtual switch quite heavily in esxi, but haven't really looked (or bothered to look) in vmware server.

q.
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tsarath @ 17th Oct 10:47AM:
Re: Basement setup

What's the point of the 100FX/TX converter when you have free UTP ports on both the switches? I've been thinking of a similar converter for GE as my switch only has SX fibre ports, but the GE converters are $200-300, so have just stuck with FE.
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tubbynet @ 17th Oct 10:49AM:
Re: Basement setup

cat1900 is 10meg with (2) 100meg "uplink" ports...
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tsarath @ 17th Oct 10:56AM:
Re: Basement setup

10Mbps, Ouch, I see. GE switches are getting cheaper every day and I've been thinking of tossing out my old catalyst for one of these. Transferring video between my server, link utilization commonly hits 90+Mbps on my FE home network.
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tubbynet @ 17th Oct 11:08AM:
Re: Basement setup

true - consumer gig-e switches are coming down in price. if you *need* the bandwidth, it is easy enough to purchase one and use it in areas that you need the bandwidth.

however, i do *a lot* of testing and such and i *need* the flexibility of the cisco platform of switches. while managed switches from linksys, d-link, netgear, etc do exist, i prefer having the cli and not having to use the gui interface (though i do have a cat-express 500-24lc as well). the price on a 3560g-poe is still *way* out of my price range (even on ebay they will fetch several thousand dollars each). as such, i only have a c3550-pwr that gives me two gig-e ports using the ws5483 gbic and it also gives me 24 ports of cisco prestandard inline power. suits my needs just fine (until i have the money to go all gig :-) )

i would assume that the op has this need as well, doesn't need 100meg in the lab, or just likes having cisco gear :-)

q.
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tsarath @ 17th Oct 11:25AM:
Re: Basement setup

said by tubbynet :

true - consumer gig-e switches are coming down in price. if you *need* the bandwidth, it is easy enough to purchase one and use it in areas that you need the bandwidth.

however, i do *a lot* of testing and such and i *need* the flexibility of the cisco platform of switches. while managed switches from linksys, d-link, netgear, etc do exist, i prefer having the cli and not having to use the gui interface (though i do have a cat-express 500-24lc as well). the price on a 3560g-poe is still *way* out of my price range (even on ebay they will fetch several thousand dollars each). as such, i only have a c3550-pwr that gives me two gig-e ports using the ws5483 gbic and it also gives me 24 ports of cisco prestandard inline power. suits my needs just fine (until i have the money to go all gig :-) )

i would assume that the op has this need as well, doesn't need 100meg in the lab, or just likes having cisco gear :-)

q.

Agree, IOS/CatOS CLI is handy. I currently use an old Cat5505 with a RSM/VIP-40 combo as my core switch/router. The RSM give about 100Mbps full routing between VLANs without MLS, tags all my VoIP traffic with QoS across the Intranet and to the WAN, and runs full Netflow for traffic monitoring. Can't do that easily on a Netgear/Linksys at $150. :-)
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apollo8 @ 17th Oct 03:30PM:
Re: Basement setup

said by tubbynet :

i would assume that the op has this need as well, doesn't need 100meg in the lab, or just likes having cisco gear :-)

q.

This is the case :-) Beggars can't be choosers, and slow access is better than no access...I'll take the old 1900 for now. DSL is only 3MB anyway ;-) I'm also not into any high bandwidth streaming or video yet, so the FE on the 2900 suits me fine as well. I'm not a network engineer, but do have occasion to log into Cisco hardware, and it has been good additional exposure to the CLI. The way I look at it is that the $20 I just spent on the 2924 was a much better investment than the same $20 I spent on a cheap Linksys...
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d0nni3q @ 18th Oct 09:31PM:
Re: Basement setup

In VMware Server you can create virtual networks (vmnetX, where X is an integer 0..9 inclusive) which are connected to a physical NIC. The configuration is done via the command line. Typically vmnet0 is used by default and the physical nics attached can be bridged, NAT, or DHCP.

Don Q.
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tubbynet @ 18th Oct 11:06PM:
Re: Basement setup

thats right...i remember now...
its not nearly as clean as the v-switch setup in esxi though...

q.
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