Posts

Hello! Maurice Moss here again. Today I’m going to tell you about a project that perfectly encapsulates the engineering mindset: spending an absolutely unreasonable amount of time automating something that takes five minutes to do manually. You know that XKCD comic about whether automation is worth it? The one where you calculate if the time saved exceeds the time invested? Well, I looked at that chart, laughed, and said “challenge accepted” in the wrong direction. ...

Hello there! Maurice Moss speaking. Today we’re going to discuss something that nearly drove me to call 0118 999 881 999 119 725… 3 - enterprise SSDs that refuse to power on. You know that feeling when you’ve just installed a beautiful, high-capacity enterprise SSD - perhaps a Micron 5100, an Intel DC series, or similar datacenter drive - and you’re ready to experience storage nirvana? Your HBA detects all your old drives perfectly. But these expensive new SSDs? Nothing. No detection, no activity lights, completely dead. It’s like trying to get Roy to answer a support call before his first coffee. ...

“The Internet is coming!” - Jen, probably experiencing bufferbloat during her presentation The Problem: Your Internet is Lying to You (And It’s Not Even Good at It) You know what’s really frustrating? When you pay for gigabit fiber, you run a speed test and see glorious numbers like 680 Mbps download, and then the moment someone starts uploading vacation photos to the cloud, your gaming session turns into a slideshow. Your ping goes from a respectable 12ms to a painful 49ms, and suddenly you’re being eliminated in games before you even see the enemy. ...

“What’s your password?” - Jen, probably trying to configure VoIP The Problem: Vodafone’s VoIP Black Box (It’s Not Actually Black, But It Might As Well Be) You know what’s really frustrating? When your ISP provides you with a fancy fiber connection with VoIP capabilities, but they won’t give you the actual credentials to use it on your own devices. It’s like Reynholm Industries giving you a computer but not telling you the password - and then Roy has to spend three hours explaining that “password123” isn’t secure. ...

Hello there, fellow IT enthusiasts! Today I’m going to walk you through a peculiar little quirk in MAAS (Metal as a Service) that’s about as intuitive as explaining to Jen what RAM actually does. The Problem with Multiple Networks (Or: “Why Is My Traffic Going That Way?”) You see, when you have two networks in MAAS, it’s like having two doors to leave a building - perfectly reasonable until you realize MAAS can’t decide which one should be the main exit. The GUI, much like Roy’s dating strategy, completely fails to provide an option for selecting your default gateway. ...

Hello there! Maurice Moss speaking. Today I’m quite excited to share something rather brilliant that I’ve been working on in between fixing printers and helping Roy turn things off and on again. It’s about making Prometheus and Netbox work together, which is almost as exciting as that time I mastered the entire Wood Sitting Down genre! What You’ll Need (Rather Important, Really) Netbox version 3.5.0 or newer (don’t try it with older versions, trust me - it’s like trying to run Windows Vista on a ZX Spectrum) Prometheus version 2.28.0+ (the plus is important, like remembering to wear your emergency socks) Node exporter or similar running on your target machines (I’ll explain why in a moment, like I had to explain to Jen why computers need fans) Why Would You Want This? (A Very Good Question!) Now, let me explain why this integration is absolutely brilliant. You see, normally with Prometheus, you’d have to manually declare all your targets in the configuration - writing them down like Roy writes down his lunch orders. But with this Netbox integration, it becomes dynamic! ...

Cloudflare Dashboard for Grafana: Because Monitoring Shouldn’t Cost More Than Your First Server Have you tried turning your metrics off and on again? No need - we’re about to set up a monitoring system that’s more reliable than Jen’s understanding of “The Internet”! The Problem with Enterprise Monitoring (Or: Why I Can’t Afford Another Black Box) You know what’s really frustrating? When you want to monitor your Cloudflare metrics but the enterprise license costs more than that time Roy accidentally bought a hundred mechanical keyboards thinking they were on sale (they weren’t). But fear not, fellow monitoring enthusiasts! We’re about to set up a dashboard that’s more impressive than Moss’s collection of vintage calculators, and it won’t cost you a single penny from the Reynholm Industries budget. ...

Hello there! Maurice Moss speaking. Today I’m quite excited to share something rather brilliant that I’ve been working on in between explaining to Jen what a standard deviation is. It’s about making your monitoring smarter than Roy’s morning coffee routine! What’s All This About Sigma Then? You know what’s really annoying? Getting woken up at 3 AM because your CPU usage hit 82% instead of the usual 80%. It’s like having to restart your computer every time the mouse moves slightly to the left. But fear not - I’ve discovered something absolutely revolutionary: the 3-sigma rule! ...

Hello there! Today I’m excited to share a guide on using cloud images in Proxmox. If you’ve ever found yourself repeatedly creating VMs and going through the same configuration steps, this post is for you! We’ll explore how to leverage cloud images with cloud-init for automated VM deployments - it’s like having a personal VM chef that prepares your instances exactly how you like them. What We’re Working With Before we dive in, here’s what we’ll be using in this guide: ...

Hello there, Today I want to share some absolutely brilliant Prometheus tricks that I’ve discovered while managing our monitoring systems. These are the kind of tricks that would make Roy actually look up from his phone! 1. Reloading Prometheus Without Restarting (Like Magic!) You know what’s really annoying? Having to restart Prometheus every time you make a configuration change. It’s like having to reboot your computer just to change your desktop wallpaper (which, by the way, I do recommend sometimes, just to be safe). ...