I mean..for me, it was time. Stuffing all these tools into a small backpack was inefficient and unprofessional. So I went with this really cool, affordable and I must say, high quality tool bag from DeWALT ->
At just 45$, it’s a steal! Really happy with this bag so far.
Check the before and after pics which also provide a quick ‘whats in my tool bag?’. Enjoy ->
Another day, another happy ‘small business’ client, hehe!
Had a client move into a small warehouse and needed a brand new network setup. We handled this project at full scale, from sourcing all the parts to physical install and network/server configuration. Nothing too crazy or complicated yet this network setup needed to be reliable and scalable.
After carefully assessing client specific needs and budget,
we ended up going with ->
* NavePoint 12U Wall Mount Network Server 600mm Depth Cabinet Rack Enclosure Glass Door Lock
* Cables Direct Online 1000ft CAT6 Solid Cable 550Mhz Ethernet LAN UTP 23AWG RJ45 Network Wire Bulk (White) (had to do about 10 cable runs)
* Synology 4 bay NAS DiskStation DS920+ (Diskless), 4-bay; 4GB DDR4
* ETS 24 Port CAT6 Pass Through Coupler Patch Panel with Back Bar, Compatible with Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6, Cat6A, Loaded with Unshielded keystones
(these are GREAT! Highly recommend! Who wants to sit around all day punching down wires to the back of a patch panel when you can instead just simply plug Ethernet heads in?)
* Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LR-US Unifi AP-AC Long Range – Wireless Access Point (2-Pack) Bundle
* Cisco SF300-24P 24-port 10/100 PoE Managed Switch with Gigabit Uplinks (SRW224G4P-K9-NA)
* https://shop.netgate.com/products/3100-base-pfsense?variant=32156744286323
It was a little tricky setting up the UniFi Access Points and Synology NAS without an internet connection (customer did not have internet yet). The cables runs weren’t too bad since the ceiling is wide open on the warehouse floor though it was a physically taxing job, especially terminating all those ends. Did get help running the cables though, thank you Jeremiah! Other than that, everything went quite smoothly overall.
There is still quite a bit of network and server tuning left to do but the project as a whole has been completed! Physical install we knocked out in about two days and server/network configuration took about another day and a half. Great experience and thank you to my client for allowing us this opportunity to support their network and server infrastructure
Can definitely be a tricky process, especially if Zabbix is new to you. What can I say about Zabbix? Well, a fantastic free monitoring software. Monitor all sorts of parameters on your servers, firewalls (works great with pfsense, hehe), etc and receive email alerts automatically if a problem is detected. Love pulling and tracking data on your system(s) performance? Zabbix will spit out all kinds of graphs and data at you and provide a birds eye view of monitoring system parameters (i.e cpu usage, ram utilization, etc) over time, which can be essential in troubleshooting. I am actually quite new to Zabbix myself and besides the tricky somewhat complex initial setup, loving it so far. We’ll today, I’m here to help you sort through any challenges getting Zabbix 6.0 going on Ubuntu Server 20.04. In fact, I am going to cover how to install both.
Download the iso from here -> https://ubuntu.com/download/server
In my case, I will be installing this on a VM using Hyper V.
(reference the beginning of video for more details on installing Ubuntu Server)
Now that we have our nifty fresh and clean Ubuntu Server all installed and up and running, it’s time to install Zabbix.
1 ssh to your new Ubuntu Server and prepare to run linux commands the rest of the way to install Zabbix
2 Install Zabbix repositories
sudo wget https://repo.zabbix.com/zabbix/6.0/ubuntu/pool/main/z/zabbix-release/zabbix-release_6.0-1+ubuntu20.04_all.debsudo dpkg -i zabbix-release_6.0-1+ubuntu20.04_all.debsudo apt update NOTE – as in my case, this may not install correctly for you. This was due to a certificate error. You will need to comment out: mozilla/DST_Root_CA_X3.crt
located in /etc/ca-certifiates.conf. Skip to 9:10 in the video for details.
3 Install Zabbix server, frontend, agent
sudo apt-get install zabbix-server-mysql zabbix-frontend-php zabbix-apache-conf zabbix-sql-scripts zabbix-agent4 install sql server
sudo apt-get install mysql-serversudo systemctl start mysql-server5 Create database for Zabbix
sudo mysqlcreate database zabbix character set utf8mb4 collate utf8mb4_bin;create user zabbix@localhost identified by 'password'; Note – put your own password in between those quotes
grant all privileges on zabbix.* to zabbix@localhost;quit;6 import initial schema and data
You will be prompted to enter your newly created password.
zcat /usr/share/doc/zabbix-sql-scripts/mysql/server.sql.gz | mysql -uzabbix -p zabbixWhen running the above zcat command, you will be asked for the db password you created in step 5
NOTE – importing the schema data make take some time to complete and can be confusing as to if it’s actually working or hung. In one case i’ve even seen this take hours, but I just let it run and went to bed. Got up in the morning and it was successful. Not sure what the unique problem was there in that case but I digress. Usually it shouldn’t take more then 5 min max though.There is no confirmation that it completes but be patient and what you want to look for is for the system to return you to the command prompt. That is a sign it completed successfully. Skip to 12:55 in the video for details on this.
(you need to specify the DB password in zabbix_server.conf file)
Edit file located here: /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf
I use VIM to edit files = # sudo vim /etc/zabbix/zabbix_server.conf
Find and uncomment/edit the following line
DBPassword=password <---change to your db password you set in step 5 Start Zabbix server and agent processes and make it start at system boot.
systemctl restart zabbix-server zabbix-agent apache2systemctl enable zabbix-server zabbix-agent apache2Connect to your newly installed Zabbix frontend: http://server_ip_or_name/zabbix
Straight forward here but skip to 15:50 in the video for details
If you need help or have any questions at all, feel free to contact me. Hey that’s what I’m here for. I do this!