Weeds and some herbs were in need of trimming for my garden to make room for other vegetables. Mint and pineapple sage needed to be trimmed back to make room for squash and cucumbers where I had the 3 sisters of beans, corn and squash earlier.
I also elevated the squash and cucumber vines for more separation.
I want to be a bit more ready when I trim back plants in my garden to get them dehydrated right away. I wasn’t ready with prior batches of mint and rosemary when trimming them back.
Now the dehydrator has space on the cabinet down from the top of the cabinet, cleaned and ready to be utilized!
I put the pineapple sage on the bottom and the mint on top.
Trimmed mint and pineapple sage.Pineapple sage washed and pat dry.Mint washed ready for the dehydrator after drying.Pineapple sage.MintTop of dehydrator.Side view dehydrator.
One of my UPS went out (has a flaky controller) and then overloaded my other UPS’ for my servers and took down my NAS storage I use iSCSI with, the ProLiant BL460c Gen8 blade servers I run the virtual environment of XCP-ng on as well as my ProLiant BL460c G7 I run my music from before streaming over my virtual relay music servers in XCP-ng.
For the UPS with the issue I unplugged it from the wall and disconnected from internal battery sources, put on battery support then plug in the internal connections to wall power to get it out of it’s seized up condition. I then plugged that problem UPS back into one of my dedicated 20amp circuits. After that my C7000 blade chassis had power to bring up all of my blade servers I use.
The chassis shows some warnings etc but when you have to scavenge and use the firmware versions available without contract that’s what you get sometimes. It has all been working splendidly for several years now. I will be soon moving off it back to individual rack mount servers soon though for power and performance especially now that I can readily get 10gb NICS and have several 10gbe switches in my environment outside of my c7000 chassis.
I also had to go into the bios of my SuperMicro NAS server and switch to a mirror boot device for it to come up. I will have to try to re-mirror that again in FreeNAS. Yes I have not yet gone up to TrueNAS but I’m planning on it real soon. Then I will up the capacity with new drives as well. This configuration lasted me almost five years.
Since the systems were down I decided to perform updates of the OS on my virtual web server running Rocky 9 and my music relay server running Fedora 41. I updated my W2019 Datacenter server as well but that required no boot and its running bare metal on one of my ProLiant BL460c G7 blade servers.
Servers are up and communicating with each other now to deliver my sites to the internet so I will continue to listen to my music from Snakeice’s House of Beats and fall off to sleep. I had a nice set started and was a couple of hours into it but I still have some setup for the next few hours then its on the scripts.
This is how the backyard gardens are looking currently.
Variety of roses, snap cone and marigolds flowers.Yellow roses, snap cone, snap dragon flowers.Red roses, asylums in front of east vegetable garden, check the squash, pineapple sage most visible.East vegetable garden.West vegetable garden.Closeups beefeater tomatoes and peppers.Red roses, marigolds, asylums, snaps with my veggies in the background. Basil, chives, oregano, mint, lemon grass, tarragon etc.White roses and cone flowers with struggling snap dragon.White roses foreground and marigolds in background along with red roses, asylums west vegetable garden.Cucumbers.Mint harvested.Mints from garden vacuum sealed until I can dry them.
I updated my internet facing sites here at dhoytt.com.
I updated my Web Server to the latest security OS Rocky 9.6 patches along with taking PHP to a version that gets proper security updates and are compatible with my WordPress themes and plugins. I then updated the plugins and themes as well as taking WordPress to its latest version and then updated all my network sites on WordPress..
In parallel I also updated my music relay servers for IceCast and ShoutCast which run on Fedora Linux 41 currently and my server they connect to that I use for my streaming application that on Windows 2019 currently.
All these integrated systems are up running and interacting together after these updates as they had been before but hopefully more responsive and secure.
Need to do more pickling to not waste so many cucumbers from my garden. I wait too long sometimes to include in salads, which leads to waste.
For this batch of pickling from the garden I included habanero, Anaheim peppers and basil along with garlic cloves from the store. Put the mixture in balsamic vinegar , salt, pepper and into a container.
I’ll try a different mixture for the next batch this was spur of the moment and I ended up immediately using some of the pickled cucumbers on a tri tip sandwich which was delicious.
The tri tip I cooked Monday.
Pickled cucumbers.Pickled cucumbers, avocado, tomato, basil on tri tip sandwich.Tri tip on the grill starting to smoke at 225.Searing off tri tip on gas grill in cast iron skillet.Tri tip was nice and tender at 138 after searing. Let rest for about 30 minutes.Tri tip salad from garden mostly and sweet potato.Tacos with tri tip basil from garden and avocado.
Gardens getting a bit out of control with weeds and certain plants crowding others out so cleaned them up.
Took a few hours plus but it needed to be done even though it reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit today. Started about 9:30 in the morning and finished about 1:30 in the afternoon.
Dipped the pool for a while right afterwards before heading to the stores and running errands.
Now the items I want to get nutrients and grow will not have as much competition plus will not be overshadowed by the overgrowth.
I also planted some corn I started from seed and replanted a pole bean plant I accidentally dug up from the east vegetable garden. The bean plant came from the 3 sisters plants bundle of beans, squash and corn from east garden. Then moved it to the west vegetable garden.
Beginning of this morning west vegetable garden.East side of the garden beginning of this morning.West side vegetable garden after today’s cleanup.East side of vegetable garden after cleanup.Tomatoes PeppersEggplant Japanese eggplant Chives and basilZucchini squash Yellow squash Cucumber Marigolds and rosesYellow roses Red roses and asylum flowers .White roses waiting to bid again.Red roses, marigolds and asylum flowers. Chives, cilantro and basil in background.
My main Linux workstation started having serious errors pointing to memory issues but then even after I thought I had clearly rectified the memory issues both the boot disk and data disk started complaining about issues and the system was dragging. I built this system back in the end of 2020 to the beginning of 2021.
A few days ago I had updated the Fedora Linux OS with the procedure listed at this URL https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/upgrading-fedora-offline/ to go from Fedora 41 to Fedora 42 successfully. I have used this procedure many times going from Fedora 37 onward on my workstation and some VMs so I don’t think that was an issue.
Since so many components were complaining I checked the power supply. I didn’t feel like tearing down one of my legacy workstations and taking the power supply out of that for a test as I wanted to keep them whole to sell or pass on to a deserving soul, so I purchased a new 1050 Watt power supply.
The IPMI logs had some generic power supply warnings that I think were more related to not turning on an item in the bios than actual hard errors. Replacing the power supply I did notice that there was an issue with the 8 pin cable going to my XFX AMD Radeon™ RX 580 graphics card with one pin clearly out of the socket but that wouldn’t have caused the issues I was seeing.
The disk errors persisted when I replaced the power supply and though the IPMI log power supply general error persisted a couple of sensor readings did go from red to green and this is in the VCCM area that controls the voltage to the memory. I noticed this sensor go red when I had the faulty memory in there as well, which I shall remember from here on out and I never considered as a troubleshooting step or indicator. Pays to look up those settings if you don’t know them.
IPMI voltage readings for RAM in ASROCK x299/WS IPMI motherboard.
I blew out all of my RAM slots PCIE slots, fans etc. with canned air, I even had to alcohol wipe down a stick of RAM because I had two indicating they had issues. One stick of RAM came back good after that but the other remained failed.
Now feeling I had successfully concluded the bad RAM issue. I tackled the hard drive problems. Switching and reseating the slots cables etc. did take away the errors on my data drive which is of course my “/home” but not the errors on my boot drive. Switching back to the original PCIE slot the same issue persisted with my boot drive.
I didn’t see any fresh errors from the SMART disk utility and the SCSI sense errors seemed to clear but it appears that there’s still some block errors fsck didn’t fix. I could boot into live Workstation Fedora 42 media mount and perform an fsck of /root to fix those block errors but I haven’t been feeling well and the reboots take forever since I have my SAS HBA controller that takes while to boot as it interacts and makes itself available to the motherboards bios and I have to constantly go into the bios or hit F11, flip over the PC etc.
Since this is the weekend I can’t order a SAS 15k 12gps HDD to match my existing boot drive so I picked up a SATA SSD for my boot drive temporarily. The way I build my personal systems the last 30 years is separate boot and data drives and with Linux it makes it simple to upgrade the OS.
I just need to install whatever version of Linux I have, mount that to the boot disk I have /root, /boot and swap (optional these days) make sure I use the same user name etc., update fstab and I’m up and running with all my configs once I login with that user name. I also copy that data to my NAS systems so in case of emergency I can restore from there. Then I make sure I install the same packages and if I need to modify and files in /etc I have copies of them most of the time somewhere on my data drive.
The other issue I had is that my other workstation a Windows 10 system kept having issues burning the Linux ISOs/DVDs with either Rufus or Balena Etcher utilities. I even tried the DD option with Rufus which is at the block level but that didn’t work either.
I wanted to burn a version of the Fedora 42 server onto USB instead of the workstatiion flavor of Fedora because the workstation installer didn’t let you select the filsesystem type, they just defaulted to btrfs filesytem and I wanted to use EXT4 and LVM. I like the idea behind btrfs and will play with it later.
I ended up installing Workstation to the SSD drive booted from there and installed Balena Etcher and then created a USB Fedora 42 installation boot USB. Then reinstalled with the server version.
After installing Fedora 42 Server version to the SSD and mounting my data /home drive I installed my usual SW packages, made sure desktops and desktop switchers worked and I was back in business. Took a little too much time as I had to go to the store to get my SSD and power supply plus each boot was like 10 plus minutes, reconfiguring the power cables, plus I had to install some new RGB case fans on the bottom . This is where my penchant for redundancy comes in as I had duplicate AsiaHorse Matrix 360 fans to swap in.
Next I’ll mount and fsck my 15K SAS boot drive at some point when I have time. Could be a while since I have a lot of projects and fires in the works right now! Then I’ll determine if I need to order another drive. Sometime this year I had intended to up my NAS capacity and upgrade the NAS utility SW as well. I get more issues with my workstations that may be a project as well but with inflation and tariffs I will need to be diligent and keep and eye on prices and do my research on motherboards, CPUS and drives and possibly HBAs.
Rufus USB image burner utility.Linux WorkstationLinux workstation
Linux workstation specs just in case you’re interested:
Case:
LIAN LI O11 Dynamic XL ROG case
Pwer Supply:
Thermaltake 1050 Watt Toughpower GF A3 power supply
Graphics:
AMD Radeon RX580 8gb
Motherboard:
ASROCK x299/WS IPMI motherboard
Memory
Corsair VENGEANCE® LPX 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz C16 Memory Kit
I just integrated my Reolink doorbell camera into Zoneminder and it was easy once I knew where the proper settings were to enable an rtsp stream on the Reolink.
I specifically went with Reolink Video Doorbell WiFi https://reolink.com/product/reolink-video-doorbell-wifi plugged into a CyberPower UPS along with the Reolink chime in case of power outages. With the UPS I could bypass the battery Reolink doorbell camera which seemed to do away with the physical network option if I wanted it.
I switched to the Reolink doorbell after my longtime Ring doorbell camera started glitching with false positives during sunny moments. I wouldn’t mind switching back to Ring if the hardware allowed you to access the stream and integrate with 3rd party CCTV software because it seems they have the remedy for the sun issues with their recent cameras.
There may be a way to integrate with Ring doorbell cameras and Zoneminder that just isn’t readily apparent to me. Even after switching to Reolink doorbell camera after I heard it was compatible with Zoneminder no one had clear definitive steps! Searching around after I picked up the Reolink I thought I had made a mistake. I couldn’t find steps to integrate the Reolink doorbell camera with Zoneminder.
Reolink themselves said Zoneminder (can’t find the page now) was compatible with their doorbell camera but was unclear about how to integrate the two. Every post I found after searching the web devolved into talking about Reolink non-doorbell cameras. Even the Zoneminder Wiki just showed the Reolink IP cameras.
This site https://www.rushworth.us/lisa/?p=10211 did alert me to the fact that there was an option to enable the the RTSP stream on the Reolink though I had to search for the location since they didn’t give the steps of how to get there from the Apps home page. I now notice more discussion in Reolink’s forums as well so make sure to check those out.
I could not find a guide on the Reolink apps options that would have pointed out these other options from the company.
The steps are simple to add Reolink doorbell camera if you already have Zoneminder and Reolink with the mobile app running. I will not go into setting up Zoneminder or Reolink.
First in the Reolink mobile app (IOS) go, Home -> Device Name (should say “Device Info” at the top) -> Network Information- > Advanced -> takes you to the following screen where you select RTSP
After selecting RTSP I tested the stream in VLC rtsp://<user-name>:<password>@<ip.adress>
user-name = user name in Reolink app
password = password in Reolink app
ip-address you can get from Device info in Reolink App
Test in VLC Media -> Open Network Streams -> enter rtsp://<user-name>:<password>@<ip.adress>.
Takes a number of seconds to come up and then voila
Partial Reolink Image taken from VLC.
Now take that same URL rtsp://<user-name>:<password>@<ip.adress> and input it into Zoneminder’s source path with your other options you use with your other Zoneminder camera feeds.
Zoneminders Console https://<zoneminder_url>/zm/index.php?view=console -> Add -> Name (Reolink doorbell or whatever you wish) -> Source (enter in Reolink doorbell URL) rtsp://<user-name>:<password>@<ip.adress>. All the other settings are at your discretion, I used the settings I setup for my other feeds.
Summer is progressing and posting some pics of the flower and vegetable gardens .
Note that the experiment of the 3 sisters planting of corn, beans and squash is thriving.
My annual calla lilies are popping big in the front flower gardens. My dahlia replanted bulbs I separated from being clustered some are popping up at varied rates. I had counted 40 bulbs I separated initially. The large cluster of dahlia bulbs were also on the general area of the calla lilies so moving that cluster helped the lilies and the dahlias it appears.
The new comers of alyssum, lavender, lobelia and mini red rose flowers are coming along. The same for the new backyard flower beds.
Tomatoes doing good along with the various herbs like basil sweet ,Thai and purple. Greek oregano, chamomile, dill, tarragon and the surprising nice and flavorful pineapple sage are doing great. Parsley, lemon grass, chives, lavender I planted with the vegetables are thriving as well, along with the huge rosemary bushes I need to trim back. The cilantro isn’t thriving.
As I mentioned the corn is thriving in the 3 sisters configuration. The “peaches and cream “ corn variety are much further along than the jubilee variety showing full husks with silk out the top. The pole beans are long and growing while the squash blooms look good.
Broccoli and cabbage don’t look well and only one sunflower plant came up from some old seeds I had. I may grow some in pots and replant. I see no okra from seeds.
Tomatoes are looking good red husky cherry, yellow pear I have been using are going well. The beef steak, celebrity, parks wonder are producing fruit. Granny Cantrell heirloom tomatoes looks good.
Swiss chard always grows well, the tomatillos are really taking off!
Eggplants are in that state they get when they will soon start producing, the cucumbers, peas are doing well and starting growing spurts. Trying my hand with watermelons again but that doesn’t normally work well for me.
Replanted asparagus for the first time since I inadvertently dug them up years ago. They are growing though I planted later than I wanted so we will see.
The peppers have started producing with the Santa Fe, Fresno, poblano, mammoth jalapeños, Thai dragon leading the way. The bell peppers Anaheim look steady. The reapers from last year don’t show signs of growth.
I don’t see any signs my carrots coming up from old seeds.
Raspberry and grape vines are growin like mad with lots of grape clusters showing already.
All in all another good year of gardening! Also my grass strips look so good! Glad I never went with artificial turf like I started to do!
Cherry tomatoes, basil and Swiss chard I made into taco toppings.Front flower beds.Front flower bed showing calla lilies.New this year backyard flower gardens.Backyard flower garden near west vegetable garden.Grass strip and another new this year flower bed in backyard.Cluster grapes on grape vine.West vegetable garden.East vegetable garden.Three sisters part of garden of pole beans, jubilee corn, peaches and cream corn and squash with peas mixed in.
