ten: coming soon
eight is getting on up in years, and its performance just isn't what I need. Its operating system is unsupported and becoming obsolete. I'm also cheating death on a 8-year-old SSD. Why ten instead of nine? Hint: 10th Gen, 10 cores.... See also: eleven, coming eventually.
hpmicro: 2013-present
Firewall box. HP ProLiant MicroServer N54L. AMD dual-core 2.1GHz, 2GB RAM, Intel 82574L Gigabit Network Connection. Runs CentOS 6 with custom iptables rules.
eight: 2013-present
Newest x86 workstation.
AMD FX-8350 Vishera 4.0GHz 8-core CPU,
32GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series DDR3 RAM,
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 motherboard,
Intel 520 Cherryville 180GB SSD SATA drive,
ASUS 24x SATA DVD burner,
EVGA GeForce GT 630 1GB GTX 950 2GB PCI-X video card,
Intel PWLA8391GT 10/100/1000 network card,
SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W power supply,
Cooler Master HAF 922 ATX mid-tower case,
dual Dell 24" 1920x1280 monitors.
Runs CentOS 6. Named after its number of cores, because I couldn't think of
anything better and just wanted to get the thing built and installed. Also happened to be approximately my eighth personal machine.
obsidian: 2004-2013
Intel PC. Hyperthreading 3.0-GHz Pentium-IV Prescott CPU, 1GB RAM, Sony DVD-RW, two Seagate Barracuda 80GB SATA drives in RAID-1 on a 3Ware Escalade controller, a Seagate 750GB SATA drive, WD 250GB and 320GB and Seagate 400GB ATA drives, NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT dual-DVI AGP video card, on-board 10/100/1000 ethernet, on-board ATI Radeon 9100 IGP video (not used), on-board ADI AD1888 SoundMAX 6-channel audio. Runs CentOS 4 Linux, serving as my primary workstation, multimedia and home directory storage. The name came from a thesaurus, where I was looking up synonyms for "black", since the tower (Antec), monitor (Viewsonic VP-191b 19" LCD), keyboard (Keytronic knockoff of a type-M), mouse (Logitech MX-310), and speakers (Logitech X-530 5.1 surround) are all black. Retired in favor of a new build
work laptop: 2010-2015
IBM Lenovo Thinkpad T61. Can't remember the specs off the top of my head. Most things disabled. Runs some version of Windows, thus no proper hostname, or proper anything else. Not mine.
gfdi: 2005
VA Linux Full-On 2x2 server. 2x800MHz Pentium III, 1GB RAM. Ran this in a co-lo for a little while, but it kept killing SCSI drives.
guinness: 2004-2009
Intel PC. 2.8-GHz Pentium-IV, 1GB RAM, no-name CD-RW, two Maxtor 80GB IDE drives in software RAID-1. Asus motherboard, on-board video, sound, and ethernet. Runs CentOS 4, serving as my primary workstation at the office. Named after the beer.
meddle
HP Pavilion laptop. Dual-core 2.1-GHz AMD Turion, 3GB RAM, DVD-RW, 160GB SATA hard drive. Runs OpenSuSE 10.3. Tough to get anything installed on this thing.
meddle
Toshiba Satellite laptop, 2-GHz Intel Celeron Mobile, 512MB RAM, CD-ROM, 30GB hard drive. Netgear WAG-511 wireless ethernet card. Runs CentOS 4. Retired due to hard drive failure.
colostomybag
HP Omnibook laptop. 700-MHz P-III CPU, 256MB RAM, CD-ROM, 20GB hard drive. Netgear WAG-511 wireless ethernet card. Runs CentOS 4, served as my mobile hacking station. Named after the joy I took in carrying it around everywhere and all the crap that's stored in it. Relegated to datacenter duty due to its shot battery.
linmiri
Compaq Evo mini-desktop. 2-GHz P-IV CPU, 512MB RAM, CD-RW, 6GB hard drive. Running CentOS 5 as an iptables firewall/NAT box.
acadie
Sun clone. 360-MHz UltraSPARC-IIi-Engine CPU, 1GB of RAM, two 9GB SCSI disks, SunSwift PCI (SCSI and 100-base-T ethernet), attached to a 12-bay Multipack with several 36GB and 18GB drives. Runs Solaris 8. Has three ethernet interfaces running in failover, provides caching DNS service for the local network, and provides backup file storage. Named after Daniel Lanois' first solo album. Not dead, awaiting next assignment.
ligotage
Sun Ultra-I. 143-MHz UltraSPARC CPU, 128MB of RAM, two 9GB SCSI disks, on-board sound and 10-base-T ethernet. Runs Solaris 8. Serves as a test platform for me to try different Solaris installations and configurations. Named after a track from Nils Petter Molvær's album "Solid Ether." Not dead, awaiting next assignment.
eraser
x86 PC. 400-MHz AMD-K6 CPU, 128MB of RAM, 40GB IDE disk, matched Intel EtherPro 100-Base-T ethernet cards. Runs Fedora Core 2, running PPPOE for my old roommate's ADSL connection. Provides stateful firewalling, traffic shaping, and NAT for the internal network. Named after a Nine Inch Nails track from "The Downward Spiral."
mezzanine
Intel PC. 166-MHz Pentium CPU. Named after the album by Massive Attack. This machine passed away in November of 2003, after many months of reliable service as a firewall machine, but lives on in spirit as a pile of spare parts for its successor, eraser.
lemon
Intel PC. 166-MHz Pentium, 64MB RAM, various IDE drives. Serves as my x86 test platform for trying different operating systems, installation methods, and configurations. Named for no particular reason after the loveably cheezy U2 song from the "Zooropa" album. Got turned into parts for the firewall.
palladio: 2000-2003
Gateway laptop. Work-issued machine. Ran Mandrake Linux.
linmiri: 1998-2007
Intel PC. 350-MHz Pentium-II CPU, 640MB RAM, Plextor SCSI CD-R, Maxtor 9GB IDE drive, NetGear 10/100 ethernet, NVIDIA GeForce 2 GTS video, Yamaha OPL-3 sound. My first PC, which my mom helped me pay for way back when I was a very poor lad. The name comes from an Aphex Twin (as Caustic Window) track, "The Garden of Linmiri." Served for over 5 years as my primary workstation, multimedia and home directory storage. Retired in January 2005 with the on-board SCSI controller going bad. Revived summer of 2007 to be a firewall. Retired again a few months later due to motherboard hardware flaking out.
Ancillary hardware
Cisco SG-300-10 10/100/1000 gigabit switch
Linksys SD-205 5-port 10/100 switch
Archer C7 dual-band gigabit wireless access point
Linksys WRT54G wireless access point
APC Back-UPS XS 1500G
APC Back-UPS RS-1500MS
Motorola Arris Surfboard SB-6141 cable modem
Motorola SB-5101 cable modem
Machine names
My machines pretty much all have musical references for hostnames. Previous naming schemes include the popular "planets", and in fact there still is a mars running in a faraway place. When I lived in the remote hills of Oak Ridge, TN, they all had hillbilly references: cletus, chitlins, cementpond, hayseed, hoedown, moonshine, and teethbrush.
Gear Porn From 2003:
Pic 3, front angle, lights off
From the top of the rack down:
- Sun 12-bay Multipack, attached to acadie
- Infinitemess, James' SparcStation 10
- Ligotage, my Ultra-1
- Cisco Catalyst 1900 switch for the 10-base-T devices
- Baystack 350T switch for the 100-base-T devices
- KVM switch (2 red lights)
- Speedstream DSL bridge (4 green lights)
- Livingston PM-2 Portmaster
- eraser, the house firewall (formerly Infinity)
- u-238, James' Sun 360
- acadie, my Sun 360
- The Big Ass APC UPS that powers all this crap
Vector and the old eraser are the two mid-towers on the floor to the left of the rack.
My stuff as it ran in the closet of my old apartment in Dallas: acadie, ligotage, mezzanine, portmaster, multipack, Bay switch, and SDSL bridge.
