It doesn’t really work like that. The ‘VA’ rating is the actual wattage of the UPS. When they give you a lower wattage, they’re using some guess at the average power factor of devices you’ll be connecting to it.
Before the 80plus program, power factor on computer PSUs was pretty awful. These days power factor is much better, and the difference between the ‘VA’ and ‘W’ rating can be small. It’s best to check the real numbers by hooking-up a meter like the Kill-a-watt that reports both W & VA and will tell you the real numbers.
All my systems are unified on rocky. This would be amazing automation. I could more easily keep stuff secure.
Plus i still need to deploy bind and the ansible recipe is not exactly the clearest but ill figure that out. I have a good bit of homelab back log on my todo.
This would basically help me automate configuring all systems to:
turn down unnecessary logging and logs are automatically purged after 7-10 days
I want to deploy my own dedicated VPN (but need a service provider that doesnt mind torrenting)
Ansible seems the easiest way to deploy everything with open stacks
i could finally deploy a proper landing page that details how to make some of the infrastructure including listing out all of my stuff, guides on making similar setups, published configurations for each thing i feel like
Authenticated encryption for all of our services
Finally unify across all machines a policy to enforce strong cipher configurations for all of our services (SSH, TLS, etc.) with only modern AEAD ciphers providing forward secrecy
Finally push nginx headers for each service to forbid any third party content and entirely forbid it via strict Content Security Policy headers
I can disable referrer headers to maximize privacy though not sure how realistic this is needed. Its just cool.
I seriously need to enable cross origin isolation and disable embedding in other content if i deploy a wiki. There are so many new http security headers that are actually useful but difficult to figure out without downright breaking out a dissertation
once i deploy bind i can fully deploy DNSSEC implemented for my domain to provide a root of trust for encryption and authentication for DNS. I seriously consider this a baseline minimum people should have. I wish it was less esoteric.
Setup a proper email server. Im tired of not having one
Setup DANE TLSA records for pinning keys for all our TLS services
Then make the mail server enforce DNSSEC/DANE to provide authenticated encryption when sending mail including alert messages back to me.
SSHFP for pinning SSH keys on my domain (have to figure this one out per port)
My current certificate for web services enforces OCSP stapling with Must-Staple but i could make sure every service is using it via ansible
FINALLY push a cookie policy onto services that forces no persistent cookies or similar client-side state for anything other than login sessions, which I can finally set up securely using SameSite=Strict, Secure, HttpOnly, and Path=/ flags, prefixed with __Host
I have it all on the back log but what i realized is that I could do this with ansible in one central spot couldnt I? And automate fixes or at least make them far easier to push?
The other thing thats been taking up my time is my season extreme sports. But spring and early summer brings a good break so ill have more time
I think it would be a fun excercise
NOW IF ONLY pfsense could support me configuring it with ansible and particularly SNORT.
I really like the idea of being much much more automated
Anything you can do on the system, you can automate with Ansible but also with Salt or whatever else. Pick one of these tasks and break it down into manageable parts and begin to work on it. If you want to use Ansible, I can help you. If you want to use Salt, maybe @anon75264233 can help you. But no one can help you with all of those things at once. Slow but steady wins the race.
Today I finally made a business case to start moving away from Openstack for just running simple infra VMs to XCP-ng.
I was also tasked with creating a “Virtual SCIF using VDI” for running high risk software that even the CTO is not comfortable with in our DC, so I proposed the XCP-ng insanity I did two years ago and is still running but with XOA Enterprise.
Basically employee logs into XOA with LDAP, XOA is connected to the host via VPN, pfSense fully isolating the VMs, ACL gives the employee permission to only touch the stranger danger VM’s virtual console and they can do the work without the risk of something coming crawling back through the VPN tunnel.
CTO and our cloud specialist loves the setup because I demoed it working and it being battle hardened by ingesting 100GB+ of traffic monthly and it surviving a DDoS attack. Everyone else in management just don’t like the cost.
I’m upgrading the secondary site with 4x shiny new Dell PowerEdge R6525 with AMD EPYCs to replace 30x AMD Bulldozer desktop nodes and saving shitton on electricity bill, replacing a dying desktop (it’s a 3rd desktop that it lives on now) acting as a pfSense router with a refurbished Dell PowerEdge R240, getting a 3k VA UPS to the rack and a TrueNAS R20 server with 80TB of raw spinning rust shipped yesterday.
Then I’m finally getting an MDM solution put in place, we just had a demo of VMWare Workspace ONE demoed today and CTO loves it, also I forced everyone in the company to cough up their laptop’s serial number and got asset management working in ServiceNow. Oh and also annual security awareness training.
Oh and I have closed several pages of high risk issues on our last year’s security audit report by just unceremoniously shooting our last windows server in our infra in the head an hour ago
I’d do more but my body keeps insisting on crumbling down every two weeks like a jenga tower
Hello all.
Thank you to the OP for making the original post.
I feel isolated from the IT world as I don’t know any IRL people who do are where I want to be or make me excited about computers the way Wendel and the LVL1 team does when I watch them. it doesn’t help with my want to become a network admin. I just completed a CCNA course at the local university and am looking for employment opportunities in the NYC area.
I’m interested in working for an ISP or data-center and have my eyes on several places that I would bend over backwards to work for. I’ve maintained and learned about Linux systems for over seven years. I worked at the help-desk for three years and worked as the wire (pulling cables) guys for even more before that.
I feel like there is this chasm where on the entry level side everything is either setting up laptops for school or hospital systems with Windows or chrome books and the most senior positions that pay $150k and require a scroll like list of Devops skills I can’t hold a candle too. I am someone who’s worked enough to know the first few layers of many products and services but not enough to specialize in any one.
I’m finding it difficult to get my foot in the door. I would love to make friends and talk to people who are interested in the same things I am.
Don’t discount in-person networking for one. If there are any local professional societies or clubs that focus on IT then try participating to meet people. Since you are in NY I have to imagine there is something for you to get involved in.
If you want a SysAdmin job then a CCNA is nice but you should be focusing less on networking certs and more on Microsoft/Linux admin certs.
Gov jobs have the “fairest” hiring process so I would hit up all your nearby city/county/state/federal organizations and see what jobs are available. It is a good place to get your foot in the door.
Until you can find a paying job, some time with a non-profit can look good on your resume and help you start to gain the experience you didn’t know you needed.
A CCNA is a start, but only says you know the basics. CCNP and above certification levels will help get you hired. But of course there, almost every company has non-Cisco gear, too, so work experience in a heterogynous environment is a skill to develop.
There aren’t that many Junior level positions available, so you’ve got to be patient, and certainly expect rather low pay when you find one, as the experience you’ll get will be worth more to you than your work will be to the company for a couple years at least.
The symbol was a symbol of peace and friendship that the Nazis co-opted. Kind of how congress critters pass bills with misleading names that do the exact opposite.
