Projects on Nico Maas

RAK3172T in Arduino

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 13:00:09 +0000

Updated on 2024-12-01 with latest fixes of STM32LoRaWAN v0.3.0

As the RAK11300 did not really match my requirements (it uses way too much energy), I looked further and found the RAK3172 which is based on an STM32WLE5CCU6 - an STM32 chip which usually include good powersaving modes. As with the RAK11300, I did not want to go down the Wisblock way and designed my own breakout board:

Turing Pi 2 - Retrofitting an EMC2301 Fancontroller

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 19:39:50 +0000

The Turing Pi 2 (v.2.4) has actually some secrets that just start to get uncovered. Looking closely at the board, you will find the red marked area with what seems to be an unpopulated 4-pin fan header (J16) and an unpopulated IC spot (U109).

These spots were, as found out by Sam Edwards (CFSworks) actually a place to install Molex 47053-1000 4-pin fan connector and a Microchip EMC2301 fan controller. It is not clear why they were left out of the production model, probably for cost savings, but without that the Turing Pi 2 lost a nice smooth fan controller. However, thanks to Sam Edwards work, the chip is now supported by the Turing Pi 2 BMC, so that after retrofitting, this will just work out of the box!

Install a bootloader onto Turing RK1 eMMC memory

Fri, 13 Sep 2024 16:45:45 +0000

The Turing RK1 is a new Compute Module, made for the Turing Pi 2 board and with compability to the Nvidia Jetson cards in mind. While the board has some impressive specs ( https://docs.turingpi.com/docs/turing-rk1-specs-and-io-ports ) it had one small issue: The used Rockchip RK3588 needed a bootloader on its eMMC to be able to boot from an attached NVMe drive. As no isolated bootloader was available, most people flashed a whole OS onto the eMMC - just to be able to use the attched NVMe drive. This process can take quite a while via the Turing Pi 2 board ( e.g. 60 - 90 minutes: https://docs.turingpi.com/docs/turing-rk1-flashing-os ) it was never a good option.

Getting LoRaWAN working with STM32WL55 and Radiolib

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 17:24:03 +0000

Elektor was looking for some ideas regarding their STM32 Design Contest - and so I thought, why not putting the excellent work of the guys behind the RadioLib to good use and getting this board working in LoRaWAN (and it was easier than I thought :)):
https://www.elektormagazine.com/labs/getting-lorawan-working-with-stm32wl55-and-radiolib

Repairing a Turing Pi 2

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 17:56:27 +0000

Intro

In April 2023 I finally got my Turing Pi 2 - happy to finally got it into my hands I plugged it in, headed over to the Turing Pi 2 Github ( https://github.com/turing-machines/BMC-Firmware ) got myself the latest BMC firmware and started to flash it. Thats when things got wrong: The power supply coils started to screech - and seconds later I was greeted with blue smoke and a dead Turing Pi 2. The firmware update actually flashed the board into a paper weight.

Building a MLX90640 Thermal Camera

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 00:15:38 +0000

Intro

Thermal Cameras are neat tools, especially in electronics: You can quickly diagnose short circuits, identify misbehaving components or quantify if subsystems get too hot. However, thermal cameras are still a luxury item which can quickly costs hunderds of euros. Sometimes - however - you do not need the accurarcy of a FLIR or similar system, somtimes its just enough to see which part of a PCB is heating up quicker than others. Enter MLX90640: A 32x24 pixel sensor in two different FoVs, exposing its data via i2c. These sensors can be had on different websites for as low as 25 euros during sale.

RAK11300 - Getting it to work with Arduino-Pico and RadioLib!

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 16:08:49 +0000

Intro

About a year ago I got some RAK11300 modules - which are a nice combination of an RP2040 alongside a SX1262 radio on one module - designed a breakout board - tested it - and quickly shelved it. Reason was that this module was somewhat Arduino compliant - as stated - however only with RAKwireless Arduino mbedOS Repo. Alongside of it being a bit… hacked together, it had the issue of not supporting any low power modes for the RP2040 - making it run on both cores at full tilt and consuming batteries in no time. Not the best thing for a portable/battery powered sensor system, I guess?

RT-Thread IoT-Contest 2023 with NXP i.MX RT1060 - CCSDS-TM-FSM

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 22:35:14 +0000

I just released my latest project, a CCSDS reassembler running on an NXP i.MX RT1060 in RT-Thread OS. You can find it on Github: https://github.com/nmaas87/CCSDS-TM-FSM

RT-Thread IoT-Contest 2023 with NXP i.MX RT1060 - Getting started

Tue, 30 May 2023 18:44:24 +0000

The folks over at RT-Thread decided to make a IOT-Contest using hardware from different vendors and their RT-Thread OS. I was luckily enough to get chosen for a networking project with the NXP i.MX RT1060 EVKB, so I decided to document my journey first getting started with RT-Thread. Here we go! 🙂

Getting started

First of all, its important to know that there are two version of the MIMXRT1060 - the EVK and the EVKB. The EVK seems to be an older version which also includes a Camera sensor module, the EVKB version the recent one. RT-Threads example on Github is for the EVK version, which means things like User LED blinking does not work out of the box, but we will take care of this later.

100 Euro External 13,5'' / 2256x1504 Display with 2x Mini HDMI Input

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:40:00 +0000

Working with telemetry, scientific data, programming, writing papers or just casually hacking the Gibson requires one thing: A lot of screen real estate. To allow for that “bit of extra space”, I built myself an external 13,5’’ / 2256x1504 display. It comes with 2x Mini HDMI Inputs and is powered over USB.

Add icons to Jetpack Social Menu

Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:39:10 +0000

I have been looking around the net quite a lot to find a solution on how to add icons to the “social menu” in wordpress:

At first I thought this menu was a feature of the theme I am using, Independent Publisher 2. I only found a Github repo for the version 1 theme - tried all the hacks there - and finally found out that version 2 was bought by WordPress.com and customized. So all the hacks available for version 1 did not even work. Bummer.

USB C power for the Nvidia Jetson Nano 4 GB dev board

Mon, 17 Oct 2022 08:00:00 +0000

The best way to power a Jetson Nano 4 GB dev board is by using a center positive, 5 V and at least 4 A barrel connector type power adapter. However, these are often bulky and not the best travel companion - while USB C power bricks are becoming more common and the relevant USB C sockets are getting build into nearly every device (maybe yours too, Apple?).

So I set out to build a USB C power adapter for the Jetson board.

labSentinel 2

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 09:35:01 +0000

About nearly a year ago, I wrote the labSentinel project for my Nvidia Jetson AI Specialist certification. The basic idea of the project is to be able to supervise old Lab Equipment which does not poses any kind of log output or interface other than a graphical user interface, running on an Windows 3.11 / 95 / NT - maybe even XP system.

I solved this issue by using a video grabber attached to a Jetson Nano and “out-of-band” grabbing the screen output of the experiment computer. I then learned good and bad system states via Nvidias Inference tools and finally got the system to report via MQTT as soon as something did go wrong.

WD My Cloud Mirror Gen2 with Debian 11 and Linux Kernel 5.15 LTS

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 18:05:32 +0000

Intro

Since 2017 I have been using an Western Digital My Cloud Mirror Gen 2 which I bought at Amazons Black Friday (or similar) - because the included 2x 8 TB WD Red were even cheaper with the NAS than standalone. Using the NAS had been quite ok, especially the included Docker Engine and Plex Support were a nice to have, the included Backdoor in older Versions - not so much. Recently WD had their new “My Cloud OS 5” replace the old My Cloud OS 3 - and made things worse for a lot of people. As I don’t want any more surprises - and more control over my hardware - I decided to finally go down the road and get Debian 11 with an LTS (5.15) Kernel running on the hardware. This is how it went.

gpsTime

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 20:05:33 +0000

I think there is nothing more pleasing than having extremely precise measurements at your fingertips. Like time. While in the past it was quite problematic to measure time accurately (not talking about sundials, but… why not? ;)) - mankind has created one precise time source as the byproduct (read: “waste”) for usage in accurate navigation: GNSS and their different kinds like GPS, Glonass, Galileo, BaiDou and others.

Taping into this time source and providing it to your local computer network via NTP has been done by countless people and is an extreme rewarding task. Is it necessary? Maybe not. Is it really cool? Yes. And now it is even easier as you don’t need to configure it yourself, but can use the balenaHub and the preconfigured gpsTime project.

BeagleLogic

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 09:00:46 +0000

To get your Beaglebone Black (BBB) to work as an Logic Analyzer, you can use BeagleLogic:

1.) Download latest version of BeagleLogic

https://beaglelogic.readthedocs.io/en/latest/beaglelogic_system_image.html
Released on 2017-07-13
sha256sum = be67e3b8a21c054cd6dcae7c50e9e518492d5d1ddaa83619878afeffe59c99bd
https://goo.gl/RiXGBs

2.) Burn it onto sdcard with Etcher

3.) Put SDCard into BeagleBone Black

4.) Hold “Boot” Button, plug in BBB with Mini USB Cable to your PC

5.) After 10 seconds or so, release “Boot” Button (this will just boot from SDcard with this trick)

Rogue One: My first field pentesting

Mon, 18 Dec 2017 19:34:57 +0000

Earlier that year, very - earlier - I had one technician of an international company calling me for some advice. She/He had a problem with the local networking staff and their “modus operandi” regarding network security. The company had a big assembly line and very powerful, automated machinery - which made the leaky security all the more troublesome. My job was to exploit one of those security holes and show - as clearly and easily as possible - said problems - so that they were getting finally fixed.

Odroid U3 Kernel Upgrade + Docker

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 19:00:27 +0000

I wrote this back in January 2017. Since then I had not much time to work on the Odroid - however, user hexdump did just came up with a new repo, supporting the Odroid U3 with Kernel 5.4.x - you can find the overview over his awesome work here and the repo with complete releases (i.e. Ubuntu Bionic or Debian Buster i.e. odroid_u3-armv7l-debian.img.gz) here

I am using an trusty old Odroid U3 which I acquired years ago. With its SAMSUNG Exynos 4412 Cortex-A9 Quad Core 1,7 Ghz, 1MB L2 cache and 2 GB of RAM, this little puppy was an real beast - compared to the Raspberry Pi 1 at that time. However, Hardkernel did drop the support - again, which left the Users back with very old Kernel versions. However, thanks to some users and the fact that all needed support for the Exynos is now included in the current kernel - well, we can build our own. This write up is the distilled result of days of work and a lot of research - and the work of other people which I found on the net (which I will try to give proper credits at the right locations :)).

Restoring an Apple //c / 2c and Monitor

Sat, 31 Dec 2016 15:30:12 +0000

Normally, I tend to work on freelance projects in the Art sector, i.e. for exhibitions (like seen here) or props for different cosplays / costumes. Another job I am really into, is the repair of different electronics and computer related things at the RepairCafé in Trier, which I do on a voluntarily base / for free. However, this time a friend approached me to do a commission work / repair an old computer he found - and wanted to see working again :). So, I ended up doing just that.

Nexus 4 Upgrade to CM 14.1 / Android 7.1 Nougat + Updates

Fri, 02 Dec 2016 20:20:57 +0000

[UPDATED 10.12.2016]
A little bit problematic, but… works in the end.

Warning: Bleeding Edge!
Will bootloop, you’ll need to format your phone, it will break eggs, pcs, glass and burn down your house.
Comes with no support what-so-ever from my side.
You have been warned!**

1.) Get all the files

CM: https://download.cyanogenmod.org/?device=mako
- Latest version was: https://download.cyanogenmod.org/get/jenkins/187896/cm-14.1-20161202-NIGHTLY-mako.zip
GAPPS: http://opengapps.org/ (ARM, 7.1 GAPPS, Picco Version)
TWRP: https://twrp.me/devices/lgnexus4.html
- Download from: https://dl.twrp.me/mako

2.) Flash TWRP

[Ubuntu / Proxmox] Hosting NFSv3 Server on Ubuntu for Proxmox Server

Thu, 24 Nov 2016 15:24:36 +0000

So, yesterday evening y0sh came to me with following problem: “I got an real nice proxmox server with loads of CPU and RAM - and nearly no storage left. And I got an small little Atom Server with loads of Storage - but not very useful as VM Host - and yes, they are within the same network”. Ok, so: Lets create an NFSv3 Server on the Atom system and mount it as disk storage within Proxmox 🙂

[Art] real-time operator

Mon, 08 Feb 2016 10:46:23 +0000

real-time operator was an project of Melanie Windl, an artist from the University of Mainz, Germany on which I helped as technical advisor and programmer. The idea of the project was to live-record sounds from the staircase of the Tokyo Wondersite and replay them using different filters on multiple ballons (using exciters). The project was realised using three Raspberry Pi, Modell B+, some USB Soundcards and PureData. You can find more about the project here: https://atelier-windl.com/portfolio/real-time-operator-2/

[RPi] The cheapest Raspberry Pi Cluster Ever Made

Sat, 26 Dec 2015 20:13:03 +0000

As soon as the Pi Zero came out, I started on thinking about Clusters again. I wanted to create an big - but at the same time, cheap cluster.
Yes, an Pi Zero is not nearly as fast, as an RPi 2. And yes, there are some problems with this idea - especially about the fact, that the Pi Zero is not as common as an - say - RPi Modell B v. 2.0 - but - as this is more about science and trying to just “do it” - I tried it anyway.

[Art] Suomalainen Äänimaisema

Thu, 02 Apr 2015 09:39:09 +0000

Suomalainen Äänimaisema was an project of Melanie Windl, an artist from the University of Mainz, Germany on which I helped as technical advisor and programmer. The idea of the project was to field-record several sounds and music of Finland, load them onto some Raspberry Pis and let them play, as soon as a person came close enough to the object. The project was realised using three Raspberry Pi, Modell B+, some PIR sensors and USB Soundcards. You can find more about the project here: https://atelier-windl.com/portfolio/suomalainen-aanimaisema-2/

[RaspPi] HDMIPi Repair and VGA Upgrade

Fri, 27 Feb 2015 10:31:04 +0000

Sadly, some weeks ago, the Micro USB Port of my HDMIPi broke.
I wrote an letter to Alex Eames, which is quite known for HDMIPi, RasPi.TV and his lattest Kickstarter Project the RasPiO Duino.
Alex is an awesome guy and gave me his blessings to try to repair that problem myself.
With some flux, a fine solder tip and soem patience, you can get that repaired in no time.
After succeeding, I created some strain-relief by using two-component epoxy resin to glue it down a bit. Highly recommended!

[RaspiPi] RF24 Radio Link between 2 Raspberry Pis

Fri, 26 Dec 2014 16:30:14 +0000

Hi there,

awesome coder TMRh20 did write some cool librarys for the widely used RF24 radio modules.
These tiny things work with SPI and thanks to TMRh20s work, you can use them quite easily to connect two RPis.
You can find his/her Github on https://github.com/TMRh20, as well as a lot of good documentation on his/her blog http://tmrh20.blogspot.de/ and github.io http://tmrh20.github.io/

To make it short and connect to RPis, this is my reciepe, worked out with TMRh20 - Thanks a lot!

[PiAndMore] Where Is My Pi Presentation

Sat, 28 Jun 2014 07:30:38 +0000

Here is my presentation to the Where Is My Pi project @ PiAndMore 5 (Trier, 28.06.2014)

wmp_PiAndMore.pdf (0,7 MB, PDF)

The Github project can be found and forked here: https://github.com/nmaas87/whereismypi

[RaspPi] Raspberry Pi and the ili9341 Display

Sun, 27 Apr 2014 15:14:36 +0000

Raspberry Pi - Bad Apple on ili9341 Display

1.) Enable SPI

# remove or comment out the spi blacklist line  
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf

2.) Install
a) FBTFT drivers as loadable modules

sudo REPO_URI=https://github.com/notro/rpi-firmware rpi-update  
sudo shutdown -r now

b) FBTFT drivers built into the kernel proper

sudo REPO_URI=https://github.com/notro/rpi-firmware BRANCH=builtin rpi-update  
sudo shutdown -r now

3.) Install the frame buffer driver (as root):

apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-fbdev

4.) Configure frame buffer driver:

sudo vi /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-fbdev.conf  
Section "Device"  
Identifier "myfb"  
Driver "fbdev"  
Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"  
EndSection

5.) add Autostart:
( the gpios= Pins need to be changed to YOUR specification and connection! )
sudo vi /etc/modules

elektor Live 2013

Sat, 12 Oct 2013 07:15:18 +0000

You can find my slides from the elektor Live 2013, Raspberry Pi 101 Workshop here: elektor_RPi_2013_Maas.pdf [ 6,1 MB ]

The handout or “cheat-sheet” can be downloaded here: elektor_RPi_2013_Maas_Cheat_Sheet.pdf [ 0,4 MB ]

… and finally, you find the Sourcecode of the Sample Projects here: elektor_RPi_2013_Maas_Sourcecode.zip [ 0,03 MB ]

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

elektor Expert Meeting 2013

Fri, 11 Oct 2013 10:05:55 +0000

You can find my slides of the elektor Expert Meeting 2013 here: elektor_ER2013_Maas.pdf [1,2 MB]

Also, you can find my presentation to the sun//well (RPi, MSP430 and ATTiny85) project here as well as the video (PiAndMore 3 - sun//well Project) to that presentation.

[PiAndMore] sun//well Presentation

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:21:52 +0000

Here is my presentation to the sun//well project @ PiAndMore 3 (Trier, 15.06.2013)

sunwell_PiAndMore.pdf (2,2 MB, PDF)

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

[PiAndMore] Videos online

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 07:18:31 +0000

All the presentations and videos are now online: https://sites.google.com/site/piandmore/downloads/zweites-treffen

IPv6 Primer \ Presentation

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:37:17 +0000

Following my work on IPv6/Dualstack EIGRP Routing on c3560 I did create an IPv6 Primer / Presentation for my staff and other technical interessted people. So if you are interessted in an little insight to my work and IPv6, feel free to download this file (German, about 1 MB): IPv6, Nico Maas (2012) PDF

HTC Universal

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:00:53 +0000

I found a “bricked” HTC Universal without - everything.
So I decided to piece it back together.
First thing to find was an USB Cable to recharge the battery.
Working is an normal Mini USB Cable, even tough the connector looks different.

After that, I found out that the HTC was a brick.
So to unbrick:

get mtty1.42.exe, enter bootloader mode , (Power + Light Bulb + Reset)

Stop Activesync USB connection
Uni : Reboot Bootloader then Connect USB
PC : Run mtty1.42.exe
Choose USB in “Port” (Reconnect if can’t find/reconglize USB and try remove sim and sd card)
type : task 28 55aa
Press Enter
Cause DOC reformatted, so there’s no rom in DOC ,try reflash any rom that you like .

For task 28 55aa in mtty success , will show the message (attachment )

Cisco PIX 506e Software Upgrade

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:49:48 +0000

Following the Hardware Upgrade, the Software needs to be renewed, too!
The latest PIX OS running on the 506e would be 6.3.5.125.
You can upgrade to that and use the pdm to configure the Device.
Or… you can go to ASA!
As described here ( http://www.rownet.co.uk/installing-v7-software-on-a-cisco-pix-506e/ ) you can do that quite easily.

But in short:

Boot into Pix
Start downloading an pdm file with copy tftp://Your_TFTP_Server_IP_Address/Your_pdmfile_name flash:pdm and disconnect the ethernet cable!
After disconnecting, the PIX will erase the pdm from your pix, clearing the flash space for pdm
clear flashfs
reload your PIX into Monitor Mode / RMON
activate your interface (interface 0 is E0, interface 1 E1)
enter ip addr of tftp server ( server ), filename ( tftp ), ip addr of your pix ( address ) and start downloading to pix
It will boot from tftp into ASA
Copy ASA Image: copy tftp://Your_TFTP_Server_IP_Address/pix712.bin flash:
Reload

Done, you got ASA.
No ASDM / PDM anymore, because not enough space, but ASA ^^

Cisco PIX 506e Hardware Upgrade

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 09:00:27 +0000

The Cisco PIX Series has been “the” well known and powerful firewall appliance of the last decade - and for some people, this decade ain’t over yet.
Cisco has released the successor “ASA” some years ago, but many people still got a PIX running.
Reasons are simple: The PIX Series has an Appliance for every problem and is rock solid.
My personal experience with that Firewall Series started with a “burned out” PIX 520 (that one is getting its own entry soon ^^).
After that, I got more into Security by doing my CCNA Security studies.
While doing the CCNAS I also bought the smallest PIX, the PIX 501 from Ebay for 70€ or so.
Sometime later, I discovered an dead PIX 506e in my Office - and I just couldn’t help myself and started taking it apart.

[pRoToTyPe] iGPS-M Pro USB to Serial

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:22:42 +0000

As I wanted an better GPS Mouse for the pRoToTyPe, I did buy an iGPS M Pro USB Mouse ( http://www.transystem.com.tw/products/index_detail.php?mcat_no=2&cat_no=32&pno=10&ver=en ). I was certain that I could resolder it to Serial and use it on the Fonera Router. And thats how I did it: I did open up the Case, which was very easy, just unsnap it. You will find an socket were 4 wires do run out: Black (GND), Red (5V+), White (USB Data) and Green (USB Data) - I did cut these Wires and soldered them to an 8 Wire Cable. From the other 4 left Wires I did use only two: Under the Metal Shielding of the Mouse you will find an TX and an RX Solder Point - these are RS232 Connection Points. I did just pry open a bit of the shielding to run two wires into it, soldered it onto the points and did close the casing again. On the other end of the cable, I did solder on an RS232 Connector, Female. I did use the pRoToTyPe scheme with Phantom Power for that. Additionally, I did wire up Power and Ground a second Time to an USB Connector as well as the USB Datalines. So I have one RS232 Socket and one USB Connector and can use the Mouse for both occasions.

[pRoToTyPe] LaFonera OpenWRT/Kismet/GPS/SD-Mod

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:26:54 +0000

So, here is the Documentation of the Project that I have been working on the past Months. I called it “Prototype” for no other reason as not having another name ^^’. But actually its just an plain and simple Kismet Server running on an LaFonera 2100 and using GPS for Positing and Time aswell as an SD Card for the Log Files. So… there were many things to do on that project, so that thing will get quite a bit longer and get some pics.

[Jasager] Fon/Fon+ Newbie Guide to Installlation of Jasager 1.0 Firmware

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:58:56 +0000

Pre Info:
This guide has been made with an Fon+ (2201), but should work with any other
Fonera Classic as well. Only limitation is that I have Problems with my
Jasager in Terms of SSIDs, there seems to be a Problem which hasn’t been
addressed by Digininja, but the Rest should work.
(Problem described here: http://hak5.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=13883 )

This guide should be quite useful and has been written by using guides and
stuff from this Forum, I just wrote it together and added my own experiances.
Maybe that will turn out as a good starting point and help some newbies.

[Eee901] Create an Backtrack 3 Eee901 Usb Stick

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:53:21 +0000

There are dozend Situations in which Backtrack 3 comes in handy.
Backtrack 3 is an special Linux Suite of Security Auditing Tools which allow i.e. WEP Cracking, Network Security Checking, Sniffing, and so on.
To make this nice Suite a bit more portable, we will put it onto an Usb Stick and customize it with Eee901 Drivers, persistent Changes and Nessus 4!

Download:
Backtrack 3 USB Version: http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack_download.html
unetbootin Windows: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net
Partiton Tool, like partedmagic: http://partedmagic.com
Eee901 Pack: 901_net_gfx.lzm (you’ll find it in google)
Nessus 4.0.2: http://www.nessus.org/download/
( We need the 4.0.2 as Nessus-4.0.2-linux-generic32.tar.gz and the Graphical Linux Interface for nessusd NessusClient-4.0.2-es4.i386.rpm )
And you should help yourself to an free personal key under http://www.nessus.org/plugins/?view=register-info

Install SunRay Server Software 4.1 on Ubuntu JeOS Server 9.04 i386 (running under ESXi 4.0)

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:47:51 +0000

Hi Guys,

this Guide did cost me a lot of nerves and time, but its finally complete!
The most of this stuff is ripped from this nearly perfect guide.
But problem is, I did had some difficulties setting it up and got into serious troubles about dhcp (not working), dpkg (screwed up totaly) and other nasty things.
In the end I did this installation about 4 times, but now its working, and guess what? I did do complete notes! And I’m going to share these with you! ^^.

Netfinity 8500R "DragonMother" (23.08.2008)

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:32:58 +0000

DragonMother is the latest addition to my little PC farm.

Its an IBM Netfinity 8500R X-Series Server.

At the moment it contains 2 Pentium III Xeon 700 Mhz Processors and 2 GB of 100 Mhz ECC Sdram.

Additionally it makes use of an IBM ServeRaid (SCSI) and an Fastrak Promise Ultra 100 (IDE) Controller to support multiple Harddisk Drives and an 3Com 10/100 XT Fast Ethernet Card.

It is powered by 3 redundant, hotplugable Power Supply Units - but acutally I use only one ( I don’t need redundance at the moment, so I only use one for less power consumption).

Blutdrache 01 Version 1.0 (26.11.2005)

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:15:16 +0000

One year after the Hilfsdrache Project, I wanted to build an new server.

While an traineeship at an IT Systems firm, I got an 19’’ Inch Rackpiece with (about 3 HE) - so I wanted to use that as “Case” for that project.

That server here should be different from the Hilfsdrache in serval points.

First, it should run an specialized linux distribution called “Eisfair” (www.eisfair.org) - which had been created to work as secure and easily configurable server system.

Hilfsdrache 01 Version 1.2 (18.07.2004)

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:37:28 +0000

On 18.07.2004, the third Version of the Hilfsdrache was finalized.

The CPU Cooler was replaced through an selfbuild Watercooling System.

The coolant radiator used was from an Ford or Opel Automobile. The other parts were an small 12 Volt pump, and selfbuild copper water cooling unit for the CPU, and an water tank (made out of an plastic tube with cover).

To get an better airflow through the main 120 mm fan, the back of the Server got 2 coverplates with holes and - for better optic - an lighted perspex plate like the one I made in large for the mousepad.

Hilfsdrache 01 Version 1.1 (24.05.2004)

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:58:01 +0000

Over 5 Months later, I did update the Design.

The Server worked flawlessly so far, but there was space for some additions.

First I did mod the MiniATX Powersupply and build in an Switch to put the Powersupply Fan into 12 Volt (Fast and Loud) or 7 Volt (Slow and Silent - but enough throughput) Mode. From that on, the server was a LOT more silent.

Also, the HDD Cage connection to the ground of the Case was damped by screwing it through a thumbsize layer of rubber. That helped.

Hilfsdrache 01 Version 1 (31.12.2003)

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:33:25 +0000

Hilfsdrache01 should be my first standalone server for Lan Partys and such.

As for that reason, I decided to do a bit more than “only” build up the pc and get it running: I tried to built the pc into an big attache case. The benefits were clearly: An easily transportable pc with an solid and small case.

Because I didn’t have much space, I used MiniATX components for this project.

The Dragon Mousepad

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:09:08 +0000

So, in 2003 / 04 I weren’t only working on the “Hilfsdrache”, but also on an special Mousepad.

That Mousepad was created out of perspex, an aluminium rail and serval ultra-bright blue leds and an usb connector.

To really make that pad special and “one of a kind”, I created an carving with an Dremel Multitool into the upper one of the two perspex layers.

The light of the leds is shining directly into the uper layer and is broken on the positions, where the material is carved.