Tips & Tricks Archives

Tips & Tricks

Expanding Homelab Subnet Using VyOS

Posted by: Ameen in Tips & Tricks Leave a comment

I switched my internet service provider a while ago. The router that I have received from my new provider came with no option to change the LAN subnet addressing or prefix. Being stuck with a /24 prefix for both personal devices and homelab needs was a hard pill to swallow. Although I have never actually gotten to a point where I utilized an entire /24 subnet before. The reason was that labs were already set up with a larger and different subnet on my older connection. Plus, having a large prefix gives more flexibility in how things can be segmented. Unfortunately, changing the firmware to something like DD-WRT was not an option, either. Therefore, I had to rely on a virtual router in order to expand my local network.

I chose VyOS, an open source router, to do this. It is really lightweight and simple to configure, and it fits my use case exactly how I wanted it to. I deployed it on my oVirt cluster, with the following setup in mind:

As displayed above, I would like that my VMs in prefix (172.20.20.0/20) are able to reach internet or any other service available in the main LAN (10.0.1.0/24). Therefore, I’m going to let VyOS act as the NAT Gateway for those VMs. Read More »

25Jan

OSX: Fix tilde/accent key on Velocifire TKL71WS Keyboard

Posted by: Ameen in Tips & Tricks Leave a comment

I recently got the Velocifire TKL71WS Wireless Keyboard for my daily use. I like it a lot thus far – although battery life could be a little bit better, still under testing with different illumination profiles -, but it overall does the job for me.

The only caveat that I had with it is that it is missing a dedicate tilde/accent key (~/`). To use them, you have to hold the Function key (2nd key to the right side of space bar) and press Escape. That is quite a finger-twister and I found myself struggling with it a lot. Also, that is the method to write the Arabic character “ذ” which is also inconvenient.

Karabiner-Elements: Read More »

27Aug

Syncing FileZilla SiteManager via Dropbox

Posted by: Ameen in Operating Systems, Tips & Tricks 5 Comments

There’s a great chance that you, just like me, are working from multiple devices regularly. Although not optimal, sometimes you have to edit files over ftp/sftp – especially when working with web servers – or to sync files back and forth. Therefore, you need to have saved sessions with you at all times.

FileZilla is a very popular cross-platform tool used to manage FTP sessions. While it offers a session management feature called Site Manager, I have to point out before going any further:

Site Manager does not store your session passwords in an encrypted format! The developer seems to be convinced that you just shouldn’t leave your PC open, and if you’re hacked then.. oh well.

That being said, here’s how you can sync your Site Manager information between your devices. Read More »