---
title: How I Built Cygnus
date: '2024-10-14'
lastmod: '2024-11-26'
tags: ['cygnus', 'self-hosted', 'server']
draft: false
summary: A story of how I started self-hosting.
---

<TOCInline toc={props.toc} asDisclosure toHeading={3} />

>   ####  Now that I think about it, they kind of took advantage of me

### Side work for Aunt Laurie
![Saw Blade](https://www.kakaindustrial.com/cdn/shop/articles/KakaIndustrialLLC-278201-Different-Types-Saws-Blogbanner1.jpg?v=1710260765&width=1000)
The first piece of hardware I ever owned was given to me by my dear Aunt. At the time she had worked for a company that sold industrial saw blades, and she was frequently fixing their IT issues despite being an accountant. To this day it still infuriates me how much they took advantage of her. Now that I think about it, they kind of took advantage of me too. You see I had worked for Geek Squad at the time and looking back at it, I realize how little I knew then. While I know there is always more to learn in the industry, you learn pretty quickly is that your time is valuable, and that not everyone views IT work as "easy" and "no big deal". If they had invited an IT consultant to do the 3 hours of work I did, the bill easily would have been hundreds of dollars. These days, I don't charge by the hour, I charge by the job. This way, I can work quickly and not get penalized for it.

She asked me in to help take a look at a virus infecting some computers at the office. This virus was mean; one of those that would keep creating itself until you found the source process. I don't really think it was a self-replicating [worm-type](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_worm) virus because it didn't spread to all the computers in the network, just a few. It was more like one of those click-a-link-in-an-email-that-you-shouldn't-have types. No, Harbor freights doesn't have a gift card for you. What is free, is the headache it takes to find the dang source. I was able to find it only because I suggested an antivirus I liked: Webroot. It was one of the most performant and reliable anti-viruses I have ever seen. After convincing my aunt to buy it, I whipped up a batch file to install the application and register it all in one go. Now that I think about it, that's probably when I really started to enjoy writing code/scripting. After using the script, Webroot immediately found the source process and resource usage went back to normal. 

"Would you like a server?"

"A what?" I respond confused (I was expecting money). She starts walking to the networking closet where I see an old dell tower sitting on the floor. At first, I think it's just a desktop, but after looking at the label closely, I realize it's actually a server in desktop form. She was offering me a [Dell T110](https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Shared-Content_data-Sheets_Documents/en/T110-SpecSheet.pdf) equipped with a quad-core Xeon processor(Intel Server CPU) and 4 bays for hard drives. Hard drives included.

"Oh Sweet! Thanks Auntie Lar!"

Despite not being paid like a professional, this was sufficient compensation. While it wasn't the most powerful server on the market, it definitely would do anything I ask. This left just one question...

###  A way to watch movies
> What should I ask it to do?

![Dell T110 Server](https://i.dell.com/das/dih.ashx/500x500/das/xa_____/global-site-design%20WEB/1bff82d3-cb9c-8eee-ff1c-0eacc05c69dd/1/OriginalJPG?id=Dell/Product_Images/Dell_Enterprise_Products/Enterprise_Systems/PowerEdge/PowerEdge_T110II/relative_size/server-poweredge-t110-II-right-relativesize-500-cropped.psd)
_Dell T110 Server_


The computer sits in my room for months. Every glance in its direction, I ask my self: "What should I ask it to do?". A month or two later, I am lounging in the living room with my parents watching OTA TV. My father just did a scan of channels and while we are flipping through the channels we come across The Fresh Prince of Bel Air reruns. We couldn't get enough. I was so happy. You see, you couldn't find those reruns on OTA in San Antonio; And we just happened to be getting a channel from Austin! This goes on for a couple of days then one day, the floor just gets pull from underneath our feet. We were no longer getting signal! I have my answer to the question now. I am going to download The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and watch it off my server. After installing Windows Sever 2012 Edition, I install Plex. I happily download The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and ironically, to this day I haven't watched all the episodes. I still have all the files though.

###  Learning virtualization
"So what do you like to do with your free time?"

"I love watching movies! I have a Plex server. I also like to play Video Games like League of Legends and Overwatch." I smile as I respond to my future Manager.

"That's cool, I have one too. Well alright, we are going to give you a technical interview now. Here's the packet. You have an hour."
[GlobalSCAPE office](https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x865c66b4a81e869b%3A0x43fa6342ae196013!3m1!7e115!4s%2Fmaps%2Fplace%2Fglobalscape%2Boffice%2Bsan%2Bantonio%2F%4029.5870434%2C-98.5723876%2C3a%2C75y%2C272.84h%2C90t%2Fdata%3D*213m4*211e1*213m2*211s_-NCMpFUBxQjzfAExNE2dA*212e0*214m2*213m1*211s0x865c66b4a81e869b%3A0x43fa6342ae196013%3Fsa%3DX%26ved%3D2ahUKEwj0lbWns_mJAxWIJNAFHf4eLhsQpx96BAhOEAA!5sglobalscape%20office%20san%20antonio%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e2!2s_-NCMpFUBxQjzfAExNE2dA&cr=le_a7&hl=en&ved=1t%3A206134&ictx=111)
I would say the interview went well. After all, I got the job. This was my first "Corporate Job". The exposure really required me to teach my self on the side. Using [VMWare ESXi](https://www.vmware.com/products/cloud-infrastructure/esxi-and-esx) was very easy. Their bare metal hypervisor came with networking, storage management etc. and was reasonably intuitive.

Downloading and setting up Linux virtual machines with each application was challenging yet rewarding. Setting up servers manually and then installing the applications was an involved process; One that likely set the groundwork for understanding the use case of containers. Being RHEL certified did afford me a large degree of appreciation for Linux. I would combine these later to make managing my home lab much, much easier. But, hey, you live and you learn. In this case I learned that I was demanding too much of my little Dell T100 server. I would need to build it bigger. After all, I was already at home.

###  Building from scratch
eBay, is a great website. You can find anything from car parts to an ice tea maker. They also sell things from China. Did you know you could buy server parts from eBay? I built a dual processor server. Guess how much each processor was? 5 bucks. And the RAM(Memory)? 7. Just to put that in perspective, *new* processors are *hundreds* of dollars, sometimes even thousands. eBay enabled me build an affordable home lab server. It was great while it lasted.....

###  15 amp circuit breakers
![breaker](https://preview.redd.it/mncg0t1iu3iz.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=093eb8b8ee58e94042b7590f12d15d719163ad9d)
Did you know, in America, there are two typical types of circuits run in residential rooms? Me either! For example, your bedroom likely has several outlets however in most cases they all are sharing the same power connection or circuit. These circuits have a maximum amount of power they can safely pull before the safety switch or circuit breaker will "trip". I learned this the hard way. You see, I lived my grandparents at the time and my grandfather needed the house warmer to stay healthy and in a good mood. So my grandmother and I never raised the temperature. But since we live in Texas, I needed something to cool down my room. I was in the middle of an Overwatch gaming session and all of a sudden the pc shuts off. I knew instantly the circuit breaker tripped because the AC shutoff too. Therefore, I ran over to the circuit panel, slapped the breaker on and ran right back to my game. Booted the PC and get back in game as quickly as possible. Trips again. Turn it back on. I repeat this business another time before I give up. A gaming PC, a couple of servers and an air conditioner draw a lot of power. When all three are running on the same circuit, it can cause it to trip. I find out later the circuit in my room is a 15 amp breaker, instead of a 20! At least I know now. I go to watch a movie on Plex and I notice Plex isn't loading. I walk over to the servers and power them on. The Dell T100 works just fine. My custom server, won't turn on! Panic sets in.

###  Troubleshooting insanity
What on God's green earth is going on? The server's fans are spinning, but I am not getting any video output. I open the case and start checking the CPU fans. They're spinning... but the monitor doesn't have any video output. Restart after restart: Nada. Order more parts from China and wait. Discover the motherboard is bad, order another. Still can't figure it out. My best guess is my server was so messed up, I kept shorting parts when mixing good and bad. Things kept breaking as I was troubleshooting. Sometimes, the only solution is to start new.

###   The Need to Concede
![I quit](https://i.giphy.com/qKKhLmjFRMfxWBnRli.webp)

This is taking too much time. 

Time to order newer, stronger parts off the internet! This is how Cygnus was born. Cygnus means swan in [Latinized Greek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_(constellation)). In some ways, this server, which is serving this website, is my swan song. It enables me to be a part of the internet and share my voice among a [billion](https://www.digitalsilk.com/digital-trends/how-many-websites-are-there/#:~:text=Although%20the%20internet%20has%20already,infected%20with%20malware%20in%202022.) of other websites.

###  Light at the end of the tunnel
Fast forward to today. My current server has a 64 core processor with 128 GB of RAM. I mostly run docker containers with a few VMs. I have two servers. The little dell server is still running strong providing network and backup type services. Some of the pictures you see on this site are served from it. My home lab has enabled me to learn so much without additional schooling. If I didn't do this, I would have never pushed my make my own python applications in docker containers. If I hadn't done that I would have never been able to move into a developer role.