LinuxTek Canada

Building an Ubuntu 21.10 vSphere template using Hashicorp Packer

January 1, 2022January 1, 2022Jason Paul

Quick Link – Github Project Introduction When deploying new VMs on a public cloud platform such as AWS or GCP, the base OS is typically available as a pre-built image,…Continue readingBuilding an Ubuntu 21.10 vSphere template using Hashicorp Packer

Coding Server Administration

Building a Kubernetes Cluster on VMware vSphere using Infrastructure as Code

January 1, 2022January 1, 2022Jason Paul

As part of my professional development, I want to become more familiar with Kubernetes. I’ve used Docker for a while in a minimal fashion in my homelab, but only recently…Continue readingBuilding a Kubernetes Cluster on VMware vSphere using Infrastructure as Code

Server Administration

Migrating ESXi installs from USB to SSD

December 26, 2021December 26, 2021Jason Paul

Introduction Currently the homelab is running on 3 Dell PowerEdge servers (two R630, one R730XD). These are all running VMware vSphere (ESXi) 7.0U2d to support a number of virutal machines.…Continue readingMigrating ESXi installs from USB to SSD

Minecraft Server Administration

Minecraft servers updated to patch zero-day vulnerability

December 10, 2021Jason Paul

In response to a published vulnerability in the Apache Log4j Java-based logging library used by Minecraft, Mojang today released Minecraft Java Edition 1.18.1. The vulnerability is documented under CVE-2021-44228 and…Continue readingMinecraft servers updated to patch zero-day vulnerability

Minecraft

Minecraft Vanilla Upgraded to 1.18

December 2, 2021Jason Paul

By request of the players, I’ve upgraded the current install on the Vanilla server to 1.18. We will continue with the current world spawn until 1.19, at which point, we…Continue readingMinecraft Vanilla Upgraded to 1.18

Coding

Setting up a Linux environment with VirtualBox and Visual Studio Code

November 25, 2021November 25, 2021Jason Paul

Introduction Recently, I’ve been doing more of my coding in Visual Studio Code, rather than using vim in a terminal. I found it tedious having to switch between multiple terminal…Continue readingSetting up a Linux environment with VirtualBox and Visual Studio Code

Google Cloud Minecraft Server Administration

How to migrate a Minecraft server from VMware vSphere to Google Cloud

July 17, 2021July 17, 2021Jason Paul

I’ve been running the Minecraft 1.17 Caves & Cliffs server for about a month now, and we typically have 5-10 active players on per night. Everyone is pretty busy in-game,…Continue readingHow to migrate a Minecraft server from VMware vSphere to Google Cloud

Minecraft

Importing a house into Minecraft using a structure block

July 8, 2021Jason Paul

The age old… question? To challenge this, we have a pleasant Savannah House for you to download and import into your Minecraft world. Here is the file: This house was…Continue readingImporting a house into Minecraft using a structure block

Server Administration

Daemonizing and World Backups – Improved!

June 14, 2021June 14, 2021Jason Paul

Since my previous post on this subject, I’ve refreshed both of the Minecraft servers and made them directly accessible with the appropriate client. As part of the refresh to Minecraft…Continue readingDaemonizing and World Backups – Improved!

Minecraft

Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons 1.45 is Live!

June 14, 2021June 14, 2021Jason Paul

With the 1.17 server rework, I took the opportunity to refresh the modded Minecraft server to Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons version 1.45. This server is running on Minecraft 1.12 with…Continue readingRoguelike Adventures and Dungeons 1.45 is Live!

Minecraft

Minecraft 1.17 Server Up!

June 9, 2021August 23, 2022Jason Paul

It’s finally here! Minecraft 1.17 – Caves & Cliffs Part 1 released on June 8, 2021. As mentioned in my previous post, we’ve quickly rerolled the server to a new…Continue readingMinecraft 1.17 Server Up!

Minecraft

Minecraft 1.16 – That’s a Wrap!

June 9, 2021August 23, 2022Jason Paul

Minecraft 1.17 – Caves and Cliffs Part 1 was released on June 8, 2021. Our world on 1.16 had largely been explored in the Overworld, Nether and The End. We…Continue readingMinecraft 1.16 – That’s a Wrap!

Google Cloud

Google Cloud Bill – October 2020

November 3, 2020November 3, 2020Jason Paul

October was a busy month. We had a lot of new players join, and we did what we could to optimize the server hosted on Google Cloud to keep up…Continue readingGoogle Cloud Bill – October 2020

Minecraft

LinuxTek Minecraft Modded Server Access Instructions

October 23, 2020June 13, 2021Jason Paul

The Minecraft Forge Server is in beta testing phase, and you are invited to participate! The server is running the Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons modpack, which is a collection of…Continue readingLinuxTek Minecraft Modded Server Access Instructions

Minecraft Server Administration

New LinuxTek Minecraft Hosted Servers

October 23, 2020October 23, 2020Jason Paul

Since setting up the original Minecraft server on Google Cloud Platform, I’ve been constantly trying to find ways to lower the monthly cost. A 10 user Minecraft Realms server can…Continue readingNew LinuxTek Minecraft Hosted Servers

Server Administration

New On-Premise Server

October 23, 2020October 23, 2020Jason Paul

For the last few years, I’ve been running many of my on-premise services in VMWare ESXi virtual machines. Since around 2013, I’ve been using an AMD FX-8350 processor, 16-24GB RAM…Continue readingNew On-Premise Server

Google Cloud

GCP Cloud Function: Turn On/Off Compute Engine instance

October 2, 2020October 2, 2020Jason Paul

As part of the plan to be able to automatically shut down the Minecraft server during work/sleep hours when nobody is on, I needed a way for the players to…Continue readingGCP Cloud Function: Turn On/Off Compute Engine instance

Minecraft

Dynmap Plugin Added

October 1, 2020October 2, 2020Jason Paul

Yesterday I added the Dynmap-3.1-beta4 plugin to the server. This is the first version of Dynmap to support Minecraft and PaperMC 1.16.3. This plugin allows you to generate a map…Continue readingDynmap Plugin Added

Google Cloud

Google Cloud Bill – September 2020

October 1, 2020October 2, 2020Jason Paul

September is the first full month we’ve been running the Minecraft server on Google Cloud, and the first chance to see what it would cost in total. It was a…Continue readingGoogle Cloud Bill – September 2020

Server Administration

Daemonizing and World Backups

September 29, 2020September 29, 2020Jason Paul

After reviewing multiple documents about setting up Minecraft, including the Google Cloud guide, and the A Cloud Guru series I previously mentioned, I tweaked my system to start Minecraft as…Continue readingDaemonizing and World Backups