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[1387.92 --> 1391.28] It's just performing OpenShift HomeLab duties for me.
[1391.86 --> 1396.12] And I put it into a case where fan control was a bit of an issue.
[1396.42 --> 1400.84] And so I mentioned in the previous episode about a fan controller,
[1400.84 --> 1406.56] the Corsair Commander Pro that is usable on Linux now.
[1406.80 --> 1415.06] But one of the things I wanted to do was actually get a feel for how the CPU temperatures were in that system over time,
[1415.06 --> 1416.80] because I've got a couple of hard drives in there.
[1417.44 --> 1421.16] And, you know, if things are getting toasty, hard drives tend to die pretty quickly.
[1421.40 --> 1429.50] So what I wanted to do was monitor that VMware vCenter instance with Prometheus and have it alert me if there was a problem.
[1429.84 --> 1430.06] Nice.
[1430.06 --> 1433.10] I ended up using this thing called VMware Exporter.
[1434.16 --> 1437.46] And there's a link to the Docker Compose snippet in the show notes.
[1438.38 --> 1447.00] And this thing, basically what it does is it logs into vSphere's API every pre-prescribed interval.
[1447.12 --> 1449.26] I think I've got it set to like 15 seconds or something.
[1450.04 --> 1453.94] Scrapes a bunch of data available through the vCenter API,
[1454.46 --> 1457.44] which includes stuff at the host level like CPU temperature,
[1457.44 --> 1462.58] but also includes the IPMI data like the voltages and all that kind of stuff.
[1462.64 --> 1466.08] So it's pretty granular and pretty detailed if you want to know that stuff.
[1466.08 --> 1469.70] And then it imports it into the Prometheus real-time database.
[1469.70 --> 1475.64] And from there, once it's in Prometheus, I can query it using Grafana or whatever else I want to.
[1476.34 --> 1481.90] And I use a container called Priorder, I think is how you say it.
[1482.02 --> 1483.52] Priorder VMware Exporter.
[1484.22 --> 1486.76] Super simple little Python app and just does the job.
[1486.76 --> 1489.74] What kind of hardware utilization, I guess, is what I'm asking.
[1489.94 --> 1493.28] So if I have a system, I have an existing Xeon box here at the studio.
[1493.90 --> 1497.40] It's probably about 30% utilized CPU-wise and memory-wise.
[1497.92 --> 1499.36] Do I need something more powerful?
[1499.48 --> 1501.62] Do I have enough headroom for running these kinds of services?
[1502.04 --> 1504.16] Prometheus itself is pretty lightweight.
[1504.90 --> 1508.94] You know, with any real-time metrics gathering system like this,
[1509.02 --> 1512.34] we'll probably want to put it on some kind of a flash-based storage media.
[1512.34 --> 1517.56] So, you know, you'll need a few gigabytes scratch disk for that to use.
[1517.80 --> 1521.76] But then once you've done that, you need to create what are called scrape jobs,
[1522.02 --> 1525.14] which is how you tell Prometheus what to look for
[1525.14 --> 1528.56] and what to kind of gather in terms of metrics on remote systems.
[1529.08 --> 1533.70] You configure that in my favorite language of them all in a YAML file.
[1534.46 --> 1538.42] And once you've done that with Priorder, you kind of set it, forget it,
[1538.46 --> 1540.36] and never worry about it ever again.
[1540.36 --> 1542.46] And then how long does it collect for? Forever?
[1543.30 --> 1544.44] How long do you do it for?
[1545.02 --> 1546.28] I haven't really worried about it.
[1546.38 --> 1546.98] I just sort of...
[1546.98 --> 1547.32] Forever!
[1547.80 --> 1549.16] Keep them forever, yeah.
[1549.24 --> 1551.88] I mean, I guess if you're in an enterprise situation
[1551.88 --> 1556.14] where you're scraping 10,000 servers, that might be an issue, but I'm not, so...
[1556.14 --> 1558.28] Yeah, so maybe not a big deal.
[1558.40 --> 1560.06] You could be. That'd be kind of fun, wouldn't it?
[1560.10 --> 1561.68] Go back 10 years and look at stuff.
[1562.42 --> 1562.78] Oh!
[1563.38 --> 1565.72] Well, I mean, look, this is how these big guys do it.
[1565.72 --> 1570.38] I mean, Kubernetes clusters the world over are monitored by Prometheus.
[1570.94 --> 1574.38] OpenShift actually ships a bunch of stuff with Prometheus built in.
[1574.56 --> 1578.28] So this is one of those technologies that if you're thinking about getting into DevOps
[1578.28 --> 1582.08] and that kind of space of, you know, site reliability engineering,
[1582.80 --> 1586.48] these are the sorts of tools that you should be mucking about within your home lab
[1586.48 --> 1588.94] and trying to figure out how they work and understand them
[1588.94 --> 1592.02] because you'll be able to take that knowledge and use it to get a better job.
[1592.02 --> 1593.36] Yep, great skill to have.
[1593.90 --> 1594.98] I just like the idea.
[1595.04 --> 1597.32] I just like the idea of picturing you like 10 years from now,
[1597.40 --> 1603.72] looking back at some graph analogs and just kind of getting nostalgic from graphs and logs.
[1604.16 --> 1607.98] Yeah, my CPU is 33 degrees on May the 5th, 2021.
[1608.34 --> 1609.06] Hey, great.
[1609.22 --> 1610.80] Ah, I remember that, yeah.
[1611.16 --> 1612.26] Those were the days.
[1615.22 --> 1616.30] Cloudfree.shop.
[1616.30 --> 1618.88] Head over there and buy from a community member
[1618.88 --> 1624.58] who has built a business out of creating devices that are ready to go without any cloud restriction.
[1625.04 --> 1626.92] And they posted an update in February.
[1627.80 --> 1629.90] And you got a mention in here.
[1630.06 --> 1630.72] He says...
[1630.72 --> 1631.08] Did we?
[1631.38 --> 1632.24] How cool is that?
[1632.46 --> 1632.92] He says,
[1633.00 --> 1635.68] I need to also thank Alex and the self-hosted podcast.
[1635.92 --> 1638.58] I've listened to Jupyter Broadcasting podcast for over seven years.
[1638.92 --> 1642.82] And without our partnership, Cloudfree would not have grown nearly as fast as it did.
[1643.12 --> 1646.12] And I got to say, it hit me in the feels because the picture they have in that
[1646.12 --> 1649.68] looks a lot like what we're doing for the Jupyter Garage shipping right now.
[1650.20 --> 1654.84] And I just totally realized, like, I'm learning a lot of the same stuff that they had to learn
[1654.84 --> 1656.68] to do Cloudfree right now.
[1657.14 --> 1660.38] And so I felt very like I had a kinship all of a sudden.
[1660.54 --> 1662.86] And I thought that was really great that they had a really...
[1662.86 --> 1663.58] This is a really good...
[1663.58 --> 1664.68] This is a really positive update.
[1664.76 --> 1667.16] It looks like things are going really well for Cloudfree.
[1667.28 --> 1668.68] And that's why we like to mention them.
[1668.78 --> 1670.96] It was an idea that I think needed to happen.
[1670.96 --> 1676.12] And it's a great way to go get devices at a very reasonable price, like outdoor and indoor
[1676.12 --> 1683.88] smart plugs, Zigbee dongles, temperature sensors, motion sensors, Z-Wave buttons, door sensors,
[1684.00 --> 1687.06] all that kind of stuff that you might want to hook up to Home Assistant.
[1687.30 --> 1691.02] But, you know, you don't want to have to bother with the reflashing yourself or worrying about
[1691.02 --> 1694.08] the required cloud connectivity that they ship with by default.
[1694.68 --> 1695.96] Cloudfree just takes care of all that.
[1696.10 --> 1698.90] That's why we like to give them a mention at cloudfree.shop.
[1698.90 --> 1702.48] And when you're over there, don't forget to use the coupon code self-hosted so that
[1702.48 --> 1703.28] they know we sent you.
[1704.62 --> 1706.18] All right, feedback time, I think.
[1706.40 --> 1707.28] Daniel writes in,
[1707.36 --> 1712.90] I'm currently using a Synology 216J with an EXT 4-volume mirrored on two drives.