How To: Self Host a Generative AI

Generative AI is the new hot stuff. And its more easy than you presume. No need to spend billions on the hyperscalers profits. For the sake of ease as a first approach I will start here with a Linux based nevertheless Windows constellation.

This is a fundamental good approach because this relieves you from data privacy issues and helps with much more control over your private data. Predominantly without loss of quality because some of the included models come from large organizations with substantial funds. And there is not even a lack of performance or service integrity:

You may integrate large language models, image generation (never write an article or give an talk on AI without kittens – these up there are NOT real) and even integrate this as chatbots in your personal tools.

But to start:

Install a general available Linux platform – focus here on Debian (Ubuntu should work just as well) and install it in your local WSL – Windows Subsytem on Linux Environment. Most of this would apply to server installations, but I would spend some more effort to make this nice and shiny – and this should be an easy to use quick approach.

WSL Installation

Ensure Windows Terminal app is installed on your Windows PC – This is not CMD !.

Beyond that the installation of an local LLM is encouraged because it is easy to interact with windows desktop tools, which then may provide an network independent and customized chatbot.

Enter Terminal on Power Shell and enter

wsl --install -d Debian

Additional distributions might be available and may be retrieved likewise. An overview you get is with :

PS C:\Users\f.benke> wsl --list --online 

I prefer then to set the default version of the started WSL container to the application specific one. Continue reading

Traveling Iceland in Winter

Iceland has evolved to be a premium travel destination. And being located close on the arctic circle, a rather exotic one on top. It triggers desires an phantasies … and so did it to me. But what when you ramp up the stakes? Not only exploring the Atlantic north but doing so in winter? And then go around the whole Island, mor or less around the ring road?

Starting by rather quickly leaving the Reykjavik and head east to the highway #1 counterclockwise – Here some impressions from last February.

Skogafoss
Skogafoss

First stop at Skogafoss that offers besides a first camp spot that’s open in winter. It’s a protected place to sit out an winter storm and besides that its reachable in about a two hour drive from Kevlavik.

Skogafoss

We really sat out a storm, just doing groceries in Vik – which gave us the opportunity to see how quickly things change in Iceland. Heading west, turning a bit inlands you may find your first glacier.

Soellheimajoekull

Ten minute drive up an inlet you find the glacier lagoon of SöllheimaJökull and a small hike leading closer to the actual ice fields. evertheless keep in mind its dangerous. Little further down highway one you get off towards the black sand beaches of Reynisfjara.

Reynisfjara Beach

Always keep in mind that this is probably one of the most dangerous places in Iceland, killing tourists each year. Its probably the closest you get to the Atlantik abyss and the waves can change quickly and Continue reading

Disable Aruba Call Home Defaults

If you run current versions of Aruba OS on the according switch families, meaning the ProCurve legacy switches by Aruba aka Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, you may notice some strange behavior on you firewall. Although I can not state “since when” that is the case, our next generation firewall noticed exactly that.

Annoyingly this feature is enabled by default and as always with defaults with Aruba OS this activated silently some time ago with an update and is not shown in the running configuration. I presume this is there since the ProCurve based systems had been integrated into Aruba’s zero touch provisioning universe.

Continue reading

In Eigener Sache: Coffetalk im Online Kongress bei speicherguide.de

Nachdem die aktuelle Saison Corona-bedingt in Sachen IT Veranstaltungen und Weiterbildung ja ein bisschen verhagelt ist, versuchen ja viele das ein oder andere Thema irgendwie online ein zu fangen, was häufig in Sachen Konzeption an der Hersteller- Budget- Nähe zerschellt.

Einen erfreulich anderen Ansatz fährt Karl Fröhlich bei Speicherguide.de mit der Veranstaltung Große Datenmengen speichern und verwalten in seinem neuen CAMPUS Format. Continue reading

How To: Built AMD Ryzen 7 3800X

Es gibt solche Dinge die man irgendwann einmal getan haben muss. Baum Pflanzen – hab ich schon paarmal gemacht. Buch schreiben – ist möglicherweise gerade in Arbeit. usw. Ihr kennt das.

Auf mir unerfindliche Weise gehört für mich als IT-Schaffenden irgendwie “einmal einen eigenen PC bauen” dazu. From scratch sozusagen, nichts von der Stange. Und auch wenn ich meine Werkzeuge in all den Jahren teils schwer modifiziert habe, über Jahre immer aufgerüstet, umgerüstet, verschrottet, egal ob Workstation oder Server, ein komplett eigener Entwurf war nie dabei. Bis jetzt:

Da ist er! Mein erster Eigenbau.

Jetzt wäre ich ja nicht der, der ich bin, wenn es dabei nicht um irgendwelche Ziele ginge. Und da bei Hubraum nix mehr zählt als noch mehr Hubraum, soll der PC erst mal eine riesige Menge RUMMS unter der (hier noch geöffneten Rauchglas-) Motorhaube haben. Zum Anderen, wird man ja Continue reading

Silence Aruba Switches

Hat man in seinem Home-Lab schöne, geschmeidig laufende Switches stehen, kann einem die damit zumeist verbundene Geräuschkulisse gehörig auf den Zeiger gehen.

Jetzt kann man genervt zu Baumarktware greifen und hoffen, dass die passiven – Geräusch befreiten Gerätschaften ihren Job machen oder aber man bleibt sich selbst treu und nimmt einfach Netzwerkhardware, die den Namen verdient – und wird kreativ.

Open Switch with Original Fan Setup

In meinem Fall sind das Aruba 2930F 48G bzw 2540 48G am Ende noch mit PoE. Alles in allem eine Konfiguration, die sich durchaus bemerkbar macht. Irgendwann hatte ich also die Faxen dicke und erinnerte mich an einen 2524 der gute 12 Jahre mit ganz stillgelegtem Continue reading

In Eigener Sache: sgTalk#01 NVMe All Flash Pilot

Ich durfte bei Speicherguide.de ein wenig über meinen aktuellen NVMe All Flash Piloten reden. Gerne auch bei Speicherguide direkt oder gleich hier. Ich stelle mich auch den Fragen – die sich aber Stand heute noch in Grenzen halten. Nichts desto trotz freue ich mich über Feedback.

Im selben Aufwasch habe ich auch die Info gekriegt, dass ich mit einem Talk zu dem Thema auch für die Storage 2 Day in Heidelberg diesen Jahres angenommen wurde.

In diesem Zusammenhang, KyP. F.

IT-Operations in Corona Mode

Having a pandemia raging on full throttle, shutting down society and major parts of business life is of course a real IT challenge. The challenge grows, when the according IT is homed in an basically ongoing business, facing a complete shift in its mode of operation.

This leaves the IT-departement with two major challenges, I want to discuss today:

  1. Organize a resilient and disaster tolerant IT organisation
  2. Adapt to the quick changes in business needs, user needs and user behavior

Resilient organisation of structure and workflow within an IT operations team is today not necessarily an incredible complex thing, since many tools and methods should be available anyway. On top it Continue reading

Reloading a VSF

Reloading a VSF cluster of Aruba switches, as in the firmware upgrade procedure discussed, is not obviously running straight forward. Since I tried to google a couple of times and really found no straight comment on what actually happens, here the summary of my findings.

Long story short. A warm boot with reload does not result in a predictable successfull manner. Never. Nowhere. That`s it!

The often cited vsf sequenced-reboot is only supported on the 5400 platform. So all the kind remarks for users with 2930F, 3810 or similar VSF enabled platforms are simply not helpful. Continue reading

How To: Firmware Upgrade on HPE FF 5700

Since the Flex Fabric switches are a little bit of an unloved child I provide some more information on their maintenance. Todays Version i 7.10. in the release 2432 Patch 06, meaning that it only added one patchlevel in the last year.

And allthough I plan on retiring my switches, I want to do one last firmware update and with that share how to do it:

First if all do housekeeping. Since flash memory for filesystem access, which you will need for the upgrade procedure, is rare, Continue reading