I recently began to set up a new MiniPC cluster and needed a VM template. Usually, I would use something like Ubuntu. However, this time I wanted to go with Debian. Initially, my older methods of using Packer seemed to offer little for this process. Though I was looking half-heartedly. Then along came Brandon’s post on his deployment of Debian 11. Brandon’s method seemed solid, but it had a few issues for my work case:

This is a guide to how I securely configure a CyberPower RMCard. By default, many settings are left to be desired. In this guide I assume the actual power-related settings are based on good engineering principles i.e. Keep it default stupid. 1. Firmware Upgrade When setting up a new device the first thing we should do is update it. As of the time of this writing, you can download version 1.

The Backdrop In early 2024 a user decided that they /really/liked my Blackbox API. They and many others decided to blow my little cluster out of the water and ship an astonishing 3 Billion requests in a single month. All of this was handled timely with only 6 old E3 servers and some caching magic. Funny enough, this wasn’t even the first time my cluster had handled a rush like this.

The First Iteration It all started, initially, with a few ServeTheHome YouTube videos. They had been talking about the power of MiniPCs and how many of the cheaper models you could find on the likes of eBay were quite powerful. It soon turned into a series, Project TinyMiniMicro, which I watched through as I settled down during my evenings. Many videos later a Woot! the email hit my inbox. An offer for Dell Optiplex 5070 Micros was listed… and I knew what I could do with them!

Over a decade ago I colocated my first servers. It was a Dell PowerEdge 2950 RII, and it was a very good learning tool for an 18-year-old me. I think I was running Xen Server 5.5. After a few years, I moved from Xen Server to Proxmox. Who needs VMWare ESXi anyway? KVM with KSM made such an impact on me, allowing me to run more VMs and begin the all-to-common IT build-out of more and more services.