I bought R730XD LFF on aliexpress 250$

Remove the film vid https://www.instagram.com/reel/DL4FKwNO70e/?igsh=Zzg5dGZvYmF0enpy

I'm trying to get an RJ45 10 gig ethernet switch for around 120 bucks And not get some random unknown AliExpress switch.

We’ve been running a colocated server for 8 years:
Debian + VirtualBox + phpVirtualBox
~10 VMs: Windows, Asterisk, Puppet; sites on WP, Laravel, Drupal, Symfony
12 cores, 256 GB RAM, 8 TB disk. Load avg 0.5–1.5.

Just added a new colocated server:
Dual CPU (80 cores), 512 GB RAM, 8 TB disk
It’s meant to replace the old one and migrate all current VMs over.

Now debating with a colleague:
He prefers ESXi 8.0 (existing license, some Windows VMs at office).
I lean toward Proxmox — free HA, clustering, backup, LXC, clean Debian + KVM + Perl + ExtJS stack.
Also, ESXi’s new pricing model = $$$ — 80 cores would cost a few thousand per year.

Maybe I’m missing something?
What would you go with and why?

I think everyone here recognises that most homes don't need or have a dedicated server hosting a software-defined networking solution, managed VPN for mobile endpoints, protective DNS filtering and NIDS/ NIPS, and I'm sure sometimes we regret ever moving beyond the ISP's router - but today, my homelab might just have protected me from email compromise.

I'll preface this by saying I consider myself security aware and security conscious, though nobody's perfect and this was quite a compromise. I received an e-mail from a trusted contractor I'd been working with on a home project, I was somewhat expecting this email, the subject and body was exactly what I'd seen before, as was the attachment - so no alarm bells rang. I opened the attachment, fortunately sandboxed in a viewer, which directed my to click out to what looked like a contracts management website - again, identical to the contractor's normal practices.

The link opened, redirected, redirected and opened a blank page with nothing but a spinning loading icon - weird I thought, so, yes, I tried again. This time, I caught the redirect URLs as they loaded and then alarm bells rang, these were definitely not the contractor's portal URLs.

I immediately closed the browser, cleared history and cache, checked for any downloads and confirmed automatic app opening was still disabled - thanks Brave. I also ran an anti-malware scan of my device, which was clean, and verified no connected services or authorisations had been made to any of my accounts, which were all good.

I opened up Omada SDN and PiHole and found the link redirected a few times from an initially benign web page to ultimately a malicious domain; I've no idea what content the final domain served as I didn't attempt to open it and haven't had chance to sit down with URLScan yet, but I'm pretty sure it would have been either phishing, OAuth hijacking or a malicious payload download.

Thankfully, both Omada and PiHole caught the redirects to the malicious domain which triggered both reputational and high level TLD blocking rules and stopped anything loading right there, this was only possible since I also have my devices connected via always-on VPN when out of my home.

I rang the contractor who were just mobilizing to deal with this, and a few hours later I had the e-mail notification from them of compromise.

All in all, through my home lab and cybersecurity defence in depth at home, I think I just managed to avoid a nightmare through:

• Personal security awareness (didn't work - trusted contact, expected email, well formed and disguised).

• Email provider link scanning (didn't work as the original link was benign but redirected eventually to a malicious site, and the link was buried in an attachment)

• Sandboxed attachment viewing (may have prevented some unknown macro or otherwise from working, but otherwise didn't stop me clicking the link to their portal).

• Omada SDN/ PiHole prevented the final malicious site from opening and loading properly.

• Brave browser prevented any automatic downloads, app redirects or opening in apps.

On January 27, 2025, I bought a refurbished Avaya 9611G. Delivery was delayed, the PoE adapter was missing, and I had zero idea what I was getting into. But I wanted a working desk phone at home, and I was inspired by a TikTok showing people scheduling Christmas via conference call on VoIP phones.

What I didn’t have:

• An Avaya license
• Any supported Avaya provisioning tools
• A SIP provider that made it easy
• Any idea what I was doing at first

All I had was community forums, ChatGPT, and Wireshark.

The Phone Was Still Using H.323

I set the phone to SIP manually, but Wireshark showed H.323 traffic. After going back and forth with ChatGPT, I learned I needed to update the firmware.

Firmware Update – What Worked

1. I downloaded the SIP 7.1 software from Avaya's site
2. Placed the following in a folder:
   • 96x1Supgrade.txt (created with ChatGPT)
   • 96x1Hupgrade.txt
   • The actual firmware .bin file
3. Started a local server:python3 -m http.server 80
4. Even though this is HTTP, the phone wouldn’t update unless I set HTTPS SERVER to my local IP address. (Weird but true)

Once that was done, the phone finally updated.

Network Setup (No DHCP Server)

• Set static IP on the phone
• Reserved that IP in my router
• Put it on a dedicated VLAN

SIP Configuration (On Phone Itself)

• SIP Domain: my PC’s IP
• Proxy Policy: Manual
• Config Server: my PC (still not working)
• SIP Proxy Server: my PC again, TCP, port 5060
• TLS or UDP: Didn’t work. Stuck on “Acquiring Service.” TCP worked best.

SIP Server: I Used MiniSipServer (Windows)

• Has a GUI, works great
• Added a local user
• Phone prompted for login, and boom — internal call worked

Set up external line using Twilio SIP Trunking and made a real call within 10 minutes.

Timeline

• Started: Feb 11, 2025
• Fully working: July 7, 2025 (no Config or Presence server though)

Stuff I Still Can’t Get Working

I want to set:

• Custom logo
• Contacts
• Voicemail config
• Screensaver timeout

…but I can’t get the phone to pull 46xxsettings.txt. I’ve tried:

• GET 46xxsettings.txt
• GET <MAC>.txt that points to the 46xx file No luck. If anyone’s figured this out, please reply.

Cost Breakdown

• Phone: €90
• Twilio Number: $3.25/month
• Calls: Pay-per-minute
• 3CX? Banned my IP randomly during testing. No clue why.

My Why

My ISP doesn’t support home telephony over fiber, and dedicated VoIP adapters were overpriced. I wanted a simple desk phone to call home with. Mission accomplished, even if it took months.

What worked for me:

1. Download SIP firmware from Avaya site
2. Put it in folder with:
   • 96x1Supgrade.txt
   • 96x1Hupgrade.txt
3. Serve with:python3 -m http.server 80
4. Set HTTPS SERVER to your HTTP IP anyway
5. Use MiniSipServer on Windows for easy local SIP login
6. Set everything manually, use TCP not UDP or TLS
7. Pray it works

If this helps even one person avoid the hell I went through, worth it. Ask anything below, I’ve probably run into your exact problem.

• A graphical timeline of your steps Let me know and I can include those in a follow-up comment or post.

I'm currently fantasizing about creating a poor man's 5-10G networking solution using link aggregation (many cables to single machines).

Does that work at all? And if so, how much of a pain (or not) is it to setup? What are the requirements/caveats?

I am currently under the assumption than any semi-decent server NIC can resolve that by itself, but surely it can't be that easy, right?

And what about, say, using a pair of USB 2.5G dongles to mimic 5G networking?

Please do shatter my hopeless dreams before I spend what little savings I have to no avail.

_________________________________________________

EDIT/UPDATE/CONCLUSIONS:

Thanks all for your valuable input; I got a lot of insights from you all.

Seems like LAG isn't a streamlined process (no big surprises), so for my particular application the solution will be a (bigger) SSD locally on the computer which can't do 10GBE to store/cache the required files and programs (games admitedly), and actual SFP+ hardware on the machines that can take it.

I wanted to avoid that SSD because my NAS is already fast enough to provide decent load speeds (800MB/s from spinning drives; bad IOPS, but still), but it seems it's still the simplest solution available to me for my needs and means.

I have also successfully been pointed to some technological solutions I couldn't find by myself and which make my migration towards 10GBE all the more affordable, and so possible.

I’d love to hear what everyone has running on their homelab. I’ve been dabbling in it for the past year a little bit, but I’m looking to get more serious about my setup.

Hey guys and girls from the home server scene, I need your help urgently.

I got a Fujitsu Primergy TX2560 M2. The problem: He doesn't boot, gets stuck in the boot screen and turns off at some point. He leaves only a yellow flashing lamp.

I bought it without any hard drive, etc., but even without a system I would have to get into the BIOS, wouldn't I? However, the keyboard only lights up briefly and is then out again.

I have 2 videos of the appearance, maybe they will help.

I am not a newcomer to Linux etc. or install systems, but I lack any experience with such home servers. Ask for help, I'm slowly despairing.

https://youtube.com/shorts/AINXm9XUMyk?si=KDRClgVwp1M2JFuf

And: https://youtube.com/shorts/aOvlJiaEfcs?si=m1R8zW3OnFXEXTLh

Building a new house, and going to take the opportunity to ensure networking stuff is solid. Could use some recommendations on best technologies & equipment for my use cases...

Internet will be 1gig symmetric leading to (probably) a pfsense firewall, hardware yet to be determined. Have been more comfortable with that platform than previous efforts w/ Ubiquiti gateways, etc.

Will have Cat6A for wired and AP ports throughout the house, presumably hitting a high-port-count 2.5g switch with some PoE ports for the APs.

Will want a high-throughput (10g? 25+g?) core switch handling the linkage between router, house-infrastructure switch, and the top-of-rack switch for compute + storage homelab. Will want some degree of layer 3 routing capabilities so not everything has to traverse the pfsense box.

Want the networking gear to be *quiet*. These will (unfortunately) be located beneath the owner's bedroom suite, and The Boss will be super pissed if she hears switch fans screaming.

Had been looking at Omada stuff, but TP-Link's security and political viability has me very nervous about investing there. Have run Unifi setups in the past, and hated their firewalls (and software stability), but the access points were good.

Suggestions welcome for:

• hardware for pfsense, or specific recommendations for firewall and loadbalancer replacement for pfsense (software + hardware)
• core, endpoint, and top-of-rack switches (quiet, fast, layer 3, bonus points for apis / software-defined management)
• Access points (3 floors, ~2k square feet per floor)
• networking (telco?) rack
• compute/storage rack

Will figure out compute and storage platforms later. Right now, just running home-built quiet frankenstein AMD compute machines and a single TrueNAS server. Interested in getting into lower-power ARM/edge stuff for my interests (home automation / edge AI), but TBD.

I brought home an old Fortigate 100F from work, but am honestly not sure what it is or what I could use it for. It looks like it sells for a ton of money, but could I get any use out of it in a Homelab? Do I need licenses to use it?