May 21, 2024

Update: Whole Home Streaming

I discovered an interesting… problem.

Apparently the speaker group will disconnect from Chrome in two cases:

The audio stream has few minutes of no audio out
between 20-24 hours the connection will drop

So I have to access the console of the Virtual Machine to reconnect Chrome to the Speaker Group.

It’s annoying but not a deal breaker - just annoying.

I thought I would post an update to let anyone else know that Chromecast has a 20-24 hour connection limit.

May 7, 2024

Easier Options for Music Server

So…

A day or two ago I wrote about setting up a VM to stream music to my Google Home Speakers. Since then, I realized a better option - just use Google Chrome/Chromium to stream directly - 🤦‍♂️.

I was so focus on the problem, I didn’t realize this option:

Original goal was to not have a desktop environment (CLI Only)
When I did switch to having a DE I used my preferred browser - Firefox

Now I get the same functionality as described in the reference post above, but only using ‘one’ application - Chromium.

May 5, 2024

Whole Home Music Streaming - Google Home (DIY)

Idea/Project: Stream audio to multiple Google Home Devices for a whole home audio system. Instead of using a mobile device to stream/control the music, I want to use a container/virtual machine.

Background: I have been streaming background music from a tablet to a single Echo Dot. I have three Google Home devices located around my place, and they can be grouped into a speaker group. Since I don’t want to dedicate a tablet solely to play music, especially considering it occasionally stops due to random reboots.

May 5, 2024

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - First Quick Look

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Ubuntu 24) was released at the end of April. I have some thoughts about this release. The main reason I’m ‘reviewing’ this release is because I’m going to be using this particular version for the basis of my production servers. I want to gain some hands-on experience before deploying it to production.

I decided to test the desktop versions (Gnome & XFCE) of Ubuntu 24 in Proxmox 7.4 (I know it is out of date), which may be related to some issues, detailed below.

May 4, 2024

Import OVA/OVF into Proxmox VE

Download the OVA/OVF to the proxmox host
Unzip/Extract OVA to expose vmdk and OVF
- You many need to apt install unzip
Shell to the Proxmox Host to the directory of the OVF/VMDK
Use the following command

qm importovf {vmid} {OVA/OVF Filename}.ovf {target storage}

To import to VM 101 with the ovf named web101.ovf to the vmdata storage location

qm importovf 101 web101.ovf vmdata

!! Note: VM should not already exist !!

Switch back to PVE Web Interface and add networking and any other VM changes
Done - Start VM and enjoy

Source

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Migrate_to_Proxmox_VE#Migration (Import OVF)

Tested on: PVE 7.4-17

March 25, 2024

Welcome to the Homelab

Welcome One and All to my experiments…

I’m using this site to document my adventures with my homelab and other interesting information that I run across in the process.

As of today (March 25, 2024) I don’t have a lot of information posted, but I will update this site with what I’m playing with or testing at the moment.

I have posted a list of the physical hardware and software stack of my homelab also, I will try to keep those up to date as things change.