5/21/2023 0 Comments Pcie passthrough vmware quicksyncThis little motherboard has a header that accepts a DC12V/19V power supply, and I happened to have an old laptop power brick hanging around. My humble ESXi system was based on an ASUS H110T/CSM motherboard. The internals were just as basic as the exterior: Old DIY ESX Internals It is not exactly a work of art, but it got the job done. In addition to assembling the system from inexpensive second-hand hardware and stuff I had lying around, I was also going through a burst of COVID-isolation-inspired dreams of learning woodworking, so I built the case myself. My first solution was one of the most DIY things I have ever done. And so the idea of rebuilding my router as an ESXi host was born, with a VM for each function I wanted. Guacamole is a clientless remote desktop gateway that just seemed super cool, and again I was struck with the thought that this is something I wanted my router to do. Later on, Patrick introduced me to Guacamole. Plus, Pi-hole operates as a DNS server on your local network, and to my mind, that was the kind of thing my router could do. The name Pi-hole comes from the traditional hardware where this would be installed, a Raspberry Pi, but I did not want another device that I had to keep powered on and plugged into my network. If you are unaware, Pi-hole is a network-based (DNS) ad, telemetry, and malware blocker. I was running pfSense long before I put it onto an ESXi host, but I wanted my router to do more for me. Lastly, I will cover the actual upgrade process I went through to move from my old system to the new one. Next up, I am going to discuss my reasons for upgrading to the new i7 unit. First, I will explain why I set my home router up in this fashion. ![]() In this article, I am going to cover a few topics. The hardware in my home ESXi/router system was getting old, and I saw an opportunity for an upgrade, so I requested one of the units. Recently, Rohit has been covering some Topton passive firewall systems, and the Intel Core i7 Fanless units caught my eye. I am also a big fan of pfSense, and some years ago, I put two of my favorite software solutions together and built myself a (very) DIY home router, running ESXi as a hypervisor with pfSense as a VM, and it has worked very well ever since. I know there are other alternatives, such as Unraid and Proxmox, but ESXi is the solution I know best and is the one that I encounter most often in my daily professional life. If you have read any of my previous DIY server guides, you might have noticed that I am a fan of VMware’s ESXi product. 6x 2.5GbE I225 Intel Core I7 1165G7 Less Good Rear DC Input And 6x RJ45
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