The objective is to start the VLLM service based on QWEN3-VL-8B-FP8; this will be used initially for AI-assisted purchase order processing. Rationale for model selection: NVIDIA L4 GPU (One number) available in the server. Download model hf auth loginhf download Qwen/Qwen3-VL-8B-Instruct-FP8 –local-dir /opt/models/Qwen3-VL-8B-FP8 Create a systemd unit file to start the service (/etc/systemd/system/vllm.service) [Unit]Description=vLLM Qwen … Read more
Modern Proof of Concepts (PoCs)—especially those involving microservices or Kubernetes—rely heavily on a messaging backbone. While cloud-managed queues are popular, local PoC environments often require a self-hosted RabbitMQ instance to keep costs low and latency minimal. A common architectural challenge in these environments is the “Boot Race.” If you run RabbitMQ on a separate VM, … Read more
Modern application Proof of Concepts (PoCs)—especially those involving microservices or Kubernetes—often require a shared storage layer. While complex distributed storage solutions (such as Ceph or GlusterFS) are available, they may be overkill for a lab. Sometimes, the fastest and most reliable path to a working environment is a standard NFS server. This guide covers setting … Read more
This document describes the process for creating a reusable, deterministic Ubuntu 24.04 QCOW2 base image optimized for GPU-accelerated AI workloads. The resulting image is intended to be cloned and customized by automation/orchestration tooling. 1. Base OS Installation Why avoid the HWE kernel in the base image 2. System Update 3. SSH Configuration (Remote Root Access) … Read more
Platform: Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy)Deployment model: cephadm, multi-host, mixed SSD classes 1. Install prerequisites on all hosts Install base dependencies required by cephadm and Ceph daemons: Container runtime Cephadm requires a supported OCI container runtime.Podman is the recommended and well-tested runtime for Ceph Reef on Ubuntu 22.04. 2. Kernel and networking prerequisites Enable IPv4 forwarding (required … Read more
Before deploying Ceph, it is essential to prepare the servers correctly at the hardware, BIOS, operating system, and networking layers. Many Ceph performance and stability issues originate from gaps at this stage. This post documents the preparation steps and design decisions used for my Ceph deployment. 1. BIOS Configuration All servers were first configured at … Read more
This guide walks through installing Gerrit Code Review, securing it with NGINX as a reverse proxy, and configuring HTTPS using SSL certificates.Tested with Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 and Gerrit 3.9.x. 1. Install Required Packages Run the following on the VM that will host Gerrit: 2. Create User Accounts with htpasswd NGINX uses an .htpasswd file to store … Read more
PostgreSQL 16 is the ideal choice for this environment because it delivers major improvements in performance, parallel query execution, index efficiency, and write-ahead logging throughput—all of which directly benefit Git metadata workloads and AI/ML-related query patterns. PG16 also includes enhanced vacuum performance, faster sorting, and better handling of high-concurrency workloads, making it extremely well-suited for … Read more
MariaDB 11.8 is one of the latest stable releases and introduces several improvements over previous versions, including enhanced replication, performance stability, and more importantly for modern AI workloads — native vector data type and vector indexing support. In our environment, the upgrade to MariaDB 11.8 was driven primarily by its built-in vector database capabilities, enabling efficient similarity search and … Read more
One of the key elements of managing a home lab is documenting every single step and keeping that documentation updated. There are many platforms suitable for this purpose, but I prefer WordPress because it is convenient, flexible, and easy to maintain. This post captures the exact steps I used to deploy a production-grade WordPress instance … Read more