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Category: Tutorials

Plex GPU transcoding in Docker on LXC on Proxmox

I recently had to get GPU transcoding in Plex to work. The setup involved running Plex inside a Docker container, inside of an LXC container, running on top of Proxmox. I found some general guidelines online, but none that covered all aspects (especially dual layer of containerization/virtualization). I ran into a few challenges to get this working properly, so I’ll attempt to give a complete guide here.

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MySQL-cluster how-to (with load-balancing & failover)

Since I recently configured and installed a MySQL-cluster, I thought I’d share the procedure. A lot of the examples around explains how to set it all up on the same machine for “testing purposes” — which, in theory, is the same as setting it up on different machines. I’ll be explaining the latter, that is, installing it onto different machines.

To achieve true redundancy in a MySQL-cluster, you need at least 3 seperate, physical machines; two data-nodes, and one management-node. The latter you can use a virtual machine for, as long as it doesn’t run on the two data-nodes (which means you still need at least 3 physical machines). You can also use the management-node as a mysql-proxy for transparent failover/load-balancing for the clients.

My setup was done using two physical machines (db0 and db1) running Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), and one virtual machine (mysql-mgmt) running Debian 6 (Squeeze). The VM is not running on the two physical machines. db0 and db1 is the actual data-nodes/servers, and mysql-mgmt is going to be used as the management-node for the cluster. In addition, mysql-mgmt is also going to be configured with mysql-proxy, so that we have transparent failover/load-balancing for the clients.

Update 2011-10-26: I?ve changed the setup a bit, compared to my original walkthrough. I hit some memory-limits when using the NDB-engine. This caused MySQL to fail inserting new rows (stating that the table was full). There are some variables that you can set (DataMemory and IndexMemory), to increase the memory-consumption for the ndb-process (which was what caused the issues). Since I had limited amount of memory available on the mysql-mgmt virtual machine (and lots on db0/1), I decided to run ndb_mgmd on db0 + db1. Apparently, you can do this, and it?s still redundant. The post has been changed to reflect this.

My setup was done using two physical machines (db0 and db1) running Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), and one virtual machine (mysql-proxy) running Debian 6 (Squeeze). Previously, the virtual machine ran ndb_mgmd, but due to the above mentioned issues, both db0 and db1 runs their own ndb_mgmd-processes. The virtual machine is now only used to run mysql-proxy (and hence it’s hostname has changed to reflect this).

Update 2012-01-30: morphium pointed out that /etc/my.cnf needed it’s own [mysql_cluster]-section, so that ndbd and ndb_mgmd connects to something else than localhost (which is the default if no explicit hosts is defined). The post has been updated to reflect this.

Update 2013-01-03: Dave Weddell pointed out that newer versions of mysql-proxy had a different syntax for the proxy-backend-addresses parameter. Instead of having multiple proxy-backend-addresses-parameters (one for each backend), it wants all the backends in one parameter (comma separated). The post has been updated to reflect this.

Update 2013-05-15: Richard pointed out that he had to alter two more tables to use the ‘ndbcluster’-engine in order for it to work. It was not needed when I originally set this up, but recent versions might have introduced more tables. I’ve updated the post to reflect this.

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PVLAN Trunk-hack

Ever had the need to use PVLANs in conjunction with one or more trunks, but your Cisco-switch doesn’t support it? I did. And I found a solution. It works well, but if you need to trunk many PVLANs, then this is not the solution you’re looking for; get a 4500/6500 to play with instead.

I’ll be using my scenario as an example in this article, but you could use it for whatever other reasons you might have. At school we have a Cisco-lab, with 5 racks containing various Cisco-equipment. For a while now, there’s been situations where you’d really like a DHCP-server, TFTP-server, or similar, at hand. So, since we already had a VMware ESXi-server running in the lab, it was fairly easy to setup a dedicated lab-server. However, since this ESXi also had to be publicly available, and the lab-network shouldn’t be, we decided to use a trunk between the ESXi and our 3560G (sitting as a gateway between the lab, the servers, and the internet). Each VM is then assigned to their respective VLANs. All well so far.

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Cisco IOS Clock Sync (with NTP) and Summer Time/Daylight Saving Time

Tired of having a Cisco-device that always ends up with a wrong clock? I was.

The first thing you’ll need, is a proper NTP-server. You can either set up one locally (which syncs from a hardware-device ? like a GPS ? or from an external server), or you can choose one of the public available NTP-servers. I’ve chosen to use ?158.37.91.134? in this example.

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Cisco IOS NAT Virtual Interface

Up until recently, I’ve had ADSL at home for some years. For the last year or so, I’ve used a Cisco 1812 as my router (the ISP-router was put into bridge-mode). A few weeks ago, when I got a 10/10Mbps fiber-connection, it suddenly became more relevant to host some services at home (why pay for web-hosting, when you can host it home, for free?). As a result of this, I stumbled upon a “problem” that annoyed me a bit; loopback-support – the ability to reach your services using your external IP, and hence applying port-forwards (this way you could use ssh externalip -p "some odd port number" regardless if you are home or not). This is quite useful if you move between different networks a lot (e.g. using a laptop – which was the case for me). This feature is known as tromboning, or hairpinning, and is something that often works on cheap routers you get from your ISP. So, why shouldn’t this work on a Cisco-device?

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