Author: Greg

Greg is the head cat at JumbleCat, with over 20 years of experience in the computer field, he has done everything from programming to hardware solutions. You can contact Greg via the contact form on the main menu above.

OpenVPN Failover Failing

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[sc:internet-category ]I setup OpenVPN clustering a while ago (ok more than a while) and it’s been working pretty well.  I have noticed though that when I did a failover I wouldn’t be able to connect to the secondary node sometimes.  Which kind of defeated the purpose of the clustering 🙁

Of course I don’t fail over very often, but I had a BSOD on my VM host server a few weeks ago which forced the failover to happen and I noticed it as I was out-of-town for a few days.  I tracked the problem down to how OpenVPN (or more precisely UCARP) handles the failover.

When the primary node goes down, UCARP transfers the IP address to the secondary node.  However my switch/router doesn’t see the change right away as it’s ARP cache still thinks the IP address is associated with the MAC address of the primary node.  If you wait long enough, the router/switch expires the ARP cache and things work again, but that’s kind of annoying when you really need something remotely.

Doing a bit of searching around I found arping, which does an ARP level ping to a device.  Adding a quick call to arping in the activation script (/etc/local/openvpn_as/scripts/) seems to have cleared up the problem.

BitTorrent Sync

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[sc:software-category ]Using cloud services to store my data isn’t something I’ve been a big fan of, I do use OneDrive a bit, but only for things that aren’t very important but I need to share with others.

BitTorrent Sync on the other hand looks to solve many of the concerns I have and provide a solution that keeps control of your content in your own hands.

It’s still beta at the moment and I think I’ll wait till it’s out of beta to give it a try, but I’m defiantly interested in it.

Server Memory Upgrades

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[sc:hardware-category ]Back when I built my new VM host servers I installed 16g of ram which has severed me well for the last couple of years.  However over the last few months it’s started to get a little tight so it was time to upgrade.

The ASUS KCMA-D8 motherboards have 8 slots for DIMM’s on them and the 16g I originally populated them with were 4g sticks so I went online to find what my options were.

I had used Kingston memory on the original install and I’ve had good look with it in the past so I found a 32g kit (KVR16LR11S4K/32) and ordered it.

It has 4 8g DIMMs in it so I pulled the 16g out of one server and put it in the second one and installed the new 32g kit in it.  This gave both servers 32g of RAM.

I considered going to 64g, but I suspect by the time I need that much ram it will be time to replace the servers (they’re already 3 years old).

I did look at upgrading the CPU’s at the same time, the KCMA-D8 supports a variety of newer CPU’s IF you have the right production date on the MB.  Unfortunately my MB’s don’t support anything newer than the CPU’s I have so no CPU upgrade this time.

It looks like I’ll have to do some hard disk upgrades soon as well, disk space is getting tight on the VM OS disks and I’m getting close to capacity on my data drives as well.

Wind Mobility

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[sc:mobile-category ]I’ve been with Bell for my mobile service since my first phone in the late 90’s.  That’s a long time and if I had to sum it up in just one word it would be; overpriced.

Let’s face it, there’s no real competition in the mobile space in Canada, the big three don’t even try to compete on price as each time one raises theirs, the other follow suit.

All you have to do is look at the massive profits they make to understand how uncompetitive the space really is.  Companies that have competition have lower profits as they must fight to keep customers happy.  Companies that don’t have competition can reap larger profits as customers don’t really have anywhere to go.

Having said that, there is hope that things will change and there have been several times I’ve almost jumped ship to Wind.  My biggest concern has always been the coverage.  My home and work are covered by the Wind network but there are a few area’s I spend time at that are not.

The recent reduction in their roaming rates finally pushed me over the edge, kind of at least, and I decided to pick up a SIM to use in one of my older phones.

It turns out though that Wind uses such an uncommon frequency (1700) that virtually no phones support it. I had my SIM for two months before I found a phone to use with it (see my Blu Win HD post for details).

Setup was easy (I of course had to manually set the APN’s) and once up and running everything was good.  I had reasonable signal strength everywhere I’ve been and overall the speed has been quite good as well.

I’m not going to switch from Bell quite yet, as much as the Blu Win HD is a fine phone, it doesn’t compare to my 925 and the 925 doesn’t support the 1700 spectrum.

To get me to switch one of two things will have to happen:

  • The next flagship Nokia phone supports 1700 band.
  • Wind upgrades their network with a more common band.

I expect Wind to be involved in the next spectrum auction so perhaps they will get the right spectrum to support future phones.

Overall I’d recommend Wind if you wanted one of the phones they support and lived inside their network.

Blu Win HD

Greg

[sc:mobile-category ]I was in a Microsoft store recently and was looking at the Blu Win HD, a phone that at $179 unlocked had caught my interest more for the price point than anything else.

I decided to pick one up to use as a secondary phone for a couple of reasons:

  • Dual SIM (this is kind of neat, though I don’t have a real use for it)
  • Micro SD Card slot
  • Support 1700 band, which Wind Mobile runs on
  • 5″ display

When I first pulled it out of the box my first impression was about how light it felt.  That turns out to be because the battery is removable and no installed 🙂

However even with the battery installed it’s a very light and thin phone.  Blu has been making android phones for a while and at first I thought the Win HD would be like the HTC M8, a simple software load of Windows Phone, which it is and isn’t.

They’ve gone with physical (though capacitive) buttons on the front of the phone, but no camera button.  The volume and power buttons are on opposite sides near the top of the phone which isn’t the best layout as several times now when powering down the phone I’ve watched the volume go up or down as I squeeze the volume rocker at the same time, which also takes a screen shot as well 🙂

The screen looks nice, though the capacitive screen feels a little “funny”, not bad but just not as responsive as my Nokia 925.

The camera is an 8MP shooter and seems serviceable, nothing great but it works.

Performance wise, it’s responsive, but does feel a slower than my Nokia, but if I didn’t have the 925 to compare against I doubt I’d notice it.  However if you really want to see it grind to a crawl, turn on the Internet sharing.  When active the phone is virtually unusable, missing touches and swipes all the time.  Clearly the CPU has enough power to run Windows Phone, but not much else.

It comes with everything you might need, screen protector, silicon case, charger, etc.

Overall I’m impressed with it and for $179 outright it’s a deal.