10Gb network upgrade

10 gigabit (10Gb) home network – Zone 1 switch

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

The first switch is complete. Mostly. Current specifications:

Network hardware:

  • Gigabit uplink: TP-Link TG-3468
  • 10GbE: Mellanox ConnectX-2 MNPA19-XTR
  • 10GbE: Mellanox ConnectX-2 81Y1541
  • Transceivers: 10GBase-SR

The 10GBase-SR SFP+ transceivers are from Fiberstore, specifically Item No. 11589. I also have two (2) of their 1m LC to LC OM4 optical fiber cables. They work very well for connecting the NAS and virtualization server to the switch.

I replaced the passive northbridge cooler on the mainboard with an active heatsink. All PCI-Express activity goes through the 990FX northbridge, and it can get very hot as a result. As this will have a lot more PCI-Express activity than normal, it’s for the best.

This isn’t it’s final form. But it’s close.

I relied on what I had at hand readily to build it, explaining why I used two Corsair SP120s initially for case fans along with the AX860. Stand in the same room and it sounded like bees swarming nearby. So I searched for quiet fans.

I learned of the Nanoxia fans through QuietPC.com. Sorting the list of their 120mm fans by noise, the Nanoxia Deep Silence 120mm fan stood out as the quietest fan giving 60 CFM (102 cmh), the “standard” 120mm airflow. The quieter fans on the list fall woefully short.

Not a huge fan of the green color, but they are very quiet fans. My NAS has two 120mm intake fans on the back of the HDD bays, so I may consider swapping those out for these fans. Along with considering them for my wife’s system and my radiator box.

The power supply will eventually be downgraded as well. An 860W Platinum PSU is overkill for this.

And again I’m relying on Fedora 24 for this currently with the latest supported Mellanox EN driver. They still are not supporting Fedora 25 as of when this gets published, and their support for CentOS gives me reason to believe they never will.

As for CentOS/RHEL (along with Ubuntu, Oracle, and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) there is a newer driver. And I tried using CentOS to get that version. But it just would not work. Perhaps the 3.6 kernel in CentOS was causing the problem — Fedora is using the 4.8 kernel. I may look into it later, such as with the Zone 2 switch. Fedora 24 works for this

So that’s it for the Zone 1 switch. The Zone 2 switch will be coming shortly now that some of the hardware is on the way or already here.

Economics/Feminism/Politics

One question no one seems to ask about diversity

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Article: “Diversifying tech: Yes, white men can be part of the solution and not the problem”

Ah another piece of virtue signalling.

In other words, white men are the problem but can be part of the solution. This bashing of whites has definitely reached a fever pitch, and is likely the reason Clinton lost. I mean when minorities are walking away and throwing their support behind Trump because they don’t want to be associated with all the white-bashing, a change of focus is in order. Instead they’ve been doubling down.

And in technology, the white bashing has been happening for quite a while. Allegations that there aren’t enough women or minorities in tech. And to anyone who says that, look at any reasonably successful technology company and you’ll find plenty of women and plenty of minorities. Indeed at my previous employer, white men I doubt held even the plurality.

But these discussions on diversity often overlook one very key question: what is the diversity in the labor pool for the role?

Everyone seems to be presuming the diversity of the labor pool for every role matches the diversity levels of the general population. And that the only reason diversity in certain roles is not at parity with the general population is racism or misogyny.

Until you have diversity in the labor pool for a particular role, you obviously cannot have diversity within these roles.

So what is the level of diversity in the labor pool for the various technology roles? Answer that question first before you start demanding diversity and declaring white men to be the problem.

10Gb network upgrade/Amazon.com

Again, Amazon?

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I’ve written of several problems I’ve had with Amazon. The one that still takes the cake is when I ordered the Shrek collection on Blu-Ray and received empty Blu-Ray cases.

This time around, I recently ordered several things from Amazon as part of the 10Gb home network upgrade project. Included in that order were two Nanoxia Deep Silence 120mm fans. I received only one. So I sent this message to Amazon through their customer service:

The order specifies 2 of the items selected, however I received only 1. Please alleviate the deficiency by shipping the missing item. As none of the automated return options allow me to request you send the missing item, since they all assume I’m returning something I actually received, I’m notifying through e-mail. Again please send the missing item.

Thank you.

Ugh…

 

10Gb network upgrade

10 gigabit (10Gb) home network – Part II

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment
Build Log:

Before continuing, first a few notes on the previous iteration.

Firmware. FreeNAS’s driver for the Chelsio card complained about the firmware version. The card I received had the 7.07 firmware installed while the latest is 7.11, and the driver wanted the latest. It was in a security output e-mail. Upgrading the firmware was pretty straightforward, though. The instructions are the same as on Linux, and the tools come with FreeNAS/FreeBSD.

But something to keep in mind if you decide to buy 10Gb cards to create a 10Gb network: you may need to upgrade firmwares. The Mellanox cards all had the latest firmwares.

Active cooling. On the Mellanox MNPA19-XTR, the mounting holes for the single-port ConnectX-2 are 34mm apart, and the heatsink is 45mm by 35mm. I don’t know of a heatsink that will fit this, but if you can attach a 30 or 35mm fan, you’ll likely be fine. The 34mm distance may be enough to attach a 25mm fan diagonally.

On the dual-port Mellanox card I received (PN: 81Y1541), the heatsink is 40mm square and the mounting holes about 47mm apart.

Not for two systems. This is something that should be very obvious from the outset: this project is not for just connecting two systems together. This project is for connecting multiple systems together onto a 10GbE network.

This is also for small setups — four to six 10GbE connections. If you need more than that, you should really be looking at off-the-shelf 10GbE switches, such as the Netgear ProSAFE XS708Ev2 (10GbE Cat6a RJ45) or Dell X4012 (10GbE SFP+).

System requirements and costs

Since the network cards can be had for pretty cheap — under 20 USD for the single-port, under 40 for the dual-port SFP+ cards — you might be tempted to find other ways of keeping costs low. And on this, the used and refurbished hardware market can be your friend. Mostly. You just need to know what to find.

PCI-Express. This is where you need to pay attention. At minimum you’ll need a mainboard that supports PCI-E 2.0. Slot configuration requires your attention here.

Every dual-port 10GbE card will require a x8 slot. Any single-port cards in the mix may be able to get away with a 2.0×4 slot depending on the card. So look for a mainboard that can provide the PCI-E slot configuration you’ll require.

On the Intel platform, you’ll need to pay attention to the processor you select to ensure you get an adequate lane count. Most Intel processors support at most 16 lanes. A PEX chip won’t help much in this. To get more lanes, you’ll need either an “extreme” processor, such as the i7-3930k (40 lanes), or a Xeon, possibly even a dual-Xeon depending on generation.

Core count. You will need at least a quad-core processor for this. Beyond that you’ll want at least 1 core per SFP+ port.

The reason for this IRQ Affinity. In brief, every hardware event that occurs on your system is processed via a hardware “interrupt”. Affinity determines what core processes that interrupt via the Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC). More physical cores = more interrupts that can be processed in parallel = better throughput on your switch.

AMD or Intel? Whether you go AMD or Intel is entirely up to you. While Intel processors do tend to out-perform AMD processors, it won’t provide you much benefit here. As noted above, PCI-E lane count will matter more.

And this is where AMD wins out, in my opinion, since the lane count isn’t tied to the processor. On that, however, I can really only recommend the 990FX chipset.

The 990FX chipset provides 42 lanes, typically as 2×16, 1×4 or 2×4, and 2×1, allowing two dual-port cards and maybe one or two single-port depending on model. Some 990FX mainboards have a better lane spread, providing 1×16 and 2×8, allowing up to three dual-port cards while still retaining the 2×4 slots as well. Only one 990FX mainboard I’m aware of provided for 4×8 slots: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7.

Which four or six 10GbE ports should be more than enough for most setups. Again, if you need more than that, you should really be looking at an off-the-shelf 10GbE switch.

Operating system

I considered two operating systems for this: VyOS and Fedora 24 Server.

Note on VyOS and installing from USB: you need to make sure to write the ISO image to disk using DD mode or it won’t boot. And when booting off the USB stick, make sure it is plugged into a USB 2.0 connection. It will fail to boot if you try to boot from a USB 3.0.

It’s pretty easy to create a switch with VyOS as well. Their configuration options are relatively straightforward. And using the video I embedded in the earlier section as a guide had a switch working relatively quickly.

But you may want to consider going with an off-the-shelf Linux distribution instead. Why? Driver support.

For Chelsio cards this isn’t nearly as huge a deal. The latest Chelsio drivers for the T3 chipset (which includes the S320 in my NAS) were released in 2010. But for the Mellanox ConnectX-2, I recommend you consider against using VyOS.

VyOS 1.1.7 is built from Debian 6 “Squeeze”, which was initially released in 2011, the latest version released in 2014, and went out of long-term support in February 2016. The latest Debian is 8.6, which is what VyOS 1.2 will be based on.

The oldest Debian version supported by the Mellanox EN driver, as of the time I write this, is Debian 7.6. The Mellanox driver supports the latest or nearly latest available version for

  • SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)
  • Oracle Linux (OL)
  • Fedora
  • CentOS
  • RedHat Enterprise (RHEL)
  • Ubuntu

So if you are using Mellanox cards, which seems to be the brand most widely available, consider using an off-the-shelf Linux distribution to build your switch. Just make sure to install it using a minimal install since you don’t need really much of anything for this.

For this setup, I’ll be using Fedora 24. Fedora 25 is the latest version as of when I write this, but Mellanox has not yet released a driver installer that supports it as of the time this article went live. When installing the driver on a kernel the installer doesn’t readily support, you will be walked through rebuilding the driver for your kernel version — what packages to install, what command line options to include, etc.

First test

Before building the switch I intend to use, I wanted a proof of concept. At the same time this was going on, I was also buying parts to build two systems for a lesbian couple I know, so I had a system set up on a test bench near the NAS and virtualization server with these specifications:

  • AMD Athlon X4 860k (stock speed)
  • Gigabyte GA-F2A88X-D3HP
  • 4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3
  • 64GB ADATA SSD

Since this was already on a test bed, I just used it to drop in the 10GbE card and work out any gotchas. As mentioned above, the OS I used is Fedora 24 Server.

Creating the switch is relatively straightforward. One line to create the bridge, and two additional lines per interface you’ll include into it, as this script demonstrates:

ifconfig enp3s0 0.0.0.0
ifconfig enp1s0 0.0.0.0
ifconfig enp1s0d1 0.0.0.0

nmcli connection add ifname zone1bridge type bridge con-name zone1bridge
nmcli connection add type bridge-slave ifname enp1s0 master zone1bridge
nmcli connection add type bridge-slave ifname enp1s0d1 master zone1bridge
nmcli connection add type bridge-slave ifname enp3s0 master zone1bridge

Setting the IPs on the interfaces to 0.0.0.0 throws them into promiscuous mode. This is needed for the bridged interfaces to act as a switch. Additionally I also disabled the firewall. Then I turned my attention to the NAS.

In FreeNAS, I disabled DHCP on the onboard Gigabit connection and assigned it a temporary static IP. Then I added the 10Gb connection and enabled DHCP for it. Once it had an IP address from the router, I removed the Gigabit NIC from FreeNAS’s list of interfaces, unplugged the NAS’s Ethernet cable, then rebooted the system to refresh all of its networking-related caches and settings.

DNS picked up the NAS across its 10Gb connection, and I was able to ping it successfully from my desktop and the switch. So with that, I ran iperf between the switch and NAS to get an initial bandwidth report:

iperf_test

9.39 Gbits/sec = 1.17 Gigabytes/sec. That’s about as good as it’s going to get. The Linux ping utility gives about .065ms (about 65μs) for the round-trip time between the NAS and switch, which is an ultra-low latency and what I’d expect from optical fiber.

So this tells me that, at least between the switch and the NAS, everything is working clean. Time to move on to the actual hardware I’ll be using.

Second test

The second test was a similar bench test setup with what will likely be the final hardware for the switch:

  • CPU: AMD FX-8320E
  • Mainboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme6
  • Memory: 4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3

And this is with a clean install of Fedora 24 Server — Minimal Install with with the Mellanox drivers installed, using the instructions above to create the bridge. There isn’t anything more that you really need to do for this either, not unless you’re anal about getting the max throughput possible for this setup, squeezing every last Mbit/sec out of it.

In this setup I also had the virtualization server plugged into the switch along with the NAS. For VMWare ESXi, it will not automatically grab an IP address via DHCP for the new adapter unless you specifically tell it to do so through the console interface.

For performance testing I ran iperf from two machines separately, both talking to the switch. One connection from a Linux VM on the virtualization server, the other from the NAS.

iperf_test_2connections

The VM was not able to saturate the connection as well as the NAS, but that was expected given the way VMWare ESXi tries to handle networking via a virtual switch. The NAS saturated its 10Gb connection — again, about 9.38Gbits/sec is likely as good as that’s going to get.

For another test, I installed the second 10Gb NIC. Both x16 slots on the mainboard had the 10Gb NICs and the x4 slot had the graphics card. I connected the NAS to the single-port card, added it into the bridge, then rebooted the switch so the network changes would take.

I was looking for any indication of a performance degradation sending data between the NICs across the PCI-Express bus.

iperf_test_between_nics

As you can see above, I ran three tests just to be sure. The PCI-Express bus on the 990FX chipset is not a bottleneck between the NICs.

Now I just need to finalize the setup. I’m not settled yet on whether this will go into a 2U or 4U chassis, though it’ll likely be the latter to allow for a full-size power supply and quiet 120mm fans for cooling while avoiding having to find low-profile brackets for the NICs.

So the next part will be finalizing the Zone 1 switch and figuring out what I need for the Zone 2 switch.

Crime/Feminism/Second Amendment

Teaching men to not rape

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

This is a response I gave on Facebook to someone who said

Can’t we teach men not to rape at the same time as teaching women how to defend themselves? Oh wait…no. That’s asking too much.

So you’re willing to presume that all men are rapists or rapists in waiting? Just as all gun owners are killers, or killers in waiting?

That’s the problem with the concept. The vast majority of men largely will not rape women and do not want to rape women. Just as the vast majority of gun owners do not want to kill anyone and will not kill anyone.

This presumption is the problem. The presumption that someone who is not taught to not do something bad will invariably do that bad thing. That we have to teach gun owners to not kill or they will kill. That gun owners are out to buy weapons to kill others. I’ve said before that the rhetoric of the anti-gunner is such that they might as well walk up to someone filling out the ATF 4473 form and ask “Who are you planning to kill?”

The same with the “teach men to not rape” crowd. It presumes that all men are rapists until they’ve been taught to not be. That we have to teach men to not rape or they will rape. Forget the fact that most men won’t rape. And that the only reason many women think men will is because they keep narrowing the definition of consent to have more control over men because we will largely do what we can to avoid raping a woman.

Especially since the mere allegation of rape can destroy a man’s life. That alone means you don’t need to teach men to not rape. You just need to account for the ones for whom even teaching them to not rape, presuming such a thing is possible, won’t do any good.

Children/Health/Health care/Science

Smokers can never be considerate

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Let’s see, where to begin — and this is coming from someone who grew up around a smoker that quit 20 years ago this coming January:

1. The root word of “smoking” is SMOKE! The fact I need to go beyond that is asinine unto itself.

2. Smoke inhalation is the leading cause of death in house fires. Smoke kills. Cigarette smoke kills you slowly. This has been very, very well documented.

3. The risks of that smoke extend not just to the smoker, but to those in the smoker’s immediate vicinity. The risks of second-hand smoke are real.

4. The risks of smoking around children are real. Let me put a bit of perspective on this. My wife’s dear friend and her ex-husband, let’s call them Alice and Ralph, were smokers with a daughter who is now 11. My wife and I had actually been trying to pressure Alice and Ralph to quit smoking for YEARS without success. In part because Ralph was a hard-ass on it. Even when I offered, multiple times, to buy vape kits or nicotine gum or patches.

Alice eventually moved to vaping with her girlfriend Trixie. And this past May I bought Alice an upgraded vape kit (a more-expensive sub-Ω kit for additional flavor) and both Alice and Trixie a decent supply of juice. Because we were worried about not only the health toll smoking was taking on them, but especially on Alice and Ralph’s daughter — especially now that she’s trying to get into music.

Not to mention the fact that I absolutely hated when my wife came home after spending time up there, and why I refused to step foot into that house for longer than a brief period for the longest time.

Seriously the smell alone is noxious. This is why no matter how considerate you try to be, you can never be completely considerate. That smell permeates everything the smoke touches. Doesn’t matter if you smoke outside, that smoke still gets on you and your clothing, and that smell is noxious and easily picked up by anyone not used to it.

It’s why whenever my wife visited, she kept a spare set of clothing separate in her vehicle away where it wouldn’t get contaminated by that smell, that she changed into at her first stop on her way home. And why we kept the contaminated clothes tied up in a bag until they could be washed. Now that the smell is almost completely gone from that house, we don’t need to worry about it.

I can walk into that house without feeling like I’m going to suffocate.

5. Your right to smoke, frankly, ends when that smoke starts to negatively affect other people. And it always will. That is why the places where people can smoke have dwindled, and will continue to dwindle. I don’t like that it’s happening through laws rather than at the choice of business owners (though places that allow smokers were starting to die off before the laws were passed because non-smokers didn’t want to be exposed), but eventually smokers were going to lose out.

The dirty looks and condescension are because we know what you’re doing to your body by continuing to smoke. You are demonstrably harming your body, and creating risks for those around you, especially if you smoke at home around children. Not to mention the cost. Good god, the cost alone should be reason enough to push to try to quit.

It’s not about the smoker, but about the smoke. And if a smoker is going to get uptight or lippy with me about it, I’ll gladly give them a piece of my mind.

Free speech and press

Misconstruing free speech – #TrumpCup

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

On November 18, a woman named Sam Montgomery posted this to Twitter:

And when others rightly claimed this is a violation of virtually every health code in existence in the US, she tried to counter by calling her actions “free speech” (including parent tweets to show conversation):

Later, this person claimed to have been fired from Starbucks, and she apparently received enough attention that a reporter contacted her via Twitter to ask about an on-camera interview.

The profile says that she’s “Co-author of Stats Canada: Satire On A National Scale”, meaning she might be a Canadian resident (so obviously not living in Kentucky). She claimed to have worked at the Starbucks in Lexington, KY. And Lexington has several more than just one Starbucks. So which location allegedly previously employed her?

Now the truthfulness of the account of events is not material for discussion. We can discuss the situation as if it is a hypothetical.

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean a right to injure someone else. The old adage is the right to swing your fist ends at someone else’s nose. And spitting in someone else’s cup, or adulterating or modifying their drink in any other fashion, is an injury to them. An example of which is spiking someone’s drink without their knowledge and consent.

Setting aside the risks of communicable illness, spitting on or at someone has never been treated as an exercise of speech, but always as an act of aggression. And any claim to freedom of speech ends when that person exercised aggression toward someone else.

But then there’s the claim of persecution for beliefs by being fired for threatening to spit in customers’ cups. Again, spitting is an act of aggression. So you cannot claim persecution for the consequences of threatening aggression on someone. Especially if what preceded the threat is a genuine act of speech — regardless of what you might think, #TrumpCup is an exercise of free speech.

Let’s say a minority individual were to threaten me in a public place to put me into the emergency room (or worse) for what I say publicly. And in response, I pull my legal concealed pistol in response, regardless of whether I open fire. The person who threatened me cannot then claim persecution, since a threat of aggression is not speech, and any threat of aggression can be met with a threat of reasonable aggression in return.

After all, the anti-Trump protesters arrested in Portland, OR, aren’t claiming to be political prisoners. And to claim as an act of free speech threatening to or actually spitting in someone’s #TrumpCup, and to then claim persecution when fired for threatening such on social media, would also mean the Portland protesters are political prisoners.

Violence makes any act of speech prima facie illegitimate. Violence is not speech. Threating to or actually spitting in someone’s #TrumpCup is not speech. Violent protesters cannot claim to be political prisoners. Firing someone for threatening to spit in someone’s cup is not persecution.

10Gb network upgrade

10 gigabit (10Gb) home network – Part I

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 5 Comments
Build Log:

Right now my home network is entirely Gigabit — minus any wireless devices or laptops that are using “Fast Ethernet” (i.e. 100 Mbps). And the time has come to take that further.

My Google Fiber connection is near Gigabit full-duplex. My home network is largely spliced off into two zones to keep from running everything on one circuit in my apartment.

Zone 1 is the living room. Living out there are the NAS and a virtualization server along with the router. Everything is connected to an 850W UPS. Zone 2 is the computer room. Absinthe and Mira plus the entertainment center are plugged into a Gigabit switch connected to the router via a long Cat5e cable.

The virtualization server is a refurbished HP Z600 I bought from refurb.io. It has two Xeon E5520 processors with a 500GB HDD that I intend to upgrade to an SSD eventually. I use VMWare ESXi 6.0 since it’s free and works quite well. One of the VMs is a Plex server that mounts to shared folders on the NAS.

So there’s a lot of competition on the Gigabit connection, essentially throttling everything. Including our Internet connection. (Yes, I can already hear the sarcastic cries of sympathy…) Upgrading the network’s backbone is the only way to alleviate that.

A simple solution would be buying two Gigabit switches that have 10Gb SFP+ uplinks and just connecting those together. And while that would alleviate some of the bottlenecking on the network, there are other reasons to go with 10Gb.

First, I want to upgrade Mira and Absinthe to use 10Gb as well. While Mira has 4TB of supplemental storage (4x1TB on a RAID 0), Absinthe doesn’t have anything extra. So upgrading to 10Gb will allow her to use the NAS as supplemental storage without being limited to just Gigabit. This will become even more so after I fill out the last of the HDD bays in the NAS.

But storage speed is the primary reason to go 10Gb. Mira and Absinthe both have Samsung 950 PRO NVMe SSDs. And the RAID 0 supplemental storage on Mira is also limited when copying things to and from the NAS. And the NAS itself is limited by its onboard Gigabit connections as well. So everything on the network has the potential to see massive improvements by jumping to 10Gb.

Custom switches

There’s really only one way to do this while still controlling cost: a custom switch. (Update: At the time I wrote this, it was true from what I could find. But not anymore.)

Two zones in my network means two switches are planned. Zone 1’s switch will be happening first. This will provide a 10Gb connection between the NAS and virtualization servers while still exposing them to the rest of the network through a Gigabit connection to the router.

To that end, I’ve made an order through eBay for several 10GbE SFP+ cards:

The dual-port and one single-port Mellanox card will go into Zone 1’s switch. The onboard Gigabit connection plus 3x10Gb connections will be all that’s required. In the end, the Gigabit connection to the router will be the only connection to the router from the rest of the network.

The Chelsio S320 is for the NAS, which is running FreeNAS. Mellanox ConnectX-2 cards are not supported by FreeNAS, but the Chelsio S320 is supported since it has the Chelsio T3 chipset. If I was able to find a Chelsio S310 single-port card, I would’ve gone with that instead.

Now for cables. Virtually every 10Gb home networking tutorial I’ve seen online uses direct-attached, twin-axial SFP+ copper connections (10GSFP+Cu). In part I think ease is the reason. Direct-attached copper is easier to use since it’s like plugging in your standard RJ45 cables, just with big connectors on the end.

And it’s perfectly fine for short connections. Just bear in mind that passive 10GSFP+Cu is generally limited to 5m (a little over 16ft). Beyond that you need to use active cables, which are expensive, or optical fiber.

Which is what I’m using.

While the cost of optical fiber (10GBase-SR) is similar to passive 10GSFP+Cu at lesser lengths, optical fiber allows you to go beyond 5m without significant cost. And since I intend to connect two switches in two completely different rooms, 10GBase-SR is basically required for this to keep cost down.

While I could use 10GSFP+Cu for the connections in Zone 1, I can’t use it to connect Mira and Absinthe in Zone 2. The switch will be on the opposite side of the room from the computers, easily eating up the 5m length limit with little slack. So since I’ll have little choice but to use optical fiber for all 10Gb connections in Zone 2, and for connecting the Zone 1 and Zone 2 switches, I’m just going to use it for all 10Gb connections.

The transceivers linked above are just 16 USD each, and the two 1m cables were under 3 USD, giving a single 1m connection between two systems at just under 35 USD plus shipping. A Fiberstore representative also consulted with me to make sure I was ordering the right transceivers for my hardware before releasing the order for packing and shipping. I love that level of customer service. And she said the “generic” transceiver linked above is compatible with the Chelsio S320 and Mellanox ConnectX-2.

The cards were bought from three different sellers on eBay, shipped via three different couriers (one each via USPS, UPS, and FedEx), with three different scheduled delivery dates. The Fiberstore order shipped the day the Mellanox pair arrived. From China. Hence the 22 USD shipping charge.

So everything should arrive in time for the Thanksgiving long weekend.

First parts arrive

The pair of single-port Mellanox cards arrived first, and the Chelsio cards arrived the next day. I did a quick test on one of the cards to make sure they were detected without issue in a Windows 10 test system. And they got oddly warm while idling.

a4gh_1_20150913525279633

The Mellanox cards have passive heatsinks over their chips. While switching to active cooling would certainly help, provided I could find active cooling that would fit, I started with removing the heatsink. And I was not surprised by what I found: fractured thermal paste that barely stuck to the NIC chip. There was likely not much contact between the heatsink and chip.

Arctic MX-4 to the rescue!!! But the chip still got very hot even at idle. So active cooling is going to be a necessity, whether by placing a fan to blow onto the card or replacing its passive heatsink with active. I discovered a forum post that also mentioned the importance of cooling the SFP+ connector on the card, so something else to keep in mind.

So definitely keep in mind if you go this route that, since you’re buying surplus used NICs, you need to replace the thermal compound under any heatsinks and set up for active cooling. And make sure to use a good thermal compound like MX-4 or IC Diamond.

If you are considering replacing the passive heatsink with an active heatsink, I recommend the copper heatsinks by Enzotech. Just measure the mounting holes on your card to get one that will work.

The Chelsio card doesn’t have a removable heatsink on its main processor. Instead it’s attached with thermal glue, so don’t try to wrench it off. The seller also included two 10GBase-SR modules with my card: Finisar FTLX8571D3BCL.

Installing the cards into the NAS and virtualization machine were straightforward. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for everything else so I can build the switch and connect everything together.

That’s coming with the next part.

Politics

Post-election (willful) ignorance

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

Let’s start with these two:

  • “Will my marriage stay legal?”
  • “Will Roe v. Wade be overturned?”

Anyone who asks these questions obviously does not know how the Courts work. In the Supreme Court of the United States and virtually every other Court in the US (including State and local Courts) is a concept called stare decisis. This means “let the decision stand”. This concept goes by a different name of which most people are familiar: “precedent”.

While it would not be true to say that the Supreme Court has never reversed itself, it would also not be true to say it happens often. It is quite rare. And, in general, it requires presenting to the Court through a properly introduced case that the Court

  • had a demonstrable and/or egregious misinterpretation of standing law, precedent, or the Constitution (note the SCotUS is generally perceived to be the arbiter of its own precedent), or
  • has an unresolved conflict in is precedent history that is highlighted by a lower Court (see Ring v. Arizona, 538 US 584 (2000), for an example)

Not liking an outcome is not enough to get the Court to reverse itself.

Two cases come to mind where the Supreme Court has explicitly reversed itself: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, and West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette. In both cases, the Supreme Court was nullifying standing precedent in favor of a completely different ruling.

In the former, the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, oversaw the beginning of the dismantling of state-sponsored and state-enforced mandatory segregation that had been upheld under the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. In the latter, the Supreme Court overturned a ruling (Minersville School District v. Gobitis) that upheld compelling student recitation of the pledge of allegiance.

I think we can all agree that the overruled cases were egregious interpretations of the Constitution.

Roe v. Wade has stood the test of precedent since its publication. It has been strengthened by Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, and most recently with Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt. And the foundations on which Roe draws its reasoning comes from several other preceding opinions: Griswold v. Connecticut and its companion Eisenstadt v. Baird, and United States v. Vuitch.

And it must be pointed out that the respect of stare decisis is why Roe v. Wade has not only not been overturned, even in the face of a 5-4 “conservative” majority, but likely never will. And the same with Obergefell v. Hodges, which overturned and declared a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment the restriction of gays from being able to marry an adult partner of his or her choice.

If you honestly think a Trump presidency means those decisions, that long-standing precedent and the respect of stare decisis goes away, you’re not only deluded beyond the limits of what I’m capable of believing, you have no idea how things actually work.

The United States is a federated republic. The President is merely the presiding officer of the Executive Branch. He is not a dictator. The country does not bend to his whim. You would be thinking of North Korea.

But it does mean that DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago also were largely not in danger of being overturned. Instead the fears of gun rights advocates wasn’t losing at the Supreme Court, but the constant, subtle chipping away at gun rights in the US. Such as what was seen with the various ballot initiatives this last go around. And Clinton’s constant reverence of Australia as a model for the US.

Speaking of Clinton, it also means that, despite her efforts, she would have been unlikely to get Citizens United v. FEC overturned as well.

  • “Are we safe?”
  • “Am I safe?”

The first question appeared three times in the image. Let me answer that question succinctly: we are no less safe today than we were last week before the election. Even taking into account the actual violent crimes that have occurred since the election, there is no reason to believe you are at any higher risk of being the victim of any crime, let alone any hate crime.

Yet paranoia is alive and well.

If you legitimately have concerns about your safety, you do have the right to own and possess a firearm for your personal safety — provided you do not fall under the ATF’s classification of “prohibited persons”. Buy one. And learn how to use it to defend yourself.

But at the same time, get over your paranoia.

The ones who are so concerned about their safety in the wake of Trump’s election I feel have the fear of having brought it on themselves. You see, prior to all the identity politics of the last several years, most couldn’t care less if you’re homosexual, transsexual, or what have you. We just didn’t care.

The only reason there’s been a backlash with regard to a lot of their demands is because you shoved your personal identities in our faces and acted like they mattered more than your actions, or acted like they excused your actions. If you felt emboldened by a black President and felt emboldened by the prospect of a female President, emboldened by the prospect of being able to shove more of your identity politics on us and the limitations to our free speech and due process rights that have come in their wake, then you have only yourself to blame for not only Trump’s victory, but your paranoia and anxiety in its wake.

And if you truly feel in fear of your life, time to swallow your discontent with the Second Amendment and exercise the rights it protects by buying a gun. Who knows, you might even grow to like being a gun owner.

  • “What’s going to happen to my Healthcare?”

In the short term, not much.

Many feel that Republicans just couldn’t wait to get that majority in Congress plus the White House to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Rest easy, though. Now that they have the reins, they’re not going to be so quick to do that. “But they voted xxx number of times before to repeal it.” And that was also when Republicans knew they had a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding with the repeal. Now that a repeal has a much better chance of succeeding, they’re not going to be so quick about it.

And Trump has already said he’s not interested in a full repeal. Instead he wants to rework and retool the Act into something that will work better in the long term.

But much of what already exists is unlikely to change, or change much in the next few years.

  • “Will my trans child be safe at school?”

Trans child? If you’re asking this question legitimately, you are a rare parent indeed. Few children are capable of understanding gender dysphoria, the true definition of trans-sexuality, and any who do experience it won’t realize it until they hit puberty. Your child is very, very likely not on par with Kim Petras, Jazz Jennings, and Jackie Green.

But let’s set that aside for now.

Many fear that Trump supporters will be emboldened by his election to be downright tyrannical to minority groups and women. So far this has not manifested. And there’s little reason to believe it will.

The thing that needs to be kept in mind is that the kind of people who would feel emboldened to do such things by Trump’s election are the kind of people who would look for any excuse to do it anyway. In other words, your fears are largely overblown. This doesn’t mean you let your guard down, but it does mean you don’t walk through life constantly looking over your shoulder.

School, especially high school, can be a downright traumatizing place for some, especially given the absolute difficulty of curbing or countering bullying. But will bullying escalate against minorities — especially LGBT students — in the wake of Trump’s election? I’ve yet to see any reason to believe that to be the case.

And don’t fall for the fallacy and mental trap of believing that an increase in reporting or awareness means an increase in incidence.

  • “Will this increase the militarization of the police in my predominantly black neighborhood?”

I think you’ve forgotten the separation of powers between the Federal, State, and local governments. Trump’s presidency won’t increase the police presence anywhere unless he decides to step up enforcement of Federal laws in areas where Federal crimes are prevalent.

A new United States President largely won’t change how your local police operate.

 

Marriage and Relationships

Naming children

Posted on by Kenneth Ballard / 0 Comment

I love my mother-in-law, I really do. But her baby name choice, Esmeralda, was not, I repeat, not, anywhere near the top of my baby name list. She knew that, I knew that, and my wife knew that. And yet, my daughter’s name is Esmeralda. It was a surprise to me when I saw it on the birth certificate. I was so mad that I just went along with it. What was I supposed to do, argue with the woman who just brought life into this world?
— Antonio H.

To say the above quip made me angry would be an understatement. It’s from a slideshow on The Stir called “11 Moms & Dads Who Totally Regret Their Baby’s Name“. This is absolutely downright despicable behavior as well. It doesn’t matter if it was the wife or the mother-in-law who put the name on the birth certificate.

Naming your children should always be a partner agreement. Meaning if one of the two is completely opposed to a particular name, regardless of how much the other might “love” it, you don’t go with it. It doesn’t end up on the birth certificate in any capacity.

And if the name were to end up on the birth certificate, I’d consider it grounds for divorce. Because it shows that, for decisions that have such a long-term impact, you’re either unwilling to compromise or at the least are willing to be underhanded to get what you want.

At minimum, if I were in Antonio’s position, I’d be filing with the Court to get the birth certificate withdrawn. And absent that, I’d be looking at other options to get the name changed so we could come up with a name more to our joint agreement. And, again, if the mother were to contest, I’d consider it grounds for divorce.

It’s one thing if she is single, the father is out of the picture, and the woman is giving birth and raising the child on her own. But if she’s married, then the name must be a joint decision. No sneaking around. No subterfuge. No subversion.

If either sneaks a name onto the birth certificate and files it, especially if it’s a name the other parent has expressly opposed, again that’s grounds for divorce if they don’t go along with having the name changed. Because if you’re going to sneak around for something as supremely important as naming a child, it gives reason to not trust you on lesser decisions.