In today’s world online privacy, regional blocks and censorship is becoming more and more of an issue. A lot of VPN services are appearing which aim to allow people to be anonymous when browsing the internet. However these VPN services present a few problems. The first is you have no idea what data is really logged, or even if anyone is snooping on what you are doing, the second is the cost. Often VPN services can be quite expensive and have limits on the amount of data that can be used each month. So what can you do? Well its very easy to set-up a secure VPN server on a Linux VPS (Virtual Private Server). On a VPS you have full root access, meaning you can do what you want and control who has access to the VPS. A basic VPS server can cost you as little as £2 a month, which is not a lot compared to paying for a VPN provider. In thus tutorial we are going to be using the most basic VPS from OVH, the VPS Classic 1. Link: VPS Servers from OVH The VPS Classic 1 has: 1x CPU core 1gb of ram 10gb of storage space 1x IPv4…
Welcome to my Kimsufi Windows Install Guide. OVH have some very cheap entry level dedicated servers which are branded under the Kimsufi name. The KS1 server which is currently £5 a month including VAT gets you a: Atom N2800 @1.86ghz Processor (2 cores, 4 threads) 2GB DDR3 ram 500GB sata hard drive 100mbps connection 1x IP V4 address Alternatively for £10 a month you can get the same server with 4GB of ram and a 1TB hard drive (KS2 Server) The only choice of OS for these server however is limited to Linux, OVH used to let you use your own Windows licence, however this is not an option any more. Not all is lost however, all OVH / Kimsufi servers offer a Linux based rescue system. This is where the servers hard drive is essentially mounted inside a Linux Live CD so you can perform diagnostics or troubleshoot any problems. As the OVH rescue system system gives direct access to the servers hard drive we can use this to deploy a sysprepped Windows install over the internet. Combined with an unattend.xml file this sysprepped Windows install is enough to deploy Windows Server 2012 R2 on the Kimsufi KS-1 and KS-2 servers and have it connected to the internet…
Since our Suberhub was unfortunate enough to receive the new BUS_V2.37.13 firmware around the 21/10/14 our whole experience with Virgin Media Business Broadband has been terrible, totally a joke would sum it up quite well. Now in all fairness to NTL / Virgin Media Business, the company I work for has been with them since around 2003 / 2004 for business broadband, i’m told the company has never had any major problems in the past. I’ve worked here for over 3 years and the only issue with the internet until recently 30mins of downtime one morning. However earlier this year we upgraded from the legacy 10mbit package to fastest package available to Virgin Media Business Broadband connection available at the time, 50mbit. Part of this upgrade included our old modem been swapped for a Superhub, which is essentially a modem / router combo. In our setup the Superhub is essentially used as a modem, we have five static IP addresses which are assigned to our own router. The only thing the Superhub is doing is providing the internet connection. Wireless and any additional functionality is disabled on the Superhub. The Superhub in this configuration has worked great in our office from…
A Small 8 Bay Home Nas / ESXI Server is something I had been wanting to build for a while. Unfortunately small and 8x 3.5″ drive bays are not something that can be often found together in the same sentence when looking to build your own home NAS / ESXI Server Build. However i then found the U-NAS NSC-800 which was perfect for the job of housing my 8 Bay Home Nas The U-NAS NSC-800 featured: 8 x 3.5” SATA/SAS Hot-Swap Drive Bays 1x 2.5″ HDD/SSD Internal Drive Bays 1x PCI / PCI Express Expansion Slots 316mm x 254mm x 180mm dimensions Mini ITX motherboard compatibility The SAS breakout cables were already fitted in the case, so all I required was an actual SAS SATA / Raid controller. The most important thing here was the 8x SATA drive bays which i could fill with large 3.5″ drives with space for an internal 2.5″ hard drive / SSD for installing the OS on, or the data store for virtual machines when running Vmware ESXI in my case. The PCI Express expansion slot would be perfect for a SATA / Raid controller which would be essential to connect up the 8x drives, finally i could fit a Mini-ITX motherboard with…
Installing Windows 8.1 using your Windows 8.0 key is not as easy as it should be, Microsoft first want you to install Windows 8.0, then upgrade to 8.1 using the Windows Store, then after that install Windows 8.1 Update 1 and any Windows Updates released after that. That is a lot of wasted time both downloading and installing updates, even more so if you have a slow internet connection. However you can simply install Windows 8.1 with update 1 using your Windows 8 key. This doesn’t matter if the key is a retail key, upgrade key or OEM key this method will work perfectly fine with Windows 8 Core or Pro Editions. How to install Windows 8.1 as a clean install, without installing Windows 8.0 first. First you need a clean, untouched Windows 8.1 Update 1 ISO, if you have a Technet or MDSN subscription you can simply download the ISO’s from there like I have. If you don’t i have included the file name and SHA1 of the ISO below, along with a magenet link. To download the magnet link in uTorrent simply go File > Add Torrent From URL and copy and paste the magnet link in. Typing the SHA1 Windows…