---
slug: olomana
title: Olomana (PWS v2)
authors: [jrunyan]
tags: [olomana, pws]
---

Check out the link [here](https://github.com/runyanjake/olomana) to learn more about the The PWS 2.0 redesign, beyond what's in this blog!

# Whitney

Whitney was the codename for my first homelab setup (For reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/). 
It was built out of my friend's handmedown hardware in an old server case that was e-wasted from school. 
This initial build was on the "janky" side, featuring an unmounted power supply in the optical bay, secured only by some green yarn. (Fire hazard, anyone?)

![img alt](@site/projects/2024-01-28-olomana/whitney.png)

I ran a lot of services from this box - my personal website/online resume, side projects, a Covid-19 data tracker, game servers, and a lot of other projects that taught me lessons in DNS config, networking, maintaining persistent storage and others.

But eventually I started running up against the limits of the box. The machine's CPU was released in 2008, which was indicative of the age of most of its hardware. 
After spending a lot of work on the original Whitney config in the first repo, I decided that I had learned enough to warrant an upgrade.

# The Upgrade

PWS 2.0 was given the nickname of "Olomana", a second step in this pattern of mountainous server names. 
Mount Olomana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olomana\_(mountain)) is a mountain on the Windward side of Oahu, Hawaii. 
It has 3 peaks which are are a popular, albeit difficult and dangerous hike. While visiting family in Kailua, I hiked the Ko'olau range and snapped this picture of the rarely seen backside of Mount Olomana.

![img alt](@site/projects/2024-01-28-olomana/olomana.png)

Olomana, the web server is a significant upgrade over its predecessor. I built it as a 4U rack-mounted machine with new components inside a RackSolutions 16U rack. 
The build itself includes a number of current gen budget components. Cricital resources like Ram and CPU cores are more abundant in the new build.
A UPS was added to the system for resilience in power outages. In a few instances, the UPS has protected my drives during power outages during the last few years of Northern California winters.
A dedicated write drive that was tested on PWS 1.0 also helped to combat some data corruption issues I had faced on the old hardware.

![img alt](@site/projects/2024-01-28-olomana/whitney.png)

# Links

Check out the [repo](https://github.com/runyanjake/olomana) if you'd like to learn more about it.