2U TS3 Server, Steam Cache, Potential Game Server ? - Networking - OS stuff

[Senzelian]

I'll make it quick and easy. I want to build a machine, which is capable of hosting a Teamspeak 3 Server, a Steam Cache Server (uPlay, Origin, etc. as well) and maybe be able to host small game servers for all sorts of games. I don't want to limit myself here to only certain titles. Thought about a maximum of 5 or 6 clients. It also needs to be somewhat secure - I say "somewhat", because this is of course not for commercial use and just sits in my home network, but of course with access to the internet! It just needs to be secure enough, so that not every 12 years old is capable of simply ripping the music off my NAS. You get the point I guess...

 

So what I had in mind was to build something out of hardware I already have in a cheap 2U case, which then runs an OS that I haven't decided on and stores the cached games on my NAS using something similar to iSCSI. I don't know how secure iSCSI is tho. I assume there are better options. This is just something I played around within the last couple of days.

 

So now let's talk hardware.

What I already have is an i5-4670 and potentially, if needed, a Ryzen 7 2700. That would require me to upgrade my current gaming rig to a 3700X.

For the i5 I have an H97 ITX motherboard and 2x 4GB of RAM.
For the 2700 I also have an ITX board, but it wouldn't be a problem to upgrade to 16GB of RAM or even 32GB, which is probably not necessary I assume. But that's why I am here - to find out which hardware would make the most sense to use.

 

When it comes to storage I'm currently running two 1TB 850 Evos on my Synology RS815. These can, of course, be reconfigured.

So I guess storage won't be an issue

 

Now when it comes to software I thought about running Windows, since its basically all I'm familiar with, but I assume some sort of Linux distro would be a better choice.

I just don't know what to use. Jake used Ubuntu 18.04 for his Steam Caching Tutorial, so maybe that's a good choice? 

 

 

TL;DR:

• TS3, Steam Caching and Game Server
• 2U Formfactor
• Which OS should I use?
• Which hardware should I use? 
  • Is an i5-4670 enough? Should I use a Ryzen 2700 instead?
  • RAM? 8GB, 16GB or 32GB?
  • ITX or ATX for additional PCI expansions?
• I want to save the cached games to the 2TB of storage available on my NAS.
• What about security?
• Any general ideas and inputs?

[Mayaa]

Should easily be doable on the 4670, before i put a 4770k in mine i used a AMD Phenom II x4 for some similar tasks and it worked just fine.

 

OS is up to you, but for the most part i dont think you will notice any big difference between the linux ones, other than some difference in commands if you do something thats not debian based. If you havent used a linux command line before though there will most likely be a bit of a learning curve.

 

Genreally security isnt that big of a deal since the majority of your services will just run locally, but the worst thing would probably be a DDOS attack since you are using your home connection, but you usually have to piss someone off for that to ever happen. Of course doing the obvious things like not running things as root and what not will help to keep the security up also.

[brandishwar]

The i5 should do be fine even though it's only a quad-core. You can monitor CPU usage to be sure, and find a used i7 if you get nervous. You don't need the Ryzen here. Memory will be more important. 8GB won't really cut it here since you're planning to run multiple servers on this. 16GB would be better. But like the CPU usage, you can monitor it as well to make sure.

 

You'll also want to pay attention to the power supply since you want to run this in a 2U form factor. Silverstone makes quiet FlexATX power supplies at 500W, which is a common form factor for 1U and 2U chassis.

 

For cooling, go with Noctua's NH-L9i, which should be quiet and able to handle that CPU with enough incoming airflow. Stick with the ITX board as well. You'll have better luck finding 2U chassis that support it compared to full ATX. I'll presume the board has onboard video as well as LAN.

 

On the OS, definitely go with Linux. It'll have lower memory requirements and a much smaller footprint. Plus you can run it headless a lot easier than Windows. Just make sure to periodically update it. TeamSpeak also has an official Docker image if you're curious. If you have no idea what Docker is, then consider learning since you're now venturing into being a server admin.

 

The distro to select will depend on the game servers you intend to run, as some are built to support some distros over others. Ubuntu tends to be the more popular, though, and its the most lightweight distro available, with CentOS/Fedora being the next best option. Look at the install instructions for the game server software to determine the distro. And select the server edition of the distro, not desktop or Live DVD.

 

Linux is pretty good with security. You'll just want to make sure to always have the firewall running and only open the ports you need. For exposing services to the public, learn about port forwarding if you're not already familiar.

[2FA]

Use PROXMOX as your OS, it's a hypervisor meant to run VMs. This allows you to segment the different services you're running into different VMs which makes it easier to manage in my opinion. I would definitely have the caching server as a VM though. 16GB of RAM is a good starting point.

[Senzelian]

Thanks to everyone that provided some information!  

 

 

On 8/1/2019 at 3:01 AM, brandishwar said:

The i5 should do be fine even though it's only a quad-core. You can monitor CPU usage to be sure, and find a used i7 if you get nervous. You don't need the Ryzen here. Memory will be more important. 8GB won't really cut it here since you're planning to run multiple servers on this. 16GB would be better. But like the CPU usage, you can monitor it as well to make sure.

 

You'll also want to pay attention to the power supply since you want to run this in a 2U form factor. Silverstone makes quiet FlexATX power supplies at 500W, which is a common form factor for 1U and 2U chassis.

 

For cooling, go with Noctua's NH-L9i, which should be quiet and able to handle that CPU with enough incoming airflow. Stick with the ITX board as well. You'll have better luck finding 2U chassis that support it compared to full ATX. I'll presume the board has onboard video as well as LAN.

 

On the OS, definitely go with Linux. It'll have lower memory requirements and a much smaller footprint. Plus you can run it headless a lot easier than Windows. Just make sure to periodically update it. TeamSpeak also has an official Docker image if you're curious. If you have no idea what Docker is, then consider learning since you're now venturing into being a server admin.

 

The distro to select will depend on the game servers you intend to run, as some are built to support some distros over others. Ubuntu tends to be the more popular, though, and its the most lightweight distro available, with CentOS/Fedora being the next best option. Look at the install instructions for the game server software to determine the distro. And select the server edition of the distro, not desktop or Live DVD.

 

Linux is pretty good with security. You'll just want to make sure to always have the firewall running and only open the ports you need. For exposing services to the public, learn about port forwarding if you're not already familiar.

 

Monitoring is a good idea! Didn't even think about gradually upgrading the system  

 

I have a 450w SFX PSU from Corsair and I think there are a couple of 2U cases out there that can support it.

That should be fine, even in a 24/7 operation, right?

 

Thank you very much for the provided information! 

 

On 8/1/2019 at 3:27 PM, 2FA said:

Use PROXMOX as your OS, it's a hypervisor meant to run VMs. This allows you to segment the different services you're running into different VMs which makes it easier to manage in my opinion. I would definitely have the caching server as a VM though. 16GB of RAM is a good starting point.

 

What would the performance look like if I ran every service in its own VM? Is there a large impact?

Also thanks for the recommendation!  

[2FA]

3 hours ago, Senzelian said:

What would the performance look like if I ran every service in its own VM? Is there a large impact?

Also thanks for the recommendation!  

Performance is usually pretty good in my experience since each individual service typically doesn't require much by itself. There isn't really a noticable difference between a bare metal install and running in a VM. It also allows you to have a unique IP on your LAN for each one and you don't have to worry about port conflicts if you want to use things that will overlap, for me, that would be Pihole and Lancache since they both make use of port 53, DNS. I have it going: client->lancache->pihole->upstream DNS. My Lancache Ubuntu Server VM is currently using about ~250MB of RAM total for the whole VM with negligible CPU usage whilst caching a download I have going at the moment. I can't foresee it using much more resources whilst providing the data for clients. The game servers are likely to use the most but you can easily adjust the amount of resources allocated to each VM if needed.

[brandishwar]

3 hours ago, Senzelian said:

I have a 450w SFX PSU from Corsair and I think there are a couple of 2U cases out there that can support it.

That should be fine, even in a 24/7 operation, right?

Yeah, that should work fine. Corsair is a pretty reliable brand for that.

[brandishwar]

On 8/1/2019 at 8:27 AM, 2FA said:

This allows you to segment the different services you're running into different VMs which makes it easier to manage in my opinion.

It's more systems to manage, but fewer services per system, which also reduces the likelihood of any one service interfering with another. That's actually one reason Docker is so popular, but a lot of game servers can't really be containzerized easily.

[2FA]

22 minutes ago, brandishwar said:

It's more systems to manage, but fewer services per system, which also reduces the likelihood of any one service interfering with another. That's actually one reason Docker is so popular, but a lot of game servers can't really be containzerized easily.

You can have a VM act as your container host and have other VMs for services that aren't containerized. The issue with Docker only is that certain things don't work well with non-standard ports, for example DNS.