Steamcache with FreeNAS, possible?

[Kendiggity]

So when it comes to networking im actually a noob. (ill admit it)
I have a freeNAS server set up 32GB of memory, 64TB of disk space.

I have a lot of lan parties at my home and I was wondering, can a steamcache be created inside of a FreeNAS server.
could someone help me out?

[Jarno.]

hi @Kendiggity

 

You can create a VM on FreeNAS install a Linux distro within it and make that a cache proxy. The server will also act as a DNS server for the host on the network. Maybe you can create it also within FreeNAS self but personally I do not use FreeNAS.

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, Jarno. said:

You can create a VM on FreeNAS install a Linux distro within it and make that a cache proxy. The server will also act as a DNS server for the host on the network.

The Bhyve VM software on FreeNAS has a lot of overhead and I've had terrible luck getting anything Linux to install. I'm not sure that's a great route to go.

 

Would you happen to know if packages for a cache proxy exist for FreeBSD? He could put them in a Jail.

[2FA]

As @Jarno. said, create a VM. Steamcache is now called Lancache and only runs in Docker containers so your VM will be the Docker host. This is a nice guide to setting up the Docker containers: https://lurkingforgames.com/lancache

[Kendiggity]

Thank you for the prompt responses guys! I have gotten Linux booting within a vm. However I do see the option for docker vm in freenas VNC setup. But I have no idea how docker works. Do I need to do anything special?

[Kendiggity]

So good news. I got it working @2FA bad news. im onlt downloading at like 20/mb a second with a game ive downloaded, looking at the logs i see a lot of MISSes is there a way to improve this?

 

[2FA]

7 hours ago, Kendiggity said:

So good news. I got it working @2FA bad news. im onlt downloading at like 20/mb a second with a game ive downloaded, looking at the logs i see a lot of MISSes is there a way to improve this?

 

You can quote people using the arrow at the bottom of a post.

 

On the Docker host VM, would you run the command docker events? I know there is sometimes an issue with Lancache where the containers will keep restarting themselves and that command will show output if they're misbehaving.

[Kendiggity]

nothing popped up for quite some time.

[Kendiggity]

10 hours ago, 2FA said:

You can quote people using the arrow at the bottom of a post.

 

On the Docker host VM, would you run the command docker events? I know there is sometimes an issue with Lancache where the containers will keep restarting themselves and that command will show output if they're misbehaving.

so. I think ive got it working, however its very slow. cached games download at about 20 MB/s where my usual download speed is 17-18mb/s is there ways to increase this?

[2FA]

14 minutes ago, Kendiggity said:

so. I think ive got it working, however its very slow. cached games download at about 20 MB/s where my usual download speed is 17-18mb/s is there ways to increase this?

Is the cached game stored on your array? I know the software stores the game in thousands of small files which is very random read heavy, even for arrays of spinning rust.

 

This is what the wiki for it says:

Quote

You mentioned storage, how fast does my storage need to be?

As fast as possible. Linux is great in that it will cache in memory any files accessed from disk, so if someone accesses the same files multiple times, and they haven't changed, those files will be served from memory, which is very quick.

If the files aren't cached in memory, the OS will need to read it from the disk. If you have mechnical drives, this can be slow, and if you're reading from different areas of the disk, this will slow things down further. SSDs are quicker and if you use RAID, you can improve things even further.

If you can't afford a large SSD, you can also use lvmcache and set up the SSD to act as a read cache for the rotational disk. This will give you three levels of caching:

1. RAM
2. SSD based lvmcache
3. Rotational Hard Disk

If you can afford large SSDs, then run your entire cache using SSDs!

 

[Kendiggity]

14 hours ago, 2FA said:

Is the cached game stored on your array? I know the software stores the game in thousands of small files which is very random read heavy, even for arrays of spinning rust.

 

This is what the wiki for it says:

 

hmmm, I do have mechanical hard drives. that could be the issue. However, I have decided to go a different route for setup. Im thinking instead of FreeNAS (which is a royal pain)
maybe its possible to setup ubuntu on my server computer and install the 3 things i do usually through VMs

1. Pxe server
2. Samba server for network storage as well as ftp access.
3 lancache.

the only question i have in this regard is will ports interfere with each other?

i know lan cache uses 443 80 and 80, maybe another? not sure right now.
pxe uses tftp which i think is ftps port

would it be better to do it this way as opposed to 3 seperate vms?
and would the ports interfere with each other?

[2FA]

1 hour ago, Kendiggity said:

hmmm, I do have mechanical hard drives. that could be the issue. However, I have decided to go a different route for setup. Im thinking instead of FreeNAS (which is a royal pain)
maybe its possible to setup ubuntu on my server computer and install the 3 things i do usually through VMs

1. Pxe server
2. Samba server for network storage as well as ftp access.
3 lancache.

the only question i have in this regard is will ports interfere with each other?

i know lan cache uses 443 80 and 80, maybe another? not sure right now.
pxe uses tftp which i think is ftps port

would it be better to do it this way as opposed to 3 seperate vms?
and would the ports interfere with each other?

Lancache uses ports 53, 80, 443. PXE uses ports 67 and 69. Samba uses 139 and 445. FTP itself uses 20 and 21 but I would recommend SFTP which uses SSH and therefore port 22.

 

EDIT: I would also suggest using LVM for SSD caching like the Lancache wiki suggests.

[Kendiggity]

1 hour ago, 2FA said:

Lancache uses ports 53, 80, 443. PXE uses ports 67 and 69. Samba uses 139 and 445. FTP itself uses 20 and 21 but I would recommend SFTP which uses SSH and therefore port 22.

 

EDIT: I would also suggest using LVM for SSD caching like the Lancache wiki suggests.

thank you so much for the quick answers. you've been very helpful.

im using ubuntu 18.04 server. although strongly considering switching to GUI (weak i know)
i guess i could run all of this off one installation. the only other question is, are there guides out there. or do you have guides. ill be transparent and explain what im trying to do.

- samba server for network storage in my household
- ftp server or sftp server for sharing the same In house storage to my clanmates/friends/family.

- pxe server to install my custom windows 10 image that i use for all installs on my computers/customers computers.
-lancache is obvious and speaks for it self

 

 

[2FA]

47 minutes ago, Kendiggity said:

thank you so much for the quick answers. you've been very helpful.

im using ubuntu 18.04 server. although strongly considering switching to GUI (weak i know)
i guess i could run all of this off one installation. the only other question is, are there guides out there. or do you have guides. ill be transparent and explain what im trying to do.

- samba server for network storage in my household
- ftp server or sftp server for sharing the same In house storage to my clanmates/friends/family.

- pxe server to install my custom windows 10 image that i use for all installs on my computers/customers computers.
-lancache is obvious and speaks for it self

I'm not going to search for the guides for you but yes there are plenty of guides out there. I would generally included ubuntu in search terms though when looking for guides/software, preferably the guides should be for Ubuntu 16.04 or newer.