What is your server used for?

[WindirBear]

Just out of curiosity I wanted to know what you use your server for?

 

What OS does it run?

 

How many VMs do you run?

 

How much time do you spend on it a week?

 

How do you secure it from online attacks?

 

What's your preferred method of remote accessing?(what's your username and password?)🥸jk

 

What hardware are you running?

 

Lastly is there anything interesting you'd like to add about your server?

[Windows7ge]

1. I have a number of servers that play a variety of roles both on and off my network including File Servers, iSCSI servers, VPN servers, Backup Storage Servers, DHCP servers, TFTP servers, BOINC nodes, among other more trivial services.
2. Most run Ubuntu Server 20.04.1 LTS but my primary hypervisor server runs PROXMOX which is a distribution based on Debian Linux.
3. Depends on what I'm doing but right now I have 10+4 LXC Containers with plans to setup more soon-ish.
4. That really depends on what I'm doing in given week but I use my VPN hosted on one of my server very frequently to access my home LAN so it's safe to say several hours if not more.
5. Only allowing Port Forwarding of the servers/services that absolutely need it. Thankfully most of what I need can be accessed via the VPN. Even then password authentication is disabled and root cannot remote in. Users have to authenticate with Password Protected Public Private Key Authentication. Services that need to remote in on a schedule use Password-Less Public Private Key Authentication.
6. Mostly via the VPN. I use Pritunl installed in Ubuntu Server 20.04.1 LTS. If I need to access a specific server from there SSH is preferred. Passwords would be RSA-2048 or RSA-3072 bit encrypted Public Private Key pairs w/ password protection. Installing UFW is also a nice to have for disabling ports or services so only the things you need are accessible.
7. That varies depending on the server.
   1. Primary Storage Server
      1. Dual Intel Xeon E5-2698v3's
      2. 0.5TB NEMIX DDR4 Registered ECC 2Rx4 2400MHz
      3. Supermicro X10DRi-T
      4. Mini-redundant 800W server PSU from Athena Power
      5. 20x Intel 960GB SATA Server grade SSDs (DC-S4500/D3-S4510)
   2. Primary Hypervisor server
      1. Dual Intel Xeon E5-2670v1's
      2. 128GB Kingston DDR3 Unbuffered ECC 1600MHz
      3. ASRock Rack EP2C602-4L/D16
      4. Corsair RM850x PSU
      5. 8x WD Gold 2TB 7200RPM HDDs
      6. 5x WD Red 3TB 5400RPM HDD's
      7. 3x Seagate Iromwolf NAS 10TB 7200RPM HDDs
      8. 4x Seagate EXOS Enterprise 10TB 7200RPM HDDs
      9. Intel 750 Series 400GB PCI_e SSD
      10. Mellanox ConnectX-2 MNPA19-XTR 10Gbit NIC w/ SFP-10GSR-85 fiber transceiver
   3. Backup File Server
      1. Intel Atom C2750
      2. ASRock Rack C2750D4I
      3. 16GB G.Skill desktop RAM (temporary)
      4. Corsair RMx 650W
      5. 3x WD White Label 10TB drives (shucked from WD Elementals)
      6. Mellanox ConnectX-2 MNPA19-XTR 10Gbit NIC w/ SFP-10GSR-85 fiber transceiver
   4. New Server. Going to replace hardware in Primary Storage Server.
      1. Supermicro H11SSL-i
      2. AMD EPYC 7601
      3. 128GB NEMIX DDR4 Registered ECC 2Rx8 2666MHz
8. A project I'm going to be starting soon-ish is using 10Gig fiber-optic NIC's with iPXE support I'll take nodes on the network and have them boot to iSCSI shares on the hypervisor server. With that I can manage these nodes without any local storage.

[WindirBear]

2 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

1. I have a number of servers that play a variety of roles both on and off my network including File Servers, iSCSI servers, VPN servers, Backup Storage Servers, DHCP servers, TFTP servers, BOINC nodes, among other more trivial services.
2. Most run Ubuntu Server 20.04.1 LTS but my primary hypervisor server runs PROXMOX which is a distribution based on Debian Linux.
3. Depends on what I'm doing but right now I have 10+4 LXC Containers with plans to setup more soon-ish.
4. That really depends on what I'm doing in given week but I use my VPN hosted on one of my server very frequently to access my home LAN so it's safe to say several hours if not more.
5. Only allowing Port Forwarding of the servers/services that absolutely need it. Thankfully most of what I need can be accessed via the VPN. Even then password authentication is disabled and root cannot remote in. Users have to authenticate with Password Protected Public Private Key Authentication. Services that need to remote in on a schedule use Password-Less Public Private Key Authentication.
6. Mostly via the VPN. I use Pritunl installed in Ubuntu Server 20.04.1 LTS. If I need to access a specific server from there SSH is preferred. Passwords would be RSA-2048 or RSA-3072 bit encrypted Public Private Key pairs w/ password protection. Installing UFW is also a nice to have for disabling ports or services so only the things you need are accessible.
7. That varies depending on the server.
   1. Primary Storage Server
      1. Dual Intel Xeon E5-2698v3's
      2. 0.5TB NEMIX DDR4 Registered ECC 2Rx4 2400MHz
      3. Supermicro X10DRi-T
      4. Mini-redundant 800W server PSU from Athena Power
      5. 20x Intel 960GB SATA Server grade SSDs (DC-S4500/D3-S4510)
   2. Primary Hypervisor server
      1. Dual Intel Xeon E5-2670v1's
      2. 128GB Kingston DDR3 Unbuffered ECC 1600MHz
      3. ASRock Rack EP2C602-4L/D16
      4. Corsair RM850x PSU
      5. 8x WD Gold 2TB 7200RPM HDDs
      6. 5x WD Red 3TB 5400RPM HDD's
      7. 3x Seagate Iromwolf NAS 10TB 7200RPM HDDs
      8. 4x Seagate EXOS Enterprise 10TB 7200RPM HDDs
      9. Intel 750 Series 400GB PCI_e SSD
      10. Mellanox ConnectX-2 MNPA19-XTR 10Gbit NIC w/ SFP-10GSR-85 fiber transceiver
   3. Backup File Server
      1. Intel Atom C2750
      2. ASRock Rack C2750D4I
      3. 16GB G.Skill desktop RAM (temporary)
      4. Corsair RMx 650W
      5. 3x WD White Label 10TB drives (shucked from WD Elementals)
      6. Mellanox ConnectX-2 MNPA19-XTR 10Gbit NIC w/ SFP-10GSR-85 fiber transceiver
   4. New Server. Going to replace hardware in Primary Storage Server.
      1. Supermicro H11SSL-i
      2. AMD EPYC 7601
      3. 128GB NEMIX DDR4 Registered ECC 2Rx8 2666MHz
8. A project I'm going to be starting soon-ish is using 10Gig fiber-optic NIC's with iPXE support I'll take nodes on the network and have them boot to iSCSI shares on the hypervisor server. With that I can manage these nodes without any local storage.

Thats a very complicated setup you have at least with my level of knowledge. I never knew what a hypervisor was, nice! To be honest i don't know some of the other stuff you said are, probably because I don't use or need them... yet

So you have Pritunl installed in a VM? and thats dedicated to SSH your local network from the outside? am i getting that right?

how long have you have had this set up for?

how many watts does your setup use?

[NelizMastr]

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What hardware are you running?

I'm running the following:

 

Main server

Dell PowerEdge T140

Xeon E-2136 - 6c/12t

48GB DDR4 2400 ECC UDIMM

PERC H330 RAID controller

Nvidia Quadro P620 video card

Intel 600p 256GB NVMe

3x 500GB SATA SSD in RAID5 ("production" VMs)

2x 480GB SSD in RAID0 (Lab/test VMs)

2x 8TB shucked WD80EDAZ HDD in RAID1 (bulk storage and plex media)

16GB USB3 flash drive for OS

 

Network services and Mgmt server

HP T620 Flexible Thin Client

AMD GX-415GA SOC (4c/4t 1.5GHz)

16GB DDR3

Transcend 512GB M.2 SATA SSD

8GB USB3 flash drive for OS

 

NAS

Synology DS218

2x4TB WD Red in SHR (RAID1) - ISO library and backups - connected to a cloud service via WebDAV. 

OpenVPN server

Quote

What OS does it run?

The T140 runs ESXi 7.0U1

The T620 runs ESXi 6.7U3

Quote

How many VMs do you run?

T620:

1. Windows Server 2019 file server that's setup for anonymous access from my retro PCs. 

2. Windows 10 Management VM for emergency access, usually suspended.

3. Unifi controller for my Ubiquiti gear - this VM also has PiHole setup for both IPv4 and IPv6 - Ubuntu Server 20.04

4. Random Ubuntu 20.04 file server connected to an iSCSI LUN from the NAS, usually suspended.

 

T140:

1. Plex media server - Ubuntu Server 20.04 - The Quadro P620 is passed through for transcoding. Works very well

2. Windows Server 2019 main management VM

3. Windows Server 2016 Remote Desktop server - Session host and gateway - for hosting RemoteApps I use when not at home (Office 2016, mRemoteNG etc.) or RDP to any Windows machine if needed.

4. Minecraft server - Debian 10

5. Test machine for upcoming Windows Server 2022. 

 

There's usually more test/lab VMs but I removed all of them when I recently reinstalled everything. 

Quote

 

How much time do you spend on it a week?

I spend an hour a month on checking if I missed any patches. The Windows machines are setup to automatically install update and reboot once a week. 

The Linux servers only install security patches automatically. 

Quote

 

How do you secure it from online attacks?

Nothing except the Remote Desktop gateway and Minecraft server are internet accessible, the RDGateway has an SSL certificate in place and strong passwords.

All other services are only accessible via a VPN connection through the Synology NAS

Quote

 

What's your preferred method of remote accessing?(what's your username and password?)🥸jk

I usually connect through OpenVPN to get on the network. If I only need to access my e-mail in my preferred program (Outlook)

I log onto my RDWeb page and open Outlook as a RemoteApp. 

 

Quote

Lastly is there anything interesting you'd like to add about your server?

Not really. Everything works fine and it's a pretty energy efficient setup overall.

 

[gdb123456]

i have a linux ubuntu server hosted on a datacenter. I am using it for the backend of my 10 apps/games I have at google play. And 2 of my webpages. Its fun to admin a server, read its logs and see lots of crawlers and attemps to hack me without success. bye

[Windows7ge]

11 hours ago, WindirBear said:

So you have Pritunl installed in a VM? and thats dedicated to SSH your local network from the outside? am i getting that right?

how long have you have had this set up for?

how many watts does your setup use?

1. It's installed in a VM yes but it's not purely for SSH access. I also use it to access SMB file shares on the home network when I'm away from home and I use it to access the WebUI of my various servers for administrative purposes.
2. I've had the Pritunl VM up and running for 9~10 months now and it's been solid as a rock.
3. Depends on weather the system is under load or not. Under full load I pull around 1100W continuously. Idle power consumption isn't nearly as bad.

[Salacious B Crum]

Home built NAS:

Intel I7 6700

32GB DDR4 3200

OS Unraid

4tb Parity

1.5TB SSD cache

7 4tb data drives (28TB)

10gb duel port nic

UPS power backup

Plex media server

12 dockers

2 VM's (Home assistant) (Win10)

 

4 years old running flawless since implementation have had several power outages with no adverse affect

 

 

[WhitetailAni]

My server:
Phenom II X4 955 @ 4.4 GHz (2 cores disabled)

Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3

12GB DDR3 1384 MT/s (2x2GB, 2x4GB)

3D Rage II +DVD (PCI video card)

WD Green 1TB

Thermaltake TR2 600W

Cobbled together out of old parts, runs a small Java Minecraft server decently well.

[flibberdipper]

Current server is used primarily as a regular ol NAS+Plex server, but it'll also deal with the occasional Minecraft server. Currently running the following hardware:
Pentium G3258 @ 4.2GHz/1.25v (semi-passively cooled by a 212 EVO, an EVGA 650 G1 is basically right above it providing decent enough airflow)

Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5

4x2GB 1333MHz CL9 (one Micron and one Pareema kit)

1TB Toshiba DT01ACA100 for general storage

250GB Barracuda as a dumping ground

1TB Hitachi HDS721010CLA630 + 2x 1TB Barracudas in a simple Storage Space for Plex

Binbows 10™ Education

 

For when this inevitably gets replaced, this is my plan. Very much overkill at the start, but the idea is to grow into it.

[Jarsky]

On 3/18/2021 at 12:10 AM, WindirBear said:

Just out of curiosity I wanted to know what you use your server for?

 

What OS does it run?

UnRAID 6.7

ESXi 7 x 3

Windows 2019

On 3/18/2021 at 12:10 AM, WindirBear said:

How many VMs do you run?

Between all 5 of the servers, around 30 VM's...but my primary server (UnRAID) has 3 Powered on 24/7. 

On 3/18/2021 at 12:10 AM, WindirBear said:

How much time do you spend on it a week?

 

In maintenance time? I've written automation scripts for everything....so probably around 20 minutes a week on average for general tidy and checks. 

On 3/18/2021 at 12:10 AM, WindirBear said:

How do you secure it from online attacks?

Keep antivirus/malware agents up to date on Windows.

Strict user permissions to shares. I use "service accounts" for applications such as qBitTorrent that should be able to write to the shares, my PC's that run nightly backups to the backup share use their own service account that only has write access to the backup folder. I have a Read/Write account I can use, however my shares are mounted Read-Only for regular use and for anonymous use. 

Otherwise I have my network segmented into VLAN's and using Firewalls with strict rules. 

I use TLS based authentication for my Linux Jumpserver and I use Geo-IP filtering for many services (you have to be from certain ISP's). 

In order to RDP into a server externally you need to tunnel that over SSH or connect to the VPN. 

 

On 3/18/2021 at 12:10 AM, WindirBear said:

What's your preferred method of remote accessing?(what's your username and password?)🥸jk

Certificate authentication to SSH. I do have NextCloud as well, my general shares can be accessed by certain users in there, but only as read-only. 

I dont really have much use for VPN, I just use my SSH to create a tunnel to RDP from work sometimes if I need to do something. 

 

On 3/18/2021 at 12:10 AM, WindirBear said:

What hardware are you running?

Ryzen 9 3950X for UnRAID, 128GB Ram

Dual Xeon X5650's & X5670's, 64GB Ram on the rest of the servers. 

LSI Hardware RAID controllers on the ESXi & Windows servers. 

8TB HGST He8's in UnRAID (Gen4 NVMe cache), 4TB WD Red's in Windows, and 500GB Samsung EVO SSD's in the 3 Dell PowerEdge's

Ubiquiti UniFi USG, Switches & AP's for the network. 

Raspberry Pi's for DNS & UniFI controller

 

On 3/18/2021 at 12:10 AM, WindirBear said:

Lastly is there anything interesting you'd like to add about your server?

Not really, i've detailed numerous times what they do in other posts. 

 

I'm an IT Engineer (primarily virtualization, windows environment and microsoft 365), so my Dell's are primarily just test lab equipment, the UnRAID and Windows Servers are my primary home servers. Going to be replacing the Windows Server soon with a NAS appliance.