Help on server building

[luckytom94]

Hi, i am hoping for some help on this

I am wanting to build a server for a company, and im looking for these.

-Secure stable network (VPN)

-Need to be able to connect to 2 or more houses to access content on the server or network.

-server best for this.

If you can help thatd be nice

Edit: for construction purposes

[Electronics Wizardy]

What protocols would it use to copy files?

 

Is this a VPN server or client? What is on the other end of the VPN?

 

 

SInce this is for work, ID get IT or a consultant to help you here ,don't want to mess this up and get someone that knows how to setup a server well.

 

[SorryBella]

18 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

SInce this is for work, ID get IT or a consultant to help you here ,don't want to mess this up and get someone that knows how to setup a server well.

+1. This is why server planners are everywhere, because they can pretty much be a business time and money saver.

[luckytom94]

34 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What protocols would it use to copy files?

 

Is this a VPN server or client? What is on the other end of the VPN?

 

 

SInce this is for work, ID get IT or a consultant to help you here ,don't want to mess this up and get someone that knows how to setup a server well.

 

This'll be for a construction company and the main things that'll be done on it is moving files for blueprints and the like.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, luckytom94 said:

This'll be for a construction company and the main things that'll be done on it is moving files for blueprints and the like.

What protocols? 

 

Is this a VPN server or client? 

 

Id just get onedrive/googledrive or others here. Much easier, much more reliable. 

 

[kirashi]

16 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What protocols? 

 

Is this a VPN server or client? 

 

Id just get onedrive/googledrive or others here. Much easier, much more reliable. 

 

Yup, this @luckytom94- these days one would be much better off paying for something like Office 365 for Business or Google Suite. Sure, there's a per user monthly cost, but at the end of the day the headaches caused by trying to roll your own server infrastructure for business without a dedicated IT team can be many in the event of a disaster. You still need someone technically savvy to manage a cloud based service, of course, but it removes the need to deal with hardware for the most part.

[LIGISTX]

2 hours ago, luckytom94 said:

Hi, i am hoping for some help on this

I am wanting to build a server for a company, and im looking for these.

-Secure stable network (VPN)

-Need to be able to connect to 2 or more houses to access content on the server or network.

-server best for this.

If you can help thatd be nice

Edit: for construction purposes

Nothing at all wrong with trying to learn these things, but I wouldn't try and learn these things in a business environment. These are homelab type questions, not "uptime required to a company" type questions.

 

I run a homelab specifically because I find these types of things fun, and it does translate to being better equipped to understand corporate networking and infrastructure questions. I started without much knowledge, and via youtube, trial and error, and lots of time, I have a relatively well set up homelab, managed networking, ESXi for virtualization etc etc. But that doesn't mean I would trust my skills for setting up business servers.......... and if your asking these questions you certainly have a lot of learning to do, which is totally fine :). I just recommend looking into as others stated services such as google drive if all you're trying to do is file share. Obviously drive won't provide a VPN, but what is the actual need for a VPN here? A VPN isn't "a secure stable network", its just a way of tunneling traffic between two non-local devices or subnets.

 

Is there a specific reason you want a VPN? If so, why? We may be able to help accomplish this as well. If all you want to do is have both locations appear on the same network, a couple of netgate routers with a ipsec or openVPN connection set up between them is a super simple and very secure way to do this, and plenty of youtube tutorials which can get you going (I did this between myself and family members houses for fun, cuz again, homelab).

[Jarsky]

As he mentions '2 or more houses', my understanding is that they want to be able to access the data at home.

Cloud Services like OneDrive or GoogleDrive are a great way at just sharing data and for uptime. 

 

If you really want to run a VPN server, and to have file storage locally at the business, you could even just go with a Synology / QNAP NAS.

You can install OpenVPN or Wireguard on the NAS to setup a VPN for connecting to the business. The business connection its hosted on will need a static IP address (which most have anyway).

 

Personally at home, I run an UnRAID Box for my mass storage, and I have Wireguard installed on that server using Docker. Wireguard is extremely fast with great throughput performance, and lower resource utilization than OpenVPN i've found. It also scales better for multiple users from reports i've read. 

 

Keep in mind you'll also need to put a backup solution in place, many cloud providers offer BaaS (Backup as a Service) as well.