Server Advice

[Chn05]

I am wanting to build my first server for my home i will be using a Fx series processor since I have some laying around.  I am wanting this server to pull double duty as a nas and a game server.  Does anyone have knowledge of a video or guide as to how I can do this? I was thinking about setting up a vm for each activity.

[tkitch]

A server is just a computer.  Business-grade stuff uses more expensive components, but it's still just a computer.

 

Now question(s):

Will the FX chip have the power you need for your tasks?  Gaming Server especially

 

Do you have OS Licenses (if you need them)?

 

What VM Software do you plan to use? 

 

[Chn05]

From what I have read the fx chip will be fine. The OS and vm software were things that I was looking for recommendations on. Assuming that creating vm for this configuration is a good idea.

[Akolyte]

2 hours ago, Chn05 said:

From what I have read the fx chip will be fine. The OS and vm software were things that I was looking for recommendations on. Assuming that creating vm for this configuration is a good idea.

Your software choices for a hypervisor really depend on your experience and what features you're looking for: 

• Proxmox is a popular hypervisor for home servers because it has a free version and uses KVM.  It also supports running containers if you're into that. 
• ESXi is a good option if you want to get experience administrating a virtual cluster in the way you would in the enterprise.  The free version has some limitations, but it has good support for Operating Systems, and gives you experience in an interface (and more importantly API) that you would interact with in the enterprise. 
• KVM would be my recommendation - it's farely easy to set-up if you know Linux, it's completley free and has some good hypervisor features. 
• OpenStack - this is more difficult to set-up but it's also free, and a very good project if you need a cluster of virtual servers at some point and want to get your hands dirty with some technical projects. 

 

I would definitely run your NAS in a virtual machine, and create a storage array which you can use to store the virtual disks for the NAS virtual drives.  

• If you just want some basic storage and don't need speed you can set-up a basic SMB/NFS server on Linux or set-up some object storage like MinIO. These are free. 
• Concerning more specific NAS operating systems for more heavier workloads like FreeNAS, I don't have much experience in this area so if you're looking to use something like this - probably best to get someone else's advice. 

 

Concerning game servers, it really depends on your workload.  

• If you are setting up a small amount of game servers, use containers either within a single virtual machine - or directly on the Hypervisor (if you're using KVM, OpenStack or Proxmox). 
• If you want to create a game server service essentially that you and your mates can use to provision and manage game servers over the internet I recommend Pterodactyl.
• If you want a fun project that will teach you some skills, you can set-up a Kubernetes Cluster and set-up your game servers to be highly available and to auto-create new game-server instances when one server fills up. 

 

Because I don't know your existing experience level, I'll asume you know about hardware and same basic networking. 

 

All of these technologies have their own seperate guides required.   My advice on getting a good learning foundation would be: 

• Watch Eli the IT Guy's video on virtualization, and search up hypervisor options. This guide goes through setting up ESXi at home.
• Do the Linux Foundation's free Linux Course and go through this guide on setting up SMB on Ubuntu
• Read Rancher's introduction to containers article and do this Free course on Docker
• Set-up a Pterodactly cluster on a VM, and host gameservers (and know what you're doing). 

[Chn05]

Thank you very much for your help I'll will look into all of that.