If you have a home server, what are you uses for it?

[Guest]

On 18/08/2016 at 8:42 PM, leadeater said:

If you have an email address that is for a educational institute, school or tertiary, you can sign up to Microsoft DreamSpark for free license keys. 

 

On 18/08/2016 at 8:39 PM, lukesterboy said:

What is Dreamspark ?

Keep in mind though that the institution needs to be enrolled into the Dreamspark program beforehand.

[Geralt]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Yea, funnily enough that is the point . I find it rather useful to have a lab where I can do any kind of testing for things I would do in my job or preparation for certification exams.

 

It can be tough to try new technologies when there is no true separate test lab so you can be still bound to certain facets of the existing environment or have to go through a change control process to do it which can be hard to justify the changes when there is no clear benefit and potential risks.

I'm currently studying networking to see if I can qualify to take the CCNA exam this year. Maybe I'll look at getting a Microsoft Certified Professional certification as well. Not sure about getting a Red Hat certification tho.

[.:MARK:.]

@Geralt Unlike a certain special boy thinking he works for Google , I actually have a server! In fact my infrastructure in my room is tied to @looneys infrastructure.

 

We run IPSec just like @leadeater on our Edgerouters.

I have a Supermicro X9DRH-iF with 2 E5-2640v2 CPUs (yes the board and the CPUs are compatible unlike others... XD)

I run 128GB of ECC RAM in 8x8GB DIMMs and 4x16GB DIMMs.

LSI 9260-8i RAID card with a HP SAS expander.

24 bay 4U chassis

Runs ESXi 6 Enterprise

 

Me and looney together run the glorious Schnitzel network,

Running our own GPS NTP, mailservers, multiple domain controllers each with DNS and DHCP with IPAM and ofc failover of as many services.

We run vCenter to manage the ESXi hosts with AD login.

We do as much auth over LDAP with TLS so everything uses a unified authentication system.

webservers, FTP, gameservers, storage, monitoring, couchpotato/sonarr, torrents, dev machines, test labs with UNL, monitoring, IDS/IPS, and more I can't even remember without opening vSphere client XD.

 

Don't hesitate to ask about anything, would love to talk about the specifics

[legopc]

On 8/17/2016 at 1:09 AM, sgtrecker78 said:

Yes, I do own a server, a self mad one, in fact

i use 2 

 

Intel Xeon Processor E7-8890 v4 (24 cores each)

 

I use an

ASUS Z10PA-D8 ATX Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011-3 DDR4 (motherboard)

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1N84684899&cm_re=server_motherboard_DDR4-_-13-132-258-_-Product

 

I placed 5 intel 750 1.2tb SSD's in it, and proceeded to water cool them with EKWB I

 

(These 5 SS'd are separate form the 2 in my pc)

 

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-PCIe-1-2TB-Internal-SSDPEDMW012T4R5/dp/B00UHJJQ3Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471388426&sr=8-1&keywords=intel+750+pcie+ssd+1.2tb

 

I also put in 128gb of ECC memory (watercooled with EKWB of course)

 

I use it as a NAS to store all of my 3D design projects that I work on at my workplace (google)

it is in a raid 0 configuration

 

I run it on a windows server application

 

it draws about 650 watts from the wall when all of the SSD's are on 100% use

 

I also have it connected to a UPS

 

i run it 24/7, yes

 

Servers are only for the deepest of storage enthusiasts, choose wisely 

 

the case is a custom built brushed aluminum + tempered glass chassis

 

PICTURES OR IT DIDNT FUCKING HAPPEN M8 

[lukesterboy]

6 hours ago, Geralt said:

Nice! Have you try configuring your router to authenticate users with the active directory for the wifi access?

Yep and no, how would you go about doing that? Isn't it secure enough with just a WPA password . Would i need a custom firmware on my router to do this it's no technical/powerful server rack router just the bog standard one Virgin Media give you.

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

Yes my network is AD controlled. In fact I have 3 forests, 1 for running all the base infrastructure (vCenter/System Center/Azure Pack/Puppet etc), 1 for for my home network and 1 for my friend's VMs I let him run on my servers. Got a one-way forest trust setup so we can AD auth using our local domain credentials to vCenter etc.

 

I've also got multiple VDOMs setup on my FortiGate firewall for each network for better isolation/administration and currently working on setting up private VLANs and Q-in-Q.

 

The network also spans across the city to my friend's house via a L3 site-to-site VPN where my other server is, the servers replicate to each other. Currently waiting on new fibre install at my house so I can setup a better connection and also see if I can wrangle my new ISP in to letting me do a multi-homed connection with their or my own IP block.

Wow, dream lab setup right there. To be honest half way through the post i have no clue about half the stuff you talking about. Like i have on clue what VDOMs or FortiGate are . And don't even let me guess what "Q-in-Q" is aha.

5 hours ago, Bigun said:

I have two servers.  One is my media storage/backup server.  The other is my webserver/occasional minecraft server.

Nice, are these servers as in rack type server or just small desktops pc's or something else?

3 hours ago, Windspeed36 said:

Yeah - most environments name their servers as you'll have them as VM hosts. You can't really just say the Exchange or AD box. Common ones I see usually are the Greek gods - Zeus, Hades, Apollo, Ares etc.

Yeh true. I guess you could name them relative to what they do like for instance at my school the AD server is called sv-fpr-01 which must stand for something . I've made a post about what "sv" and "fpr" etc mean before i believe. If you want to check or add you guess to what my school are abbreviating them as aha, i didn't need to know just wanted to know.

3 hours ago, Sunshine1868 said:

I own an HP DL360 G5

SFTP File Server, F@H, and Minecraft

Ubuntu 16.04 (its ~1000 miles away, so next time I get to it physically I'll install ESXi)

No idea. Dual 750W PSUs pumping full-bore due to F@H

24/7/365

DEFINITELY install a Hypervisor. it gives you SO much more freedom than just a single OS

Nice, literally 1000's miles away , in a different country or is that exaggeration. For sure when you next get to it physically defiantly install ESXi, very powerful tool. Where is this other location your server is stored and connected to the internet if it is not at your home?

[lukesterboy]

2 hours ago, Windspeed36 said:

 

Keep in mind though that the institution needs to be enrolled into the Dreamspark program beforehand.

Oh ok, i was going to say i have a school email and i tried signing up to Dreamspark but my school's poor so i highly doubt there enrolled in the Dreamspark program, unless is it free for the school? Maybe when i go back i will ask my school to try and enroll them self if it's free.

2 hours ago, Geralt said:

I'm currently studying networking to see if I can qualify to take the CCNA exam this year. Maybe I'll look at getting a Microsoft Certified Professional certification as well. Not sure about getting a Red Hat certification tho.

What does the CCNA exam qualify you to do and in what subject, do you take that at College or University? What does all these certifications allow you to do? .

2 hours ago, .:MARK:. said:

@Geralt Unlike a certain special boy thinking he works for Google , I actually have a server! In fact my infrastructure in my room is tied to @looneys infrastructure.

 

We run IPSec just like @leadeater on our Edgerouters.

I have a Supermicro X9DRH-iF with 2 E5-2640v2 CPUs (yes the board and the CPUs are compatible unlike others... XD)

I run 128GB of ECC RAM in 8x8GB DIMMs and 4x16GB DIMMs.

LSI 9260-8i RAID card with a HP SAS expander.

24 bay 4U chassis

Runs ESXi 6 Enterprise

 

Me and looney together run the glorious Schnitzel network,

Running our own GPS NTP, mailservers, multiple domain controllers each with DNS and DHCP with IPAM and ofc failover of as many services.

We run vCenter to manage the ESXi hosts with AD login.

We do as much auth over LDAP with TLS so everything uses a unified authentication system.

webservers, FTP, gameservers, storage, monitoring, couchpotato/sonarr, torrents, dev machines, test labs with UNL, monitoring, IDS/IPS, and more I can't even remember without opening vSphere client XD.

 

Don't hesitate to ask about anything, would love to talk about the specifics

Ah nice. What exactly is IPSec i thought its some sort of VPN software but if your running it on a router then i'm guessing it might not be. When you say Edgerouter is that just a router on Dell Power edge servers? What is the Schnitzel Network , should i know if i'm on this forums, i'm i lacking knowledge ? What is GPS NTP and IPAM? is vCenter different to vSphere, isn't vCenter for managing the hosts and vSphere is for managing the VM's of a host. Can you do all the things vSphere can do to a host in vCenter, like create VM's and adding data stores but to a specific host? Sorry for all the questions i could probably google alot of it and find out but connecting he is more fun .

1 hour ago, legopc said:

PICTURES OR IT DIDNT FUCKING HAPPEN M8 

Calm dude , what do you really care if it has it or not. Not everyone tell's the truth and i'm sure if he isn't, which i'm not saying he is, then he has a good reason why he would be lying.

[legopc]

4 minutes ago, lukesterboy said:

 

 

 is vCenter different to vSphere, isn't vCenter for managing the hosts and vSphere is for managing the VM's of a host. Can you do all the things vSphere can do to a host in vCenter, like create VM's and adding data stores but to a specific host? 

Calm dude , what do you really care if it has it or not. Not everyone tell's the truth and i'm sure if he isn't, which i'm not saying he is, then he has a good reason why he would be lying.

I am calm as fuck.

But vcenter vpshere are somewhat the same thing ish kinda not really but kinda maybe. vCenter is just a server that you can connect to with the vSphere client or with your web browser to manage hosts, vm's and clusters. You can do a lot more with it but that it somewhat the basic explanation. I am terrible at explaining stuff but I do know a tiny bit. If you want some pictures of how one would manage a vCenter server with hosts, vm's and clusters and crap just say so, not sure if I should blur out the vm names but I can give you a screenshot of what we have on the all mighty Schnitzel Network. 

[.:MARK:.]

3 minutes ago, lukesterboy said:

 

 

Ah nice. What exactly is IPSec i thought its some sort of VPN software but if your running it on a router then i'm guessing it might not be. When you say Edgerouter is that just a router on Dell Power edge servers? What is the Schnitzel Network , should i know if i'm on this forums, i'm i lacking knowledge ? What is GPS NTP and IPAM? is vCenter different to vSphere, isn't vCenter for managing the hosts and vSphere is for managing the VM's of a host. Can you do all the things vSphere can do to a host in vCenter, like create VM's and adding data stores but to a specific host? Sorry for all the questions i could probably google alot of it and find out but connecting he is more fun .

Calm dude , what do you really care if it has it or not. Not everyone tell's the truth and i'm sure if he isn't, which i'm not saying he is, then he has a good reason why he would be lying.

I'll try to answer everything

 

IPsec is a security system that is used for encrypting IP traffic, it is used in my case as a tunnel between me and @looney so that we can access each others internal networks.

So my servers can talk to individual servers on looneys internal network as if it is all internal and not internet.

 

Edgerouter is a series of products made by Ubiquiti, they are simply fast and inexpensive routers running a heavily modified version of the Vyatta router OS.

 

The Schnitzel network  is what we call our network, you can join our TeamSpeak server (accessible at schnitzel.team) where we basically just talk servers and networking almost all the time, and play games to chill out  

 

NTP is a network time protocol for computers to get accurate time, a GPS NTP server is where a device with a GPS receiver is used to get accurate time and then distribute it to other computers.

 

IPAM is IP Address Management, it's a server used to keep track of all the IP addresses of all the servers on the network.

 

vCenter is a product that manages multiple vSphere servers (ESXi) together. vCenter can do a lot more than vSphere but most will find vSphere enough.

 

Anything else just ask away

[lukesterboy]

44 minutes ago, legopc said:

I am calm as fuck.

But vcenter vpshere are somewhat the same thing ish kinda not really but kinda maybe. vCenter is just a server that you can connect to with the vSphere client or with your web browser to manage hosts, vm's and clusters. You can do a lot more with it but that it somewhat the basic explanation. I am terrible at explaining stuff but I do know a tiny bit. If you want some pictures of how one would manage a vCenter server with hosts, vm's and clusters and crap just say so, not sure if I should blur out the vm names but I can give you a screenshot of what we have on the all mighty Schnitzel Network. 

. Ohh ok.

41 minutes ago, .:MARK:. said:

I'll try to answer everything

 

IPsec is a security system that is used for encrypting IP traffic, it is used in my case as a tunnel between me and @looney so that we can access each others internal networks.

So my servers can talk to individual servers on looneys internal network as if it is all internal and not internet.

 

Edgerouter is a series of products made by Ubiquiti, they are simply fast and inexpensive routers running a heavily modified version of the Vyatta router OS.

 

The Schnitzel network  is what we call our network, you can join our TeamSpeak server (accessible at schnitzel.team) where we basically just talk servers and networking almost all the time, and play games to chill out  

 

NTP is a network time protocol for computers to get accurate time, a GPS NTP server is where a device with a GPS receiver is used to get accurate time and then distribute it to other computers.

 

IPAM is IP Address Management, it's a server used to keep track of all the IP addresses of all the servers on the network.

 

vCenter is a product that manages multiple vSphere servers (ESXi) together. vCenter can do a lot more than vSphere but most will find vSphere enough.

 

Anything else just ask away

So yeh like i said basically a vpn that combines both of your networks together then. What kinda of data are you guys exchanging between yours servers, heavy data or just like database stuff? Oh ok, do these edgerouters you speak of also do wireless connectivity since i know Ubiquiti make Wireless APs and things. Ohoho sounds awesome are sure have to join and have a chat. Do you guys(admins/owners) hang around on there lots and actually available to talk to or do you just hide away in your private rooms . Is time really that crucial with servers then, i guess it is for logging, or security cams and other similar data. Ok, is it kinda of like a Scope in AD? To see what ip's have been leased out to what machines? Ah ok got ya, why do they really have 2 software's they should just leave it as one make peoples life simple the program size cant be that much more :D.

 

PS: How do you come up with some crazy awesome like that (schnitzel.team)! Its sounds so cool that i can't even pronounce it, at least i don't think i'm pronouncing it right.

[Sunshine1868]

1 hour ago, lukesterboy said:

Nice, literally 1000's miles away , in a different country or is that exaggeration. For sure when you next get to it physically defiantly install ESXi, very powerful tool. Where is this other location your server is stored and connected to the internet if it is not at your home?

It's 3 states away (I'm in the USA). I moved states for a job and didn't want to bring my server, so it is at my family's house still. 

 

all SSH access 

[legopc]

6 minutes ago, lukesterboy said:

. Ohh ok.

So yeh like i said basically a vpn that combines both of your networks together then. What kinda of data are you guys exchanging between yours servers, heavy data or just like database stuff? Oh ok, do these edgerouters you speak of also do wireless connectivity since i know Ubiquiti make Wireless APs and things. Ohoho sounds awesome are sure have to join and have a chat. Do you guys(admins/owners) hang around on there lots and actually available to talk to or do you just hide away in your private rooms . Is time really that crucial with servers then, i guess it is for logging, or security cams and other similar data. Ok, is it kinda of like a Scope in AD? To see what ip's have been leased out to what machines? Ah ok got ya, why do they really have 2 software's they should just leave it as one make peoples life simple the program size cant be that much more :D.

 

PS: How do you come up with some crazy awesome like that (schnitzel.team)! Its sounds so cool that i can't even pronounce it, at least i don't think i'm pronouncing it right.

Most people are on in europe times and we are most often in the quite channel but we are never really use the channel then what it was intended for. 

[lukesterboy]

10 minutes ago, Sunshine1868 said:

It's 3 states away (I'm in the USA). I moved states for a job and didn't want to bring my server, so it is at my family's house still. 

 

all SSH access 

Ok. I guess you could try and walk a family member through it, but i guess that would be painful if known of them are really tech savvy . SSH can do lots but not install ESXi. Ashame.

[lukesterboy]

5 minutes ago, legopc said:

Most people are on in europe times and we are most often in the quite channel but we are never really use the channel then what it was intended for. 

Well that's good because i'm from Europe too (the UK) .

[.:MARK:.]

1 minute ago, lukesterboy said:

. Ohh ok.

So yeh like i said basically a vpn that combines both of your networks together then. What kinda of data are you guys exchanging between yours servers, heavy data or just like database stuff? Oh ok, do these edgerouters you speak of also do wireless connectivity since i know Ubiquiti make Wireless APs and things. Ohoho sounds awesome are sure have to join and have a chat. Do you guys(admins/owners) hang around on there lots and actually available to talk to or do you just hide away in your private rooms . Is time really that crucial with servers then, i guess it is for logging, or security cams and other similar data. Ok, is it kinda of like a Scope in AD? To see what ip's have been leased out to what machines? Ah ok got ya, why do they really have 2 software's they should just leave it as one make peoples life simple the program size cant be that much more :D.

We have no private rooms on our server  and we're on most of the time. 

The servers just talk to each other over the VPN, and it's handy to work on each others servers as if it was in our own home.

The router is just a router, it isn't a switch or an AP.

Time is nice and important, honestly everyone can do great if they just used a public NTP server, but @looney likes to be cool like that XD.

vSphere comes with ESXi, it has a base set of feature for managing itself, but vCenter can manage many servers and allow you to authenticate to vCenter with active directory, could probably explain it better on teamspeak XD. And @looney is looney and weird and crazy and insane and really likes schnitzel

[.:MARK:.]

1 minute ago, lukesterboy said:

Well that's good because i'm from Europe too (the UK) .

same

[lukesterboy]

1 minute ago, .:MARK:. said:

We have no private rooms on our server  and we're on most of the time. 

The servers just talk to each other over the VPN, and it's handy to work on each others servers as if it was in our own home.

The router is just a router, it isn't a switch or an AP.

Time is nice and important, honestly everyone can do great if they just used a public NTP server, but @looney likes to be cool like that XD.

vSphere comes with ESXi, it has a base set of feature for managing itself, but vCenter can manage many servers and allow you to authenticate to vCenter with active directory, could probably explain it better on teamspeak XD. And @looney is looney and weird and crazy and insane and really likes schnitzel

Ok, ill come join your at some point when i'm back home at my main setup, which is tomorrow evening (UK time). Where are you based?

Yeh i guess it is handy especially if you have esxi on the machines you can just do all the controlling you want and if you need to restart a pc(VM) you can just do that and don't even need @looney to be home to switch back on a server/machine unlike you would if it was just a server running Windows Server without ESXi, if you understand what i mean. 

Ok, but a rack mount router right?

Well i assume a NTP can't require that much CPU power so why not just have your own . Is this NTP a phyiscal server with a GPS device/pci card built in or just some software that can run on any old computer.

Oh so you could allow specify people to control specific hosts all controlled with AD. Sure when i next catch you on the server you can do all the explaining you want to me .

 

Ahaha, you all sound awesome though. What is Schnitzel some sort of food or something then?

 

[lukesterboy]

7 minutes ago, .:MARK:. said:

same

UK as well or europe? How about @looney, how far do the servers have to communicate to each other, cross country(s) ?

[.:MARK:.]

1 minute ago, lukesterboy said:

UK as well or europe? How about @looney, how far do the servers have to communicate to each other, cross country(s) ?

Yup

[lukesterboy]

Just now, .:MARK:. said:

Yup

I'm a bit confused . Yep covers all the answers for this question? I still don't know if its the UK or europe .

[.:MARK:.]

21 minutes ago, lukesterboy said:

Ok, ill come join your at some point when i'm back home at my main setup, which is tomorrow evening (UK time). Where are you based?

Yeh i guess it is handy especially if you have esxi on the machines you can just do all the controlling you want and if you need to restart a pc(VM) you can just do that and don't even need @looney to be home to switch back on a server/machine unlike you would if it was just a server running Windows Server without ESXi, if you understand what i mean. 

Ok, but a rack mount router right?

Well i assume a NTP can't require that much CPU power so why not just have your own . Is this NTP a phyiscal server with a GPS device/pci card built in or just some software that can run on any old computer.

Oh so you could allow specify people to control specific hosts all controlled with AD. Sure when i next catch you on the server you can do all the explaining you want to me .

 

Ahaha, you all sound awesome though. What is Schnitzel some sort of food or something then?

 

I'm in the UK, the others are dotted around the EU.

The routers can be rackmounted yes.

 

And yeah AD can be used to manage permissions just like that

 

And Schnitzel is food, don't ask me I really don't get it, @looney is just weird

 

@looney has like 2 or 3 Raspberry Pis with GPS modules, then there is like a aggregation server that gets the data from the Raspberry Pis and present it to whichever computer asks for it.

[lukesterboy]

7 minutes ago, .:MARK:. said:

I'm in the UK, the others are dotted around the EU.

The routers can be rackmounted yes.

 

And yeah AD can be used to manage permissions just like that

 

And Schnitzel is food, don't ask me I really don't get it, @looney is just weird

 

@looney has like 2 or 3 Raspberry Pis with GPS modules, then there is like a aggregation server that gets the data from the Raspberry Pis and present it to whichever computer asks for it.

Ok, cool, when you say the others who does that include, since it's just you and @looney that host the servers :D.

Ok.

Nice, it just shows that AD is so powerful.

:D, lol, when i googled it "it's only meat" but must be more than that to @looney.

Damn that sounds so cool. And all it is is to just get the time :D. I'm really interested in this setup now lol. I really want to get a raspberry pi, i might get one since i will be getting £100 back from my server i am returning, if you look at my other post here (https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/645444-what-to-buy-£100-what-would-you-buy) you will see why.

 

Also the pictures on your website, the ones labelled "My setup" i'm guessing that's @looney 's setup since there is EU plugs in the picture and not your setup. Is there any picture's of your server rack/setup on the site?

[AshleyAshes]

On ‎8‎/‎18‎/‎2016 at 8:20 AM, lukesterboy said:

Wow, I love this! Didn't even know this was possible but nice!

Yeah, I got some mixed messages even on LTT about it and GOogle yielded little help, but I had 2x4GB of old Laptop RAM in a drawer and it was $4.77 USD for each adaptor, so why spend money on RAM for the server when I could try these?  Took 6 weeks for them to arrive from China, but once they were here they worked right as rain on the first try.  Not that there is any advantage to using SODIMMs in a DIMM board other than being able to recycle SODIMM ram you already own.

[kirashi]

13 hours ago, lukesterboy said:

Very nice, I don't understand why most people run Transmission on a server is it to just take the weight of your computer because a P2P Client isn't exactly that heavy on your CPU or RAM. What is a private tracker ratio and how/why do you have to maintain it? As for what I should thank you for the suggestion. I will definitely try and learn some Linux, what BASH command line is it different to normal terminal/command line?

 

I run it on a dedicated box due to both noise and power usage. The other people in my house don't appreciate a computer running 24/7 but are completely fine with something like a Raspberry Pi or in this case, a Mac Mini running 24/7. If I could leave my PC on 24/7 then I'd run Transmission on it directly, along with PLEX media server too.

 

Private trackers usually require you to seed your torrents for a certain amount of time, or to at least a 1:1 ratio, in order to keep your account in good standing. Technically speaking, everyone should seed all torrents as long as they can to keep them alive. It's why Canonical has official Ubuntu torrents now, in addition to the regular HTTP mirrors.

 

BASH is very similar to the regular Unix command line or MacOS terminal. It's just the default command interface included with Debian based distributions.

[Bigun]

9 hours ago, lukesterboy said:

..stuff..

They are both tower cases, but considered small server class setups.  I've fitted both with hard drive cages, one has 5 drives (media server, RAID-5 and RAID-1), dual core xenon processor, 8 GB RAM.  The other has 3 drives (all three in a RAID-1 config), quad-core xenon, 2 GB RAM.  Both run headless Gentoo Linux, and have ran like tops.

[8uhbbhu8]

Guess i'll out my "server" down here.

 

1 core 2 duo e8600

some LGA 775 mobo

3 GB DDR2 mixed ram

geforce 6600 256 MB (I think...)

1 sata 2 80 GB HDD

2 IDE 80 GB HDD

Windows server 2012 datacenter

 

Right now I just use it for file backups but have plans for a full house pc backup center, file storage, game server, media center.

 

If I could get my dual lga 771 setup running I could have 8GB ram currently... Unfortunately that project is at the sidelines cause I dont have the money for troubleshooting it rn...