What else can I use my Home Server for?

[KingCollins]

Hey guys! Looking for some suggestions as to what else I can use my home server for? I really do love projects/hobbies, something to fiddle with during or after work!

 

Some things I am currently using it for:

 

Running on the server itself:

• Plex Media Server
• Sonarr for TV shows
• Radarr for Movies
• SMB (Both storage and backup)
• AFP (Time machine backups)

 

Windows Hyper-V

• CentOS 7 for a DNS server and VPN
• Ubuntu 14.04 for Zabbix monitoring and notifications

You can see the specs in my signature but the basics are a 12 thread Xeon with 32GB memory, Windows Server 2016, ok-ish amount of storage.

 

And ideas would be cool or something you guys have running yourself  

[Lord Nicoll]

Just now, KingCollins said:

Hey guys! Looking for some suggestions as to what else I can use my home server for? I really do love projects/hobbies, something to fiddle with during or after work!

 

Some things I am currently using it for:

 

Running on the server itself:

• Plex Media Server
• Sonarr for TV shows
• Radarr for Movies
• SMB (Both storage and backup)
• AFP (Time machine backups)

 

Windows Hyper-V

• CentOS 7 for a DNS server and VPN
• Ubuntu 14.04 for Zabbix monitoring and notifications

You can see the specs in my signature but the basics are a 12 thread Xeon with 32GB memory, Windows Server 2016, ok-ish amount of storage.

 

And ideas would be cool or something you guys have running yourself  

I use mine for web hosting, DNS server duties, printer servers, cloud based storage and SANs, game hosting servers and internal network. but I got more than a couple and I use VMWare so I have lots of VMs, anything you want done remotely can be relegated to a server. 

[KingCollins]

4 minutes ago, Lord Nicoll said:

I use mine for web hosting, DNS server duties, printer servers, cloud based storage and SANs, game hosting servers and internal network. but I got more than a couple and I use VMWare so I have lots of VMs, anything you want done remotely can be relegated to a server. 

I really want to use it for Web hosting, but I see you're from Ireland aswel and I'm with Virgin Media, so I would be afraid they flag me down and hit me with fines! . . . I've also tried game servers which was fun, but don't play enough MineC for it to become useful.

[Lord Nicoll]

Just now, KingCollins said:

I really want to use it for Web hosting, but I see you're from Ireland aswel and I'm with Virgin Media, so I would be afraid they flag me down and hit me with fines! . . . I've also tried game servers which was fun, but don't play enough MineC for it to become useful.

I use Vodafone but they don't mind non-corporate web hosting (at least that's what they said), plus they get an extra €8 for the static IP so they should be happy. If you want to stick it to the man, then maybe run a TOR node for that VPN. 

[KingCollins]

Just now, Lord Nicoll said:

I use Vodafone but they don't mind non-corporate web hosting (at least that's what they said), plus they get an extra €8 for the static IP so they should be happy. If you want to stick it to the man, then maybe run a TOR node for that VPN. 

Yeah I called Virgin before too see if they offered a static IP and the said absolutely not and fired 100 questions down the phone as to why I wanted one. . . I might stick it to them 

[Blake]

13 hours ago, KingCollins said:

I really want to use it for Web hosting, but I see you're from Ireland aswel and I'm with Virgin Media, so I would be afraid they flag me down and hit me with fines! . . . I've also tried game servers which was fun, but don't play enough MineC for it to become useful.

1. Get Domain

2. Get DynDNS subscription.

3. Have gateway update dns server every time it gets a new IP.

4. Use Azure/AWS/Google cloud for anything that actually needs redundancy / non-test/play sites.

[Munich]

I also run all the things you've listed on my setup, plus a few more things. One thing that I'm enjoying is, I've got a cPanel developer license, which you don't have to pay a monthly fee to use, and installed it on a VM on my NAS. I do web development and it's been really nice to be able to mount all of my websites locally and basically move all of my development stack from my local PC over to my NAS. I can load and work on my projects from any computer in the house and when I'm out I just login on my VPN to have access to everything like I was at home. Git version control also works surprisingly well.

 

You might say one could setup a normal web stack on CentOS or Debian but cPanel is really a turnkey solution that has pretty much everything I need, also moving simple projects from local to production is super easy as most hosts are cPanel based.

 

If you want to setup your own VPN server, I'd recommend https://pritunl.com/ , it's free and it's really easy to use and setup your own OpenVPN servers with tons of configuration options. I've basically got Pritunl running on 4 low-end VMs across 3 continents now so I don't need to rely on any 3rd party provider, I can easily give access to the VPN to my friends, connect home from anywhere, run Plex from the outside without having to publicly open a port on my router.

 

I've also got my CCTV system recording footage straight into my NAS. Since my cameras are network accessible, when I'm out I can connect to my home's VPN and view every camera's live feed from my CCTV app without having to expose any port publically to the internet either.

 

I've got Verizon FiOS 100/100Mbps so my IP is dynamic. I just use https://freedns.afraid.org to keep up with the IP changing, it's free and I've never had any problems. 

 

Another pro of having a VPN server at home is that I can enable RDP on all my computers, setup firewall rules to only allow connections from the local network, so now I can ditch TeamViewer and just use Window's RDP to remote access any computer I need from the outside. I've also used SteamLink from a hotel room while connected to my VPN and I was surprised at how well it worked. 

 

Every once in a while I think of new applications for my home server, very happy with it

[KingCollins]

On 9/21/2017 at 7:38 PM, Munich said:

I also run all the things you've listed on my setup, plus a few more things. One thing that I'm enjoying is, I've got a cPanel developer license, which you don't have to pay a monthly fee to use, and installed it on a VM on my NAS. I do web development and it's been really nice to be able to mount all of my websites locally and basically move all of my development stack from my local PC over to my NAS. I can load and work on my projects from any computer in the house and when I'm out I just login on my VPN to have access to everything like I was at home. Git version control also works surprisingly well.

 

You might say one could setup a normal web stack on CentOS or Debian but cPanel is really a turnkey solution that has pretty much everything I need, also moving simple projects from local to production is super easy as most hosts are cPanel based.

 

If you want to setup your own VPN server, I'd recommend https://pritunl.com/ , it's free and it's really easy to use and setup your own OpenVPN servers with tons of configuration options. I've basically got Pritunl running on 4 low-end VMs across 3 continents now so I don't need to rely on any 3rd party provider, I can easily give access to the VPN to my friends, connect home from anywhere, run Plex from the outside without having to publicly open a port on my router.

 

I've also got my CCTV system recording footage straight into my NAS. Since my cameras are network accessible, when I'm out I can connect to my home's VPN and view every camera's live feed from my CCTV app without having to expose any port publically to the internet either.

 

I've got Verizon FiOS 100/100Mbps so my IP is dynamic. I just use https://freedns.afraid.org to keep up with the IP changing, it's free and I've never had any problems. 

 

Another pro of having a VPN server at home is that I can enable RDP on all my computers, setup firewall rules to only allow connections from the local network, so now I can ditch TeamViewer and just use Window's RDP to remote access any computer I need from the outside. I've also used SteamLink from a hotel room while connected to my VPN and I was surprised at how well it worked. 

 

Every once in a while I think of new applications for my home server, very happy with it

Wow, you have defo given me a few idea's! When I first started setting up this set up there was a few thing's I rushed and never got back to doing. Like for example I have just port forwarded a public port for both Plex and RDP.

But I disabled RDP cause that was a really stupid idea, it's like a was sitting there with a sign saying "Open for breaching" 

 

But yeah, I really need to properly configure my VPN and defo look into WebHosting. I think it would be awsome, just so long as my ISP doesn't get too angry! 

 

I think even having a home server is cool, it's like a big test bench for messing around!