Re: Commercial Servers vs. Consumer Grade Hardware
My advice was for home lab use -- if you're putting hardware in a data center, of course use rack mounted hardware. First, rack mounted hardware is going to have more business oriented features, such as remote management, redundant power supplies, multiple hard drive bays, ECC ram, etc. Second, for power usage, a "home lab" system is typically going to be sitting idle most of the time, only using significant CPU when you're actually using it (say when watching something with Plex where it's transcoding video). Businesses, on the other hand, aren't going to rack a bunch of servers that are sitting idle most of the time; they're actually going to be using them for something and are going to be getting regular and significant traffic, so they're going to be loaded up and rarely sit idle. Therefore any power savings you may get from a "regular" system would be negligible. Lastly, unless something has changed recently, in a data center you typically pay for a certain capacity of electricity on your rack, not necessarily the amount of electricity you actually use. Therefore as long as you don't exceed your power allotment then you're good. This is typical of commercial power in general. On Sat, Jul 22, 2023, at 7:31 PM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss wrote: > Hi, > > During a past thread someone talked about commercial servers being noisy > and using a lot of electricity. I assume the electricity usage would > mean more heat as well. > > Was this a home lab/office statement or was it a general overall > statement? > > This begs the question why not use consumer grade hardware in a data > center instead of noisy and hot commercial equipment that also use more > electricity? > > Thanks!! > Keith > --- > PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > --- PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Commercial Servers vs. Consumer Grade Hardware
Hi, During a past thread someone talked about commercial servers being noisy and using a lot of electricity. I assume the electricity usage would mean more heat as well. Was this a home lab/office statement or was it a general overall statement? This begs the question why not use consumer grade hardware in a data center instead of noisy and hot commercial equipment that also use more electricity? Thanks!! Keith --- PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Server CPU
Thank you to everyone who went with me on this journey. For me it was extremely fruitful. I was thinking a vCPU was a thread and therefore one would need lots of cores and threads to make a Proxmox server. I can not see that is not the case. Based on all you good folks have tough me, I assume, I would be able to use a 10 year old laptop with and i3-2130 CPU and maybe 8GB of RAM as a Proxmox server for simple PHP development. Maybe even as little as 4GB of RAM. I also assume that with this machine (8GB RAM version) I would be able to create a Web server configured running Proxmox and multiple VMs that would all be running simultaneously, one for HTTP(s), one running MySQL, one running BIND, and one running Dovecot and Postfix. Understanding what a vCPU is really is a game changer. Keith On 2023-07-21 09:32, Ryan Petris wrote: 1) a vCPU is akin to a process. Yes 2) One can configure lots of VMs that will share the CPUs. Yes 3) Do not overload the server by adding too many VMs that all want resources. I assume top can be used to evaluate the amount of load on the server. That's correct, you should see one "/usr/bin/kvm" process per vcpu if you're using proxmox 3) When I configure a VM the amount of RAM is static (not shared). If I have 16GB of RAM then I realistically can only have around 12 - 14GB of RAM in use at any given time. That would be running VMs. I can have tons of VMs that are not running and not using resources/RAM and their RAM is no counted. Its the active VM's that count. RAM is not shared. The RAM _can_ be shared but that's dependent on the virtual machine being configured properly. Linux, at least, automatically detects if it's running in a virtual machine and enables what's called "ballooning" to give back unused ram to the host. So again, as long as you're able to keep the in use memory under your total memory you should be fine. A good rule of thumb though is, under normal load/usage, your in use memory shouldn't exceed 50% of your total memory. If you're going to run a Windows VM you'll want to make sure to install the virtio drivers, of which Fedora provides a compiled version of: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/archive-virtio/virtio-win-0.1.229-1/ 4) The amount of file space allotted to a VM is also static and is taken up even when the VM is off. For example if I have 10 VMs that are assigned 20GB of disk space each, then that would total 200GB that are allocated and are always assigned and not shared with the other VMs. Disk space is also tricky, you can either pre-allocate it, in which case you're correct, or use "thin provisioning", where the VM will only take up as much space on the host as used in the VM. Now, that space will grow over time but will never shrink on its own, even if you delete stuff from the VM. If you think of it as an SSD that needs a periodic trim, it functions similarly. Coincidentally, if you use Proxmox with either "raw" disk images or use ZFS, then you'll be able to issue a trim command from the guest, which will release any unused disk space back to the host. I personally run a trim on all my VMs once every few months or so, or when I notice that a VM is taking up much more space than is actually in-use in the VM. You'll probably find some information saying that pre-allocating disk space is better because it performs better, however I think that advice is outdated especially if you're going to run the VMs on a good quality SSD or NVME drive. On Fri, Jul 21, 2023, at 8:02 AM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss wrote: On 2023-07-20 16:25, Todd Cole via PLUG-discuss wrote: I use a lot of proxmox servers and very happy with them most are for small office use running a router, win server and samba file server and a win 10 for remote users to vpn into most of the hardware is used dell 4-6th gen I-7 (cheap 4 cores 8 virtual) with zfs raid 1 2 SSD's for redundancy and a spinner HDD for back up 32-64 gb ram and meet my needs with ease. both at home and work. I have used rack servers but they are hard to fit on a shelf, HOT and use a lot of power and sound like a jet taking off. (I have a few to donate free) my point is do not over think or spend money to build a home lab or hardware that you will need to replace due to your use case. I still have one on a duel core 8 gb ram 2 250GB spinning disks that I use as a router and zoneminder camera DVR in a un air conditioned vacant office it just chugs along in 118 heat I have a twin to it that is all set up ready to run that I would be willing donate also. Todd --- I'm starting to understand what a vCPU is and that I really do not need a bunch of cores and threads. I have an old Dell i5 with 4 cores, 4 threads, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. I'm a PHP developer and use the Proxmox box for testing and development. Currently I have one LAMP VM configured. This is what I
Re: Public raspberrypi https/mail/dns... on Cox Cable
Thank you to everyone who replied. As you know I have a SOHO/business connection to COX. Last year I configured an old laptop as a web server. It was LAMP + BIND + Postfix + Dovecot. I created two name servers on a domain with my static and public IP. I then set port forwarding on my "router", and it worked. Everything in my office is on a private IP. I may never use anything more elaborate, however at some point I may want more than one IP, just for the fun of it, and the level 1's cannot tell me how to use multiple IPs. Seems it might be as simple at getting a router that can deal with multiple IP addresses and plug it into the Cox "Modem". Thanks!! Keith On 2023-07-10 09:36, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote: Having supported and built cable modem systems for years (including them), Cox Business will do modems a few ways, but usually provisioning at the modem a limit quantity of mac/ip's (normally == 1) for what can pass, then you just *use* them as you would normally, either grabbing dhcp (with a new mac) or using statically assigning to the same public host as the main (ie firewall/router). If you get a contiguous /29 or larger network block/prefix from them or on your own, they'll usually give you a static ip and route that /29 prefix *at* your primary ip, so traffic knows how to get to you, then you just apply them with nat or however normally to the interface. They can also do private mpls connectivity, but that's another bag... As David said, your modem is NOT a router, mostly a Layer 1-2 bridge with some provisioned security features (DOCSIS BPI), unless it's one of their combo boxes with router/wifi built-in, but those tend to suck and you don't want to use those anyways. Any routing occurs at the Cox CMTS (cable modem termination system, your cable gateway router), or your gateway firewall/router. -mb On Sun, Jul 9, 2023 at 11:34 PM David Schwartz via PLUG-discuss wrote: Cable modems pull the signal from a coax line and turn it into an ethernet signal that comes out of a single RJ-45 plug. I dunno squat about what goes on inside of those boxes, but routers typically have a WAN port and a bunch of “internal” ports that are all RJ-45 plugs. If you can get Cox to send traffic for a group of IPs to your modem, then they should all come out the ethernet side as well, right? Remember that their modem is NOT a “router”. You can plug a router into it, tho. -David Schwartz On Jul 9, 2023, at 10:34 PM, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss wrote: On using openwrt on legacy routers, start here, find anything that is *well* supported and hunt on ebay, or go to a thrift shop and search this list if you find a decent looking box. At one point years ago I'd scooped up several decent goodwill routers for some $5-7ea and flashed to openwrt to give to family and friends when they complained about their crappy router and wifi not working. Probably still have one or two floating around... https://openwrt.org/toh/start -mb --- PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list: PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
