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How Does Your Personal Data Center Measure Up?
tachijuan asks: "My job allows me too meet many technically inclined people. Invariably we get to talking about our home setups. I've run across some very sophisticated setups. Some people I've met have enough computing and storage resources to have themselves classified as large data centers. They run this at home, and usually just for the hell of it. How do the setups of Slashdot readers measure up?" How many pieces of networked digital equipment do you have at home?
"Here's a description of mine:
- 1 x RedHat 9 quad processor PIII Xeon web server+other general duties stuff
- 1 x FC3 router/VPN server
- 1 x Astaro secure unix firewall/external router
- 1 x FC3 email ( http://zimbra.com/ ) server + backup server
- 1 x Mac G3 OSX 10.3.9 print server
- 1 x WinXP print server/general use machine
- 1 x WinXP general purpose home machine + TIVO media center server
- 1 x UltraSparc 10, Solaris 9, play machine + web server
- 2 x WinXP laptops
- 1 x Apple PowerBook 17"
- 1 x NetApp 630 with 1.1TB of disk serving both NFS and CIFS
- 2 x external USB 200GB drives for backups of main data in NetApp DCF
- 3 x inkjet printers scattered around the house
- 1 x 8 port GigE main DCF backbone switch
- 1 x 32 port Etherport III main home network switch
- 1 x WRT54G switch providing high speed network for interal home use
- 1 x befw11s4 switch + range extender for slow-speed, high range, general home use
- 1 x TIVO!
- 4 x spare machines laying around waiting to be purposed
I don't have to compensate for shortcomings in other areas...
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
I started building a nice phat data/media center, plus PCs attached to the TV in living room, bedroom, etc... but my power bill is already crazy. If I start adding more and more 100% uptime systems, it will get ridiculous. I have pared down to just the essentials; what's the point of all that hardware in a house? "Just cause I can" doesn't pay the bills.
Granted, I live in CA, so my power bill is pretty obscene to begin with, so maybe this isn't a concern for everyone.
Fred.
I am sorry but this sort of subject just begs for another "ask slashdot" submission called: "What is your monthly electricity bill?" Now seriously, how much would setups like that add to your average power bills.
OK...I probably have one of the more antique home data centers...
three VAX 4000-300 (all running OpenBSD, of course, it's my home firewall)
two VAX 4000-200
two VAX 4000-105 (running VMS)
a VAX 4000 m60
two VAX 3100
three PDP 11/34as
I've also got two DEC Rainbows, but I haven't powered them up in years.
And of course, the usual collection of Commodore 64s, Radio Shack CoCos, Radio Shack MC-10s, etc. etc.
And a Mac Mini in the kitchen
Thomas
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
Really, how much gear does one need running at home? More importantly, how much power and space are you willing to use to do it? I've got an ancient P166MMX running downstairs for file/print/mail/and even web hosting for my personal website (not the one in the sig). About a year ago, it was a sad old P90 that finally had a seizure of some sort. The only thing I would consider changing right now is a bit more hard drive space... and maybe RAID. (Yes, I do regular backups).
Oh, that excludes workstations, routers, and hubs of course. Two desktops and a laptop - none of them is particularly high-end either.
> quad processor PIII Xeon web server+other general duties stuff
My file/mail/web/backup server is a Pentium 233 MMX. It's ridiculously overpowered for what it does.
load averages: 0.10, 0.09, 0.08
His logic was that if someone didn't have a home network ("my windoze box is connected to the thingy PacBell gave me") couldn't answer questions about security, etc on his home network, he didn't have the interest level to be well suited in his department.
I just got my first job out of college (working for the oldest newspaper in Missouri as a graphic artist), so after a raise or two, I should be able to afford more than ramen noodles and college loan payments :) So far I've got an old Thinkpad serving as an SSH/Proxy server (Slack 10.2 - I use it to set up an encrypted connection while on wireless hotspots - see my guide at Security Engine for secure surfing using SSH), a couple routers, a multiboot desktop (Win XP/Slackware 10.2, later changing the Slack install to OpenBSD), and a "newer" (still old - 1ghz p3) Thinkpad laptop running Windows 2000 and Slackware 10.2, which goes with me whenever I'm doing work outside the house.
I've noticed Dell servers getting cheaper - first plan is to pick up one or two of them, since they offer Linux compatible hardware configs.
My tech fetish is storage. I had a terrabyte of storage until one of my drives went kaput, so now I'm back down to 780gb IIRC. I'm a solo recording artist/sound engineer, so I have a lot of raw audio files. I plan to build that up to a few TB, now that drives keep getting cheaper. Once I get a couple decent servers, I'm going to start generating my own rainbow tables.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Run 30 machines at home to do our bidding when (and this is still overkill) a few could do the same amount of work. Who cares if you are only home (and awake) for a few hours a day. Remember these days fondly when energy prices are sky high.
1xWRT54gs with OpenWRT (wireless/firewall/router/vpn endpoint/whatever else)
1x1.7TB RAID server whose disks spin down entirely when not in use (largest power draw)
1xThinkpad X40 (laptops don't draw much)
1xMac Mini (everything else, and the mini also draws almost nothing)
I wish I had that kind of time!
I'm a fashion model photographer, so most of my time is spent away from computers (I use an assistant to work out the photoshopping). I do know that at the rate that my hard disks are filling up that I could definitely use a data center upgrade. But I just don't have the time to fiddle with that.
Here's a description of what I am busy doing:
1 Fucking supermodels
2 Snorting coke with supermodels
3 Going to clubs with supermodels
4 Fucking supermodels
5 Attending runway events
6 Pillow fights with supermodels (group)
7 Attending gala openings
8 Attending White House dinners (not so much these days, though)
9 Travelling to exotic locales (this takes a surprising amount of time)
10 Fucking supermodels
11 Evaluating photo equipment
12 Eating whip cream off the naked bodies of supermodels
13 Photographing other supermodels performing #12
14 Deep sea fishing
15 Scuba diving
16 Racing sports cars (hobby)
17 Attending meet & greets with heads of state
That's not quite 19 like you've got, but it keeps my busy. Too busy to do what I really love: Setting up home networks and fiddling with the audio drivers in Linux.
This is the equivalent of either a dick-size or old-school engine displacement war. Its nothing than more Slashdot navel-gazing, about how über we all are, vs. the unwashed masses, with a subtle MS bash thrown in.
Instead of a "what trinkets do you have?" Ask Slashdot, how about a "Whats needed in a home lab?" Ask Slashdot question? Otherwise it degenerates into a wallet-size competition, or an obscure "my firmware version on my Linksys is better than yours because Fry's is teh suck, CompUSA is teh r0XX0r!" discussion.
Next questions from the content-with-no-value dept.: "What do you drive?" Or "What did you have for breakfast?"
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Start with the firewall.. I had a Dell server running linux and iptables, freeswan, traffic shaping etc. It rarely even broke a sweat as a firewall, although I really liked having a linux shell on my edge router for testing purposes.. nothing beats tcpdump for figuring out whats going on, and you can't get that type of functionality from even a fancy hardware firewall.
Or can you? Enter the linksys WRT54G. It's a tiny little box with no moving parts. It essentially has 5 nics which can be grouped into switches. It has a 802.11g interface and allows easy connection of big antennas. But most importantly, it runs linux. It runs linux, iptables, tc etc very well, and all the diagnostic tools I wanted to have are still available. This thing has easily paid for itself in power saved.
Next stop, the file server. We all need a box that runs 24/7 and stores massive amounts of files (read pr0n). Once again, I was able to replace a full server with a tiny box. This one is called the linksys NSLU2... a tiny box with two usb ports and a nic. It runs linux, actually it runs Debian which is incredible and kind of blows my mind. But anyways, now all my files are served up by this little thing. It also runs postfix and does some network monitoring for me. Another great feature is that since the drives are all USB, I can turn off the ones that have things I don't need all the time on them. When I need something off them, just turn the drive on and a few seconds later its available.
Third and final optimization was my combination of both a linux and a windows desktop. Todays PCs are really fast, kind of ridiculously fast if you arent playing the latest shoot em up. VMware is free now, and I have found that as long as you have plenty of ram, running linux on win or win on linux are both very usable. So two desktop machines have become one with an extra GB ram. Even better, I can fire up an extra windows box if I want to test something that I don't trust on my real machine (experimenting with WMF's and such) or an extra linux box to try out a new distro etc...
So I've gone from 4 PCs that ran 24/7 to one (and of course a laptop, and a hx4700 ppc, etc etc The small toys don't count ;). I originally thought that these little devices would be unreliable, after all they are pretty cheap. But, both currently have uptimes over 100 days. I even kept the firewall/wireless ap running during a hurricane here last year, they run forever on a ups that wouldn't keep a PC running 15 minutes. It's suprising how quiet the office has become. Over time you don't notice the noise that several PCs can make, but it's significant. I can watch TV in there and hear it without disturbing anyone late at night. The room used to be significantly hotter than all the other rooms in my house, now it's not noticable. I've reclaimed a huge amount of space in my office. Sure, visitors might not immediately realize that I am a total geek, but sometimes that's ok.
PS I don't mean to be advertising Linksys stuff.. you can get similar devices that run the same firmwares and linux distros from other vendors. Check out http://www.openwrt.org/ and http://www.nslu2-linux.org/ for more info.
-Lod
How long is your penis?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
... Lets see how you handle it.
-S
It would suck if you left your machines vulnerable to all those VAX exploits that are going around.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Oh, you know: standing in gardens and making data centers.
One of the many huge power-supply caps has enough juice to keep my laptop running for about fifteen minutes.
My own home "network" consists of a do-everything Linux server (2.4GHz Duron, 2G RAM, 160GB IDE HDD, Mandriva 2006.0) which doubles as a workstation, another (Dual PentiumPro 200, 196MB RAM, 40GB IDE HDD, Mandriva 2005LE) which is effectively a CD burning jukebox (mostly Linux distributions, TheOpenCD and a couple of the free Baen's Books CDs), a NetGear DG-834G wireless ADSL router/switch, a Kingston 8-port 10/100 switch, a Duron 800, 256MB, 80GB for the kids' games (wireless, Mandriva 2005LE) two wireless laptops (one old AOpen 2.4GHz Pentium-M, 512MB, 40GB, Mandriva 2006.0, one new Durabook R15D 2.6GHz Centrino, 1GB, 60GB, Mandriva 2006.0/WinXP dual boot, which I keep dual mainly for customer support and for editing on long trips -- the ACPI is completely broken, and TwinHead've only patched it for XP), one customer server (Athlon64-3GHz, 1GB, 2x200GB, Mandriva 2006.0), one "thrash box" (Athlon 1800, 512MB, 80GB, Ubuntu 5.10) and occasionally other stuff.
I'd like to say that it's neatly arranged in a rack and so forth but that would be a blatant lie, there's stuff scattered all over the place, basically wherever it will fit within reach of the appropriate cables.
The main workstation is about to lose its 19" CRT in favour of two 17" flatscreens. I'd actually spring for 2x19" flatscreens if resolution higher than 1280x1024 was available without the loss of an arm or leg.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...a geek dick-measuring contest. Guys, it should've dawned on you by now that constructing elaborate home networks to compensate for a small penis size WILL NOT get you chicks. The jocks had it right from the start; spend all that money on a nice car and a few tailored suits, and you're far, far more likely to get laid by something other than a RealDoll, tiny penis or no.
But seriously, I'd be much more interested to see what people had on their computers, and how much of that stuff they had. As in, "just how many gigs of porn do you have?" or "what the fuck is up with you torrenting all those Gilligan's Island episodes?"
Me, I collect photos off the internet and turn them into wallpapers, which I run by category on eight separate desktops via the KDE pager. The collection, although not Guiness World Record making by any stretch, now stands at well over 10 gigs of high-quality or ultra-high quality photos, with about 40% of those photos having been converted into wallpapers (more than 10,000 cycling between the eight desktops). I know, a pretty fucking boring hobby, but one I enjoy and I've never run into anyone with a larger personal collection (obsession).
This is the kind of thing I'd find of interest. I'd "Ask Slashdot" but I've pissed off the monkeys, er, editors one too many times and couldn't get a fucking presidential assassination link greenlighted at this point.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The funny thing is, if a guy was interviewing with me for an IT position and said he ran a setup at home like that, he'd be round-filed. What a massive waste of electricity and resources. The functions he has listed can be easily met with two or three machines and its either massive intarweb dick-waving or a real lack of understanding about how IT services can or should be deployed when it takes twelve.
Example: I run my Linux fileserver, my Windows MCE 2005 system for my XBox 360s, another Windows system running some home automation package I can't remember, and my general "this is internet accessible for ssh" Linux system on one piece of hardware, a relatively energy efficient dual Pentium III system with a load of RAM running VMWare and a bunch of external firewire drives. One server, a gigabit switch, a 10/100 switch and my DLink router. Enough to meet everything he was doing, and my electric bill isn't $100/month from it.
I may actually add "describe your home network setup" to my list of interview questions. I'd never thought of it, and it tells you a lot about people, it seems.
Crap, now I feel like a total loser. Not only do I only have one computer in my home data center and only one client, my car is a tiny little 2000lbs and only 2 liter.
I suck.
- Mail clients are filtered through my firewall: I blackhole bogons for example, and certain abusive networks.
- RBLs of my choice: There are good RBLs and bad RBLs. I like the
ORDB list,
DSBL list,
the Spamhaus SBL and
XBL lists,
the SORBS DUL list,
and the Spamcop blocking list.
- Greylisting: This is effective for eliminating the remaining spam that makes it through your SMTP-time filters.
- Challenge-response: Yeah, I know... love 'em or hate 'em.
TMDA has been useful to me in the past, though I'm not sure I'm going to keep it much longer.
- One-time email addresses: If you maintain your own server and domain, then you can have as many email addresses as you want. Expire them on your schedule, or perform special processing for mail received at those addresses.
- Forget about artificial mail-size limits: My ISP's email accounts cut off attachments at something like 2MB. So much for that camping video my friend wanted to send me. My personal mail server is much more forgiving.
- Flexible and secure access: My mail clients use POP3 and IMAP inside the firewall, and IMAP via SSH port-forwarding from the outside.
As I said: nontrivial to set up, but easy to run afterward. I don't touch it except to update the code from time to time or to review the logs. Maybe one of these days I'll put up a webmail interface if I can figure out this newfangled SSL thing.