Gav's World : The Server

House Server [locutus]

Like any geek of computers, I had to have a house server - not just for the sake of it though, this one is actually very useful, especially when it's connected to the house's Gigabit Network and Multimedia System!

This is actually the 3rd encarnation of my house server:

Version 1.0 [data] (October 2008)

My original server changed roles into a media PC that sat underneath the telly (and was subsequently replaced by a more powerful one that attached to the back of the telly, which was in turn replaced by a Raspberry Pi). As a server, it did its job well but it sometimes stuttered streaming music to multiple destinations.

Version 2.0 [v-ger] (March 2011)

All services (and files from many, many years) were transferred onto a more powerful Mini ITX PC which ran almost flawlessly for many years, until...

Version 2.1 [v-ger] (January 2017)

I had to upgrade the motherboard as the original one developed a fault. Then some time later, with the announcement that Crashplan were to drop their "home" service, I thought is was a good time to ruggedise my home server...

Version 3.0 [locutus] (December 2017)

Physically bigger box, faster processor, but more importantly a ZFS RAID file system - meaning that accidental file deletions or the odd corruption were handled easily - leaving just the problem of total loss of data to worry about (a cloud backup solution takes care of that though).

The server runs TrueNAS version 13 and has drive redundancy for two of the four drives failing.

Along with this, TrueNAS Jails (if ever required) and Linux Virtual Machines allow me to re-produce any of the services that I still require!

Services (well, it is a server after all!)

It currently provides all of these services:

TrueNAS (Network-Attached Storage) System
- Network File System (NFS) server
- RAID-Z2 storage (the main reason for doing this, of course!)
- VNC server for accessing virtual machines
TrueNAS Jails
- None yet.
Ubuntu Server 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) Virtual Machine [emissary *]
- Apache Subversion (SVN) - here's a handy guide
- Minecraft Servers:
  - 3x Minecraft.net (Java Edition)
  - 1x PocketMine (Pocket/Bedrock Edition)
- UPnP / DLNA network media services:
  - MiniDLNA (FLAC music)
  - Plex (FLAC music / videos / photos) - accessible from anywhere!
  - Twonky Server (MP3 music / videos / photos)
- WireGuard Secure VPN (here's a handy guide)
Xubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) Virtual Machine [wolf-359]
- A Linux VM running XFCE for me to log into remotely - just because I can!

* Why "emissary" I hear you ask? Well, I was originally goint to call it Sisko, but then realised that it sounds exactly like a major manufacturer of computer networking equipment, so I went with his other title in DS9.

Anyway, here are locutus' specifications:

Specifications:

Tower:	Dell PowerEdge T30 (mini tower server)
Processor:	Quad Core Intel Xeon E3-1280 v5 (3.7GHz, 4.0GHz Turbo)
RAM:	2x SK Hynix HMA41GU7AFR8N (2133MHz 8GiB ECC DDR4) 2x HP Enterprise 862974-B21 (2400MHz 8GiB ECC DDR4) (32GiB in total, running at 2133MHz)
RAID-Z2 Storage: (6TB usable; dual drive failure protection)	Bay 0: Western Digital Red (3TB) Bay 1: Western Digital Red (3TB) Bay 2: Western Digital Red (3TB) Bay 3: Western Digital Red Plus (3TB)
Additional Storage:	Kalea-Informatique (PCIe to 4x mSATA Host Adapter)
→ OS Storage: (ZFS mirror)	Transcend mSATA SSD 230S (64GB - TrueNAS filesystem) Transcend mSATA SSD 230S (64GB - TrueNAS filesystem)
→ VM Storage: (ZFS mirror)	Kingston SUV500MS/240G (240GB mSATA) Kingston SUV500MS/240G (240GB mSATA)
Additional Ethernet:	10GTek 82576-ge-2t-x1 (Dual RJ45 Gigabit NIC, Intel 82576 Chipset)
Optical Drive:	Hitachi-LG Data Store GU90N (Super Multi DVD Writer) (not actually connected, as no spare SATA ports - yet!)
KVM Switch:	Belkin F1DN104Cea (Secure 4-port DVI-I, USB2.0, audio & CAC)
(KVM) Monitor:	DELL P2418D (24inch 16:9, 2560x1440 IPS panel)
(KVM) Speakers:	Creative GigaWorks T40 Series II
(KVM) Keyboard:	Logitech Cordless Desktop Comfort
(KVM) Mouse:	Logitech MX Master
Battery Backup UPS:	Eaton Ellipse ECO (800VA)

Retired Services:

In the past, my servers also provided these services (just FYI - handly links):

DCHP and DNS services with dnsmasq
- Ad blocker courtesy of this tutorial from AdaFruit
  (note: change http to https in "ad_list_url" or it won't work)
Google Cloud Print bolted in via Chromium running as a service (here's how)
MythTV master back end (here's how I set it up)
MySQL server
- Kodi Shared Library
Scanner services with saned
Ubuntu repository cache with squid-cache
VPN server with OpenVPN (here's how and more how)
XDMCP server for remote X-Windows desktop access