setting up my home / test infrastructure

Jun 12, 2010 I fedora, home infrastructure.

Some time ago I bought a server (well, a set of computer parts I put together to what I now call ‘my server’). The hardware specifications are the following:

  • CPU: Intel C2D E6300 @ 2.8 GHz
  • ram: 7986 MB (667MHz)
  • ASUS P5Q PRO
  • gpu: MSI NS7600GT (256MB ram on board // passive cooled)
  • hard disk: 7x WD 1TB black (hw raid 5) + 2xMaxtor DiamondMax10 (soft raid 1)
  • psu: Corsair 450W
  • raid controller: ARECA ARC-1222 PCI-Express X8

I know the GPU is ‘a bit’ overkill, but I had this card laying around, so I might as well use it then :)

In a series of posts I will try to explain how I configure my server. If any of my readers have good ideas, let me know!

these are the things my server has to do:

  • being a hypervisor (KVM) [Centos]
  • firewall [Astaro]
  • mail server (Zarafa)[centos]
  • file & media server (Samba)[centos]
  • integration of Zarafa and Samba with Openldap
  • easy deployment of vm’s for testing (cobbler / koan)
  • monitoring (nagios)
  • package building (koji & mock) [fedora 13]
  • access from outside the network (vpn)
  • maybe things I will think of later, of suggestions you guys give me.

feel free to call me stupid, but I would rather have tips or cool information on the things I want to do. I already have some experience with most tools, but maybe the ‘best practices’ are different. I need these tools, and I want to challenge myself.

6 responses so far, say something?

  1. nokia Says:

    Really can’t wait to read how those 7 ancient hdds will cope with today’s requirements. After all, 7Gigs of space isn’t very much. :D
    (Surely you must have meant TB, right ? )

    Jun 12, 2010, 14:46
  2. biertie Says:

    ooops, yeah, thx for the fix.. this is why I love the interwebs ;-)

    Jun 12, 2010, 14:51
  3. nokia Says:

    Also I fail to see the 9 SATA ports on the reviews I found on the net. There are 6 on the Intel raid and 2 on Silicon. (I was curios to see a MB with so many ports but I suppose it’s another typo :) )

    Jun 12, 2010, 15:02
  4. nokia Says:

    My bad. Ignore last post. I missed the ARECA

    Jun 12, 2010, 15:05
  5. Bert blogt » setting up my home / test infrastructure « Dux Nuts Says:

    [...] more here: Bert blogt » setting up my home / test infrastructure Tags: absolute-worst, alcohol-or-notice, easy-deployment, for-high, kvm, openldap, [...]

    Jun 12, 2010, 15:52
  6. Adam Williamson Says:

    I don’t know about ‘best practice’, but I just set up my server machine with a very minimal Fedora installation and the packages necessary to run as a KVM host, then set up separate VMs for each actual function; I find it easier to keep things organized and compartmentalized this way. So I have separate VMs for mail serving, web serving and IRC proxying.

    I’d be quite wary of combining the firewall duty with the other various duties you want to give this machine, personally I always reckon it’s better to keep the firewalling duties in a dedicated box. I just use a regular consumer router running dd-wrt.

    Jun 12, 2010, 20:25

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