[TriLUG] TriLUG Server Refresh

Thu Apr 30 14:02:29 EDT 2015

My $0.02

* Use ESXi - it is free to use for a single-node install, very well proven
in the field, easy to manage, and lots of people have experience if you
need help

* Use hardware RAID if possible.  While LVM/MD raid works well, consider
the person who has to replace a failed drive.  Hardware RAID = simple drive
swap.  Software RAID = user-involved actions.  In addition, you can get
plugins into the ESXi interface that show the state of the RAID
controller.  And, you can run a cron job using the "megaCLI" tools that
show the state of the RAID.

* As noted earlier, the firewall should handle all NAT/PAT stuff.  pfSense
is a great firewall device - it has an easy-to-use GUI with lots of power
on the back end.  It takes minimal hardware (512M RAM, 1 vCPU, etc).  Best
of all, you can run it on bare metal or as a VM.  You might consider using
your existing server as your firewall appliance and your new server to
handle your VMs.

* Something not noted earlier: VM backups.  Suggest you get a NAS or other
device to backup your VMs on a daily basis.  If you keep your first server,
you can run a pfSense VM for firewall traffic and one FreeNAS VM to hold
data backups.  There are some free tools (ghettoVCB) you can use for
automated ESXi backups.

I have done many of these types of setups before using the aforementioned
tools and manage a number of them in production data centers.  Let me know
if you need any help.

-Ron

On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 1:30 PM, Jonathan Mainguy via TriLUG <
trilug at trilug.org> wrote:

> OS for the Host - Centos or Debian
> Drives - atleast 2, raid + lvm (Software raid is pretty good these days
> with mdstat)
> IPv4 - Haproxy for all web traffic, will divert to the appropriate vm. 22
> goes direct to vm, some other port for ssh to the host. iptables / haproxy
> for the other stuff like mail.
>
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 1:22 PM, Mauricio Tavares via TriLUG <
> trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Bill Farrow via TriLUG
> > <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
> > > TriLUG has acquired a new rackmount server from ncsu-lug. The Steering
> > > Committee (SC) intends to replace our existing server, Pilot, by
> > > moving it into a VM running on this new hardware. The plan is to
> > > purchase new hard drives, install a small host OS, and bring up a kvm
> > > guest of "pilot". We could use some help and advice:
> > >
> > > * How many disks should we buy ?
> >
> >       Correct me if I am wrong but it is a 2U with 6 drive bays.
> > Personally I would get at least 4 drives: 2 small ones (SSD?) for the
> > OS and 2-4 large ones for the VMs (raid 1 or 5). For the large drives,
> > how much are 2TB nowadays?
> >
> > > * How should the disks be managed (lvm, raid, etc) ?
> >
> >       Since lvm now can do raid, I would suggest that.
> >
> > > * What host OS ? (Pilot is Ubuntu 12.04 LTS)
> >
> >       It depends on how you want to deploy. Personally I want to do as
> > lightweight vm host os as possible, so something like alpine linux
> > would be a starting point. That said, it would make sense it to be
> > Ubuntu 12.04 LTS because of what people are comfortable with.
> >
> > For which vm thingie to run, I personally have run esxi, kvm/qemu,
> > vbox, and xen. I can help with any of those but I only have packer
> > scripts (to spool up vms) for esxi and kvm. I would also later suggest
> > to run docker/juju but having that server to be a vm.
> >
> > > * How do we manage the host and VMs if we only have 1 public ipv4
> > address ?
> > >
> >       That is a router issue: ports (PAT?). But you will need to do
> > that anyway depending on which other services you will provide. But,
> > we can have some weird port to ssh into the host... using of course
> > "password" as the password.
> > >
> > > Current Server:
> > >   Supermicro X6DH8-XB, 2x Intel Xeon Dual-Core 3.2GHz, 2GB RAM
> > >   3ware 9000 Storage Controller
> > >   8x WDC WD2500SD-01KCC0 Hard Drives
> > >   1x FUJITSU MHT2040BH
> > >
> > > New Server:
> > >   Dell PowerEdge 2950, 2x Intel Xeon X5450 3.0GHz, 32GB RAM
> > >   8x empty drive slots for 2.5" SATA HDD
> > >   http://trilug.org/~bgerard/moya.specs.tgz
> > > --
> > > This message was sent to: raubvogel at gmail.com <raubvogel at gmail.com>
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> > > Welcome to TriLUG: http://trilug.org/welcome
> > --
> > This message was sent to: Jon Mainguy <jon at jmainguy.com>
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> that
> > address.
> > TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
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> > Welcome to TriLUG: http://trilug.org/welcome
> >
> --
> This message was sent to: Ron Kelley <rkelleyrtp at gmail.com>
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> address.
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>