[TriLUG] TriLUG Server Refresh

Thu Apr 30 14:08:04 EDT 2015

whichever way we go on RAID, suggest we have some cold spares sitting in 
the rack so if they stop manufacturing that particular disk, we have 
extras.  this is particularly true since TriLUG servers historically have 
a longer lifespan than the average commercial server :-)

William Sutton

On Thu, 30 Apr 2015, Ron Kelley via TriLUG wrote:

> 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.
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>> > Welcome to TriLUG: http://trilug.org/welcome
>> >
>> --
>> This message was sent to: Ron Kelley <rkelleyrtp at gmail.com>
>> To unsubscribe, send a blank message to trilug-leave at trilug.org from that
>> address.
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>> Welcome to TriLUG: http://trilug.org/welcome
>>
> -- 
> This message was sent to: William <william at trilug.org>
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