Otaking 2.0
From otaking wiki
Plans for otaking 2.0
Contents |
Hardware
Hardware plans have changed after Intel's price drop this summer. It will be alot of new things.
Pre-existing hardware
A few old HDDs for temporary high-performance non-critical storage (possibly 3x 80 GB in software RAID 5).
IDE controller card using a PCI slot. (Will require a new one if there is no Linux support.)
Planned purchases
Case
Chieftec Mesh Fulltower or Chieftec Mesh Miditower with a 400W PSU included.
I will require two 120mm fans and three to five 92mm fans as well as a fan controller with at least 4 channels to go with them. Maybe some filters as well.
Motherboard
I had my eyes on the Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 with four GbLAN ports, 10 SATAII ports etc, but it costs a shitload. I probably won't need more than what the Abit AB9 Pro has to offer, which is two GbLAN ports and 9 SATAII ports (plus one eSATA). I still need to confirm driver compatibility with Red Hat based OSes on the AB9 Pro.
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2.4 GHz with four cores and 4 MB L2 cache per pair.
RAM
2-4 GB of DDR2 RAM of any decent brand will do. Preferably two 2 GB sticks to have room for upgrades in the future, if more than 4 GB is needed.
Graphics card
A low-end graphics card for PCI-express. Mostly any will do as long as it doesn't try to share system memory.
Storage
2x 250 or 320 GB SATA HDDs (Western Digital RE/RE2, RE=Raid Edition with 5 year warranty); For use as system disks in a software RAID 1 array.
500 GB Western Digital (SE or RE) for additional storage. Possibly more since I need to replace three drives, two 200 GB and one 320 GB, that are close to failing.
| AMD Dual core | Intel Dual core | Intel Quad core | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Case | Chieftec Mesh miditower | ||
| PSU | T.B.D. | ||
| CPU | Athlon 64 X2 5200+ | Core 2 Duo E6xxx | Core 2 Quad Q6600 |
| Motherboard | Asus M2N32 WS PRO
(ECC memory support) | Asus P5W DH DELUXE
(ECC memory support) | |
| RAM | 4 GB ECC (prefered that the motherboard supports it) | ||
| Graphics card | Any cheap PCI-express card without TurboCache or HyperMemory | ||
| Storage | 2x 250/320 GB SATA Western Digital RE/RE2
1-?x 500 GB SATA Western Digital SE/SE2 | ||
Software
Host OS: CentOS 5 (based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux)
VMware Server for Linux
Concept
Minimal host OS running multiple guest OSes with VMware Server.
Virtual Machines
A short list of possible configurations of virtual machines. Each VM has some overhead in terms of RAM usage which limits the number of VMs I can run at one time. Possible overhead (up to 54 MB for a VM allocated up to 512 MB RAM) is not included in resource proposal per VM.
| Description | Guest OS | Service(s) | Resource proposal | Main storage | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VM 1 | Firewall/
router/ port forwarding | Free- or OpenBSD | ipfw with dummynets(?) | ~128-256 MB RAM | Configuration saved within VMfs | |
| VM 2 | HTTP/FTP/radio/mail etc. | FreeBSD | Apache 2.x
PureFTPd(?) | ~256-512 MB RAM | Files accessed via NAS(?) | |
| VM 3 | DB/storage server | FreeBSD | MySQL 5.x, SVN,
samba | ~256-512 MB RAM | DB saved within VMware virtual disk
Misc storage t.b.d. | Current database size ~120 MB |
| VM 4 | minikai | Windows (2k?) | MSN, IRC, ICQ, Jabber, etc. | ~512-768 MB RAM | Files saved within VMware virtual disk | |
| VM 5 | Misc Windows client | Windows (2k?) | DC/BT etc. | ~512-768 MB RAM | Storage access to VM 3 via VM 1 | |
| Summary | ~1.6-2.8 GB RAM
/ 4 GB |
Additional services
Some form of combined user database to connect mail, FTP and storage. LDAP?
Storage
Different ways to manage VM/data storage. The easiest way to share access to data is to utilize the storage VM server.
One idea is to store the information in the same VMware virtual disk as the guest OS. This could work well enough when the required storage space is low.
A better idea is to store the data in a separate VMware virtual disk from the guest OS for easy backup. In the case of large storage requirements, like for the NAS server, this is a much better idea than the previous since it separates the OS from the data.
A third idea, mainly for the NAS server's more permanent storage of larger files, is to mount one or more partitions/devices raw. You wouldn't need to have data stored in VMware virtual disk files on such drives, which increases portability and access from outside of the VM if necessary.
VMware discussion forum
My recently posted topic: VM and data storage (comments on my planned server upgrade is appreciated)
Interesting topics
Physical Disk Multiple VMservers
VMDK Performance tweaks....how to obtain the best performance???
Vmware Server – Teaming / Bonding Multiple NICs in Linux
