Potentially the longest thread in history...

[Ste]

VPN/VPS for yourself personally or your small business?

 

[PP Mguire]

For the past several years I've been out the game, having set up my systems running on my new fiber line got me thinking to ask the question, how many people here use there systems for multiple reasons.

I'll give you an example, I've got my old duel core Pentium Server what I have broken more Ubuntu server installs on than anything else when trying new things in order to learn about the technology, from running server to client setups on SSH to running open VPN installations, changing config files then setting up the likes of multi server systems to go out to the internet .

I've also got my laptop, and Linux Mint installation of 21.3 on my old duel core Dell Vostro running an upgraded 4Gib of memory and two hard drives side by side for storage capacity.

It got me thinking to ask the question as a lot of people on here are more knowledgeable than me, how many of you especially you guys who work in the tech industry have an interest in Linux, running multi system setups or have your own server/s and if you do have the likes of your own server, or are running multi system setups what is it you do.

There has been so much I have learned from techist and tech-forums, asking google question after question after question..

I've had my VPN provider for several years now but recently been looking in to the core of openvpn CE, what is 100% down to the individual who is setting everything up, installation and the likes of maintenance to rely only on them selves.

With me I'm 100% on my own, no one else in my family or friends are as much in to there tech as what I am, let alone running bash scripts or Ubuntu installations.

I know I've done a lot of different thing and there would be to much to mention here in a thread post over the years but for me its about having the tools to problem solve, learning new things, for when you get that eureka moment, and everything falls in to place, you can kinda say I done that on my own and that's something else I've learned.

What do you guys think, any here like me, or do anyone here see tech as something to be simply used like a mobile phone, use it for a few years then upgrade. Kinda like disposable tech.

..

Due to the nature of who I am, and the fact that server stuff is more my hobby than PCs these days, I don't use a lot of old stuff for that kind of use.
That being said, I am still utilizing refurb Ebay stuff because server stuff is really expensive. My business right now currently runs on 3 Dell Poweredge blades and my old 3960x.

Pictured in the left rack from bottom to top is a Poweredge R830 in 2 CPU config with 384GB of RAM. This machine runs all the backend VMs that my business relies on like AD, RDS VMs, SQL, VMM, etc. It also serves as a checkpoint SAN for VMs.
Above that is a Poweredge R640. This is a dual Silver machine with 20 cores and 256GB of RAM. It runs my apps server, all my game server VMs, and acts as a replication target for some VMs for the R830 like for AD.
Above that is a Poweredge R640 which is customer machine 1. It has dual Gold 6138s and 192GB of RAM with 8TB SAS SSD space and 4TB NVMe space.
In the back of the rack I'm utilizing my unused Ubiquiti 16 port POE gen 1 switch for my management VLAN and host VLAN (run 2 nics per server, with Apps having it's own 10Gb as a 3rd). Beneath it is a refurb Buffalo 10Gb switch which happens to be my first 10Gb switch I picked up almost 10 years ago.

Pictured in the right rack on the bottom is my personal server. These days it has a Supermicro X11 board with dual Gold 6130s and 256GB of RAM, 171TB of spinning rust, 32TB of SSD space, and a Tesla P100. It's only job anymore is to simply run Plex, Emby, and my request system (which will get moved to the Apps server soon).
Above that is a Big-IP F5 i4600 which is a big boy load balancer and traffic manager. I already have 2 for HA and they are currently not in prod use. They are licensed.
Above that is my Ubiquiti networking with the 16XG switch being replaced by an Agg Pro to leverage some 25Gb networking.

In the back behind the left rack is an old busted up Antec Sonata III case with the Nvidia sticker on it. This has my old 3960x and 32GB of RAM with a 10Gb NIC in it. This is running Linux Mint for Docker. I tried Windows Containers and it was trash not allowing a mix of Linux/Windows arch for image pulls, and didn't allow host mode. This Linux box hosts my corporate VPN (Twingate) connector containers as well as a Cosmos OS container and subsequent MongoDB to go with it.
Twingate is a split tunnel VPN that utilizes multiple connector containers that auto load balance and auto failover. They are single threaded and so far in testing with the old girl we can transfer at 1Gb speeds. Nobody I know has faster yet so we can't test full speeds. It's running 4 connectors while Cosmos is allowed to use the rest of the CPU. The R830 has a VM with Mint on it as well setup the same in case the other box goes down. In the VM setup in bridge mode VPN speeds are significantly slower.
Cosmos OS is an AIO type solution meant to host and manage apps as well as provide an easy to use built in reverse proxy that will auto proxy each installed app off the marketplace. I'm currently testing it, but it's hard to get any testing done as I need port 443 open for RDS until I deploy the F5's full time.

Right now this is all hosted in the corner of my dining room, and although I did intend on building a temp server room with 20A circuits in my garage, I am waiting on short/mid term projections and plans from my people. We have a meeting for our upcoming rebrand launch and then I will find out what our end goal is. I haven't made any moves as I have a feeling they want to invest to have my own commercial space going to not be limited by power and space restrictions here at the house.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Picked up a Meta Quest 3 for VR. I had a Windows MR headset I got cheap a long time ago but now that MS dropped support for them it was time to upgrade.

I'm not the biggest Meta fan, and the PSVR has better hardware, but after the windows MR experience I wanted whatever has the best support.

 

[PP Mguire]

Picked up a Meta Quest 3 for VR. I had a Windows MR headset I got cheap a long time ago but now that MS dropped support for them it was time to upgrade.

I'm not the biggest Meta fan, and the PSVR has better hardware, but after the windows MR experience I wanted whatever has the best support.

You had any luck with yours? I got one to play Forza Motorsport only to realize M$ decided VR wasn't worth the effort. Only games I've got to play nice with it are Pavlov and MS Flight Sim. Not even the games with native OpenXR support have been working right. Similar experience I had with 2 different Vive headsets over the past 8 years. Just never works correctly right off the rip.

 

[kmanmx]

So I finally bought myself a house. I wasn't planning on buying until the middle to end of next year but I came across a new build house with really good house builder incentives, so they were offering a 5% deposit contribution worth about $20,000 and it's fully floored with turf to the rear garden and partially furnished with sofas coffee tables dining tables beds side tables and so on. Managed to go around the house a few times and it seems well built; all of the appliances are neatly connected, all of the silicone beading around the bathroom tiles etc is very neat and clean, the doors are hanging squarely, the brickwork is level etc. Because it's a new build house they are legally required to install fiber to the property, so it's part of the open fiber network which is constructed by a company called GTC who then open it up to any isp who want to operate on it, it's kind of like an open source fiber network in a way. So I could have got symmetrical gigabit internet to the house but in the end I just ordered symmetrical 200 megabit, it's still two and a half times faster than what I've got at the moment and it's going to be more than adequate for anything I need living in a house on my own.

So yeah that all happened a bit sudden, I only started the mortgage and application process two weeks ago and then finished exchanging contracts today so it's all a done and signed deal, will be ready to move in on 20th of December when they hand over the keys.

 

[Ste]

- South Park tone - NIcccccce.

Well have fun remodeling a custom home entertainment room and setup!

if you do not get advice from us on it at least post pre, mid and post pictures!! or progress steps.

and might I suggest even if you don't have some elite pro computer or entertainment setup have all your most used electronics on a line filtering / brown noise cancelling device/circuit and battery back up. At least for Sterio receiver, computer/laptop and Expensive TVs.

 

[Trotter]

So I finally bought myself a house. I wasn't planning on buying until the middle to end of next year but I came across a new build house with really good house builder incentives, so they were offering a 5% deposit contribution worth about $20,000 and it's fully floored with turf to the rear garden and partially furnished with sofas coffee tables dining tables beds side tables and so on. Managed to go around the house a few times and it seems well built; all of the appliances are neatly connected, all of the silicone beading around the bathroom tiles etc is very neat and clean, the doors are hanging squarely, the brickwork is level etc. Because it's a new build house they are legally required to install fiber to the property, so it's part of the open fiber network which is constructed by a company called GTC who then open it up to any isp who want to operate on it, it's kind of like an open source fiber network in a way. So I could have got symmetrical gigabit internet to the house but in the end I just ordered symmetrical 200 megabit, it's still two and a half times faster than what I've got at the moment and it's going to be more than adequate for anything I need living in a house on my own.

So yeah that all happened a bit sudden, I only started the mortgage and application process two weeks ago and then finished exchanging contracts today so it's all a done and signed deal, will be ready to move in on 20th of December when they hand over the keys.

Well frigging congrats, dude! I know what you are feeling, and it is awesome.

My wife and I are in the middle of a refi. We're getting a lower interest rate and are going to redo the kitchen and build me covered deck for my smokers.

 

[kmanmx]

- South Park tone - NIcccccce.

Well have fun remodeling a custom home entertainment room and setup!

if you do not get advice from us on it at least post pre, mid and post pictures!! or progress steps.

and might I suggest even if you don't have some elite pro computer or entertainment setup have all your most used electronics on a line filtering / brown noise cancelling device/circuit and battery back up. At least for Sterio receiver, computer/laptop and Expensive TVs.

As it's my first home I couldn't afford anything big or fancy, so it's just a semi-detached three-bedroom new build house. And we're talking UK house sizes here so it's probably half the size that you're even imagining, I think it works out around 900 square foot - Pretty normal for the UK but I'm sure that be considered pretty damn small in the US, Anyway the point being that I don't really have the space for a huge Dolby Atmos system with floor-standing speakers etc; And even if I did I certainly don't have the money right now. So for the time being I'm just going to get a TCL 75-inch mini led TV and a Sonos arc ultra soundbar, not exactly my dream audio setup but it will sound much better than the built-in TV speakers and the small bass driver in the soundbar won't piss my neighbor off on the other side of the wall. Although talking about noise, when me and my dad first visited the house both houses on each side of the wall were for sale so we both went in a house and tried to shout at each other and actually we couldn't even hear each other through the party wall, so however they've insulated between the two houses they've obviously done a pretty good job.

As for power I'm not too concerned about that even though it would be a nice investment to make. My current house is 140 years old in a rural village so we get power cuts and surges probably four or five times a year, my new house is completely new on a brand new housing estate as a part of a larger suburban town so I'm expecting the electricity supply to be much more reliable. We don't have crazy weather here either that typically knocks down power lines and stuff.

Well frigging congrats, dude! I know what you are feeling, and it is awesome.

My wife and I are in the middle of a refi. We're getting a lower interest rate and are going to redo the kitchen and build me covered deck for my smokers.

Lower interest rate is always nice. Covered deck for smokers sounds awesome, are you doing the work yourself or getting in some construction workers ? Funnily enough my dad built his own covered area for his outdoor kitchen and smoking area recently and he did a pretty sweet job in my opinion. My DIY skills suck, so apparently I didn't inherit his genes for DIY...

 

[PP Mguire]

I have not grilled much at all the past few years because every SINGLE time we get a new place the damn sun sets on that side. I tried grilling this past summer once, and I had to put a towel on my head under my hat just to keep from sweating on the damn food. Hot grill + hot sun beating down on you sucks. I was so excited to buy that place this past summer because it had a covered porch area with netting to keep bugs out but NOOO. Life won't even let me buy a friggin trailer. (They backed out on title sign day in case anybody missed it back in May)

 

[Trotter]

Lower interest rate is always nice. Covered deck for smokers sounds awesome, are you doing the work yourself or getting in some construction workers ? Funnily enough my dad built his own covered area for his outdoor kitchen and smoking area recently and he did a pretty sweet job in my opinion. My DIY skills suck, so apparently I didn't inherit his genes for DIY...

I know my limits for DIY and this definitely exceeds them.

I have not grilled much at all the past few years because every SINGLE time we get a new place the damn sun sets on that side. I tried grilling this past summer once, and I had to put a towel on my head under my hat just to keep from sweating on the damn food. Hot grill + hot sun beating down on you sucks. I was so excited to buy that place this past summer because it had a covered porch area with netting to keep bugs out but NOOO. Life won't even let me buy a friggin trailer. (They backed out on title sign day in case anybody missed it back in May)

My porch/deck is on the north side of the house, but I've got good tree coverage on the west side so I'm OK in that regard. Plus Tennessee ain't Texas for heat.