Hardware recommendations please

I

ioverreact

Hello everyone,

If this is the wrong place to post this please accept my apologies

I'm looking for hardware recommendations for a home set up. I'm wanting to set up a simple apache web server, dns servers and a mail server.

I know there are lists of hardware that are compatible with freebsd because I've used them when setting up on desktops and laptops at home. But in this case I'm setting up servers so I'd like to know what other people have used successfully and for any personal opinions/recommendations.

It will not be used for business and is purely a personal project and for practice/learning.

I can get Virgin Media voom 200 here (UK) but will need to pay extra for static ip addresses (£5 per month for 1, £10 for 5, or £13 for 10). So alongside hardware recommendations I wouldn't mind any helpful advice on how many static ips would be best for my set up.

Any help would be appreciated.
 
Any old junk rescued from a dumpster, such as
Code: 
root@i5-2400 # inxi 
System:
  Host: i5-2400.lan Kernel: FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE-p1 amd64 bits: 64
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Intel model: DH67BL v: AAG10189-206
    serial: BTBL1210005K UEFI: Intel v: BLH6710H.86A.0119.2011.0523.1030
    date: 05/23/2011 rom size: 1 MB
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i5-2400 socket: BGA1155 (LGA1155)
    note: check bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Sandy Bridge family: 6
You could even run your web, mail, and dns server on a Raspberry Pi. :what:
 
ioverreact said:
I know there are lists of hardware that are compatible with freebsd because I've used them when setting up on desktops and laptops at home. But in this case I'm setting up servers so I'd like to know what other people have used successfully and for any personal opinions/recommendations.
Click to expand...
I had FreeBSD 14.2 with nginx on a Phenom II X4 965 easy! For regular X86 computers, if it can run Windows or Linux it can likely run FreeBSD too. Even a laptop with lid-closed works.

I'd use a Pi but my server is also a NAS :p (I have Pi 3 but need SATA or USB 3.0).
 
I've tried it on my pi4 and it was a total disaster 🤦‍♂️ It works nicely on my laptop and at least one of my desktops though 😬 I was contemplating running wordpress sites using apache2 with virtual hosts to get started.

If I'm feeling very brave I'll try a mail server.

I was going to set up dns aswell but at least one server would need to be off site incase my internet goes down.

I've never self hosted before so I'm trying to get an idea of the costs. I have 3 spare desktops, a pi2 and a pi4 for hardware (I could get more if needed).

Broadband from virgin media would be £29 plus £5-£10 for one or more static ips (virgin only offer static ips with business broadband).

I have no idea what it would do to my electricity bill and probably don't want to know. 🙈
 
ioverreact said:
Broadband from virgin media would be £29 plus £5-£10 for one or more static ips (virgin only offer static ips with business broadband).
Click to expand...
I had a VPS for $5/month with an IP that wasn't specified static but never changed. If you're counting electricity usage, I'm thinking a VPS would be way cheaper.
 
Espionage724 said:
I had a VPS for $5/month with an IP that wasn't specified static but never changed. If you're counting electricity usage, I'm thinking a VPS would be way cheaper.
Click to expand...
I'd thought about a vps but if it gets hacked I've got no way to turn it off. If the server is physically at home I can switch it off in emergency.
 
SirDice said:
Nonsense. I have remote console access to my VPS, and I can turn it on or off whenever I want to.

Do you really think you're going to immediately notice it's been hacked?
Click to expand...
I almost certainly wouldn't notice immediately if it had been hacked but the ability to pull the plug whenever I wanted would make me feel better.

I've used shared hosting recently on Hostinger and contemplated going for a vps instead. When I asked the chatbot about security and emergency measures for vps I wasn't impressed, which is why I'm thinking about self hosting instead.

A supplier with an emergency off switch and customer support reachable by phone I would consider.
 
If you just want a small cheap machine to play with, pick up one of the many corporate disposals on ebay. For example 34 quid buys you this nice little lenovo PC. There are tons of them on ebay. Or go to your local e-waste place and pick one up for even less.

www.ebay.co.uk

Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Desktop PC i3 6TH 4GB 500GB HDD SLIM PC TOWER WINDOWS 10 | eBay UK

INTERNET CONNECTION VIA ETHERNET LEAD (NOT SUPPLIED). 500 GB HARD DRIVE.
www.ebay.co.uk

It's probably worth getting 8 GB ram nowadays, although 4 will do for what you said you need. You can always add more ram in this type of box (but check the number of dimm slots).

Of course you will have to do all the work of setting up freebsd on it once you have it.
 
ioverreact said:
When I asked the chatbot about security and emergency measures for vps I wasn't impressed
Click to expand...
Chatbots suck. And you probably asked the wrong questions.

ioverreact said:
which is why I'm thinking about self hosting instead.
Click to expand...
From an outside perspective there's no difference between an actual hardware box and a VPS. That's the whole point of a VPS. You might be confused with "cloud computing", which is a whole different ballgame.
 
blackbird9 said:
If you just want a small cheap machine to play with, pick up one of the many corporate disposals on ebay. For example 34 quid buys you this nice little lenovo PC. There are tons of them on ebay. Or go to your local e-waste place and pick one up for even less.

www.ebay.co.uk

Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Desktop PC i3 6TH 4GB 500GB HDD SLIM PC TOWER WINDOWS 10 | eBay UK

INTERNET CONNECTION VIA ETHERNET LEAD (NOT SUPPLIED). 500 GB HARD DRIVE.
www.ebay.co.uk

It's probably worth getting 8 GB ram nowadays, although 4 will do for what you said you need. You can always add more ram in this type of box (but check the number of dimm slots).

Of course you will have to do all the work of setting up freebsd on it once you have it.
Click to expand...
I was handed 2 machines from the office last year that were destined for the skip. I put 16GB ram in each of them. They can handle BSD but not with a gui. I got x11 working but the display wasnt fantastic. Only my laptop seems to run it quite well gui included which I don't mind as that one is my daily driver.

I wasn't sure if dedicated hardware would be needed for a home lab or if the 2 I got from work would do the trick. Using them as home servers I wouldn't need a gui so that problem would be solved.

I've never had a home lab before so this is all new to me. I'm keen to get started though 😬
 
SirDice said:
Chatbots suck. And you probably asked the wrong questions.


From an outside perspective there's no difference between an actual hardware box and a VPS. That's the whole point of a VPS. You might be confused with "cloud computing", which is a whole different ballgame.
Click to expand...
The warning/caveat under the chatbot that claimed it can give out incorrect information was putting me off even talking to it but hostinger don't have customer services so that was my only option.

In terms of price the vps would be significantly cheaper. But I would also like to use it as a learning experience.

Installing freebsd on old machines especially ones that probably aren't fully compatible made me look into documenation and subjects I'd never normally touch i.e. x11 and graphics hardware, and I feel a lot more confident after doing it, so was hoping for a similar experience 😀
 
ioverreact said:
I was handed 2 machines from the office last year that were destined for the skip. I put 16GB ram in each of them. They can handle BSD but not with a gui. I got x11 working but the display wasnt fantastic. Only my laptop seems to run it quite well gui included which I don't mind as that one is my daily driver.

I wasn't sure if dedicated hardware would be needed for a home lab or if the 2 I got from work would do the trick. Using them as home servers I wouldn't need a gui so that problem would be solved.

I've never had a home lab before so this is all new to me. I'm keen to get started though 😬
Click to expand...
Those work boxes should be fine, I'm assuming they are PC's, 16GB is plenty of ram. Should have little trouble with built in intel graphics. Just get a cheap 1080p monitor and you're all set up... what were the problems with the graphics? They sound like good machines... :)

Freebsd will run on pretty much any standard ibm-compatible pc from the last say 10-15 years, especially if you stick to the intel graphics and don't bother with nvidia or radeon. You might find some network adapters aren't supported but that is easily fixed with an ethernet card. The only other thing that might trip you up is bios and booting the thing. As SirDice said you can use just about anything for what you said you want to use it for.
 
You don't need a GUI to run a webserver, DNS and mail. So who cares about its graphics capabilities, or lack thereof.
 
blackbird9 said:
Those work boxes should be fine, I'm assuming they are PC's. 16GB is plenty of ram. Should have little trouble with built in intel graphics. Just get a cheap 1080p monitor and you're all set up... what were the problems with the graphics? They sound like good machines... :)

Unless they're old imacs or something with unusual graphics cards...
Click to expand...
They're both HPs. One is a 510-p199na. I can't remember the model of the other, I'd have to check when I get home. Everything installs nicely on both. It was only the graphics that gave me any issues.

I'll use external dns and mail server until I'm confident setting up a web server, then expand bit by bit. 😀

I know I'll panic at times, moan a lot and feel like giving up, but I felt the same when learning about freebsd and now I'm very happy with it.
 
Ahh... that's an AMD A10-9700 cpu with integrated radeon GPU. Hmm... maybe I should have said any <intel> pc. Yes, so you've got an amd cpu with an integrated radeon. I don't know enough about amd chips to comment, maybe someone else on here can advise you on getting the graphics to work, I'm sure freebsd supports some amd cpus, lots of people use them with freebsd. It's not that old a chip either.

Another option would be to install a basic graphics card that is known to work and disable the integrated graphics, like a basic nvidia card? I always use intel graphics so again someone else may be able to recommend. Looks like a nice PC, I would have another go at getting it to work, ask on these forums about the graphics :)
 
That sounds about right with the graphics card. I remember reading and re-reading the freebsd documentation and not being able to get a desktop gui.

I managed to get one first go on my dell laptop so carried on using it on that.

I installed arch and slackware on the desktops so they were usable as desktops.

I'm perfectly happy working from the command line so installing bsd minus gui to use them as servers will be fine. And will probably work out for the better as I'll be less likely to get distracted.
 
ioverreact said:
Installing freebsd on old machines especially ones that probably aren't fully compatible made me look into documenation and subjects I'd never normally touch i.e. x11 and graphics hardware, and I feel a lot more confident after doing it, so was hoping for a similar experience
Click to expand...

Your objective is server administration right?

Instead of fiddling around with X11 on a server; get acquainted with SSH and Sudo first. Don't use %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
 for your users either. Really learn Sudo. Learn about TCP/IP then go from there. Don't worry about network services yet. You need to understand networking.
 
vps is the better choice in my opinion
most vps providers will give you a javascript or vnc console where you can turn it off
you also can manage it when you are away from home which is complex to do for a home server (ipmi / ip kvm)
also i wouldnt trust my isp not to block various ports and / or protocols or give me reliable reverse dns.
also running a mail server from a "residential ip" is a pain in the back
you have less frequent power and internet failures (most likely)
 
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