135 lines
6.9 KiB
HTML
135 lines
6.9 KiB
HTML
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<a href="index.html">../</a>
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homenetwork.html
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<h1>Datacenter at Home</h1>
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<div class="author">Written by Xander Bazzi on 24-03-12.</div>
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<br>
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Embarking on a homelab journey often starts with a spark of curiosity and a dash of ambition.
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At first, my idea was to host my own NAS so that I could unmarry from the cloud; however, this
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quickly evolved
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into a multi-server rack with enterprise-level configuration and security.
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This transformation
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wasn't just about growth in scale; it was about creating a robust infrastructure capable of
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supporting my day-to-day digital needs with resilience and efficiency.
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<br>
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<br>
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At the core of the setup are 3 physical servers, each running Proxmox Virtual Environment,
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which is a versatile linux-based hypervisor that underpins the entire virtualization framework.
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All services and workflows run on
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VMs hosted on the 3 PVE physical servers. Three of these VMs (one in each server) act as master nodes
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for my k3s cluster; all other VMs are either running appliances or dedicated services.
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Two of the servers are actually second-hand Lenovo Ultra Small Form Factor PCs, and the third one is built from scratch with a Supermicro board.
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The latter runs a TrueNAS VM, and sports a 6-drive HDD bay, providing plenty of storage for all my workloads.
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Since TrueNAS operates with the ZFS file system,
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it needs direct access to the disks in order to read the SATA metadata; Proxmox facilitates this with physical disk passthrough.
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The main storage pools are supplemented by a 500 GB NVMe SSD as an L2 cache and
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64 GB of RAM for L1 caching. If some data in a pool gets enough hits, it gets cached in RAM, allowing
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for the full saturation of the 10Gbps line during intensive data
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transfer operations.
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Proxmox also supports direct PCI passthrough if I decide to get a dedicated GPU for encoding or AI workloads.
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<br>
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<br>
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Inspired by the <a href="https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack">LackRack</a>, here's a picture of the "enterprise-level"
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physical infrastructure:
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<br>
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<br>
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<a href="assets/img/dc1.JPG"><img src="assets/img/dc1.JPG" class="blog-image"></a>
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<br>
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The network is managed by a virtualized OPNsense appliance with 3 interfaces (2x10gbps SFP+ and 1x1000BASE-T) for WAN, LAN, and DMZ
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traffic.
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Logically, the network is segmented by a Juniper EX3300 switch, with 48 1000BASE-T ports and 4x SFP+ ports.
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Every server is equipped with 10Gbps SFP+ NICs, connected to the switch with Direct Attach Copper cables,
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yielding theoretical data transfer speeds of up to 10Gbps within the LAN.
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<br>
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<br>
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<a href="assets/img/dc2.JPG"><img src="assets/img/dc2.JPG" class="blog-image"></a>
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<br>
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<br>
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When trying to install PVE in the Supermicro server, I noticed that the only way to output video
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in the X11SSM board is via a VGA cable. However, the board does come equipped with a
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BMC chip, allowing for remote control of the server through the IPMI interface.
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The inclusion of IPMI is common for server motherboards, as it allows for bare-metal, GUI remote management over Ethernet.
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<br>
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<br>
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<a href="assets/img/mb1.JPG"><img src="assets/img/mb1.JPG" class="blog-image"></a>
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<br>
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<br>
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As evidenced in the logical diagram below, the on-premises network is not just a standalone hyperconverged
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infrastructure, but
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a node within a larger network of services, benefiting from the robustness and
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scalability of cloud solutions while maintaining the personalization and control of a private
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environment.
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<br>
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<br>
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<a href="assets/img/homelab_logical.png"><img src="assets/img/homelab_logical.png"
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class="blog-image"></a>
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<br>
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<br>
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This homelab is more than just a collection of hardware and software; it's an interconnected technology stack
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that balances performance, security, and scalability. It represents the culmination of a journey
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from curiosity to critical infrastructure, demonstrating the power of modern virtualization,
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networking, and storage solutions.
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<br>
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<br>
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A home datacenter is what most Americans deserve, but don't need.
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</p>
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