discuss: Thread: HOWTO about small&silent servers

Hello,

recently I exchanged a few mails with someone who used an Athlon 1800
for his Internet gateway and wondered how to make it less noisy... in
the process, I spilled out lots of text and wonder if I should turn it
into a HOWTO.

I guess the starting point for most people is to share an Internet
connection for several boxes. Whether they start with fli4l or skip it
right away: once there is a box running 24/7, there's a certain
temptation to add more services.
The document will cover three main aspects:
a) how much CPU power / RAM / disk space will be necessary to run a
certain service (in other words: will my old box suffice)
b) an overview of old hardware and possible issues
c) how to make it more silent, mostly centered on keeping the harddisk
powered down and a few other tricks of the trade

Well, now... does anyone think there is demand for such a HOWTO?

cu,
Schnobs

Christian Schnobrich wrote:
> Well, now... does anyone think there is demand for such a HOWTO?


Sure (not speaking for the ldp).  And, if they are not interested, let's
put it on WikiLearn (possibly even in it's present form).

Randy Kramer

On Wed, 05 May 2004 15:58:36 +0200
Christian Schnobrich ####@####.#### wrote:

> a) how much CPU power / RAM / disk space will be necessary to run a
> certain service (in other words: will my old box suffice)
> b) an overview of old hardware and possible issues
> c) how to make it more silent, mostly centered on keeping the harddisk
> powered down and a few other tricks of the trade



That seems to be a worthwhile project. The steps involved in a  and  c would be very helpful. 

Item  b  above has merit also. Probably one of those items that can be added to forever as time rolls by!


-- 
Owen

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 _ \<,_    
(_)./(_)   http://weather.smh.com.au/weather/canberra.html
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Christian Schnobrich wrote:
> recently I exchanged a few mails with someone who used an Athlon 1800
> for his Internet gateway and wondered how to make it less noisy... in
> the process, I spilled out lots of text and wonder if I should turn it
> into a HOWTO.
> 
> I guess the starting point for most people is to share an Internet
> connection for several boxes. Whether they start with fli4l or skip it
> right away: once there is a box running 24/7, there's a certain
> temptation to add more services.
> The document will cover three main aspects:
> a) how much CPU power / RAM / disk space will be necessary to run a
> certain service (in other words: will my old box suffice)
> b) an overview of old hardware and possible issues
> c) how to make it more silent, mostly centered on keeping the harddisk
> powered down and a few other tricks of the trade
> 
> Well, now... does anyone think there is demand for such a HOWTO?
> 
Oh yes, I'm really interested in reading this. And I would also be 
interested in translating it in French when it will be ready.

Best regards.


-- 
Guillaume.
<!-- http://abs.ptithibou.org/
      http://lfs.ptithibou.org/
      http://traduc.postgresqlfr.org/ -->

On Wed, May 05, 2004 at 03:58:36PM +0200, Christian Schnobrich wrote:
> recently I exchanged a few mails with someone who used an Athlon 1800
> for his Internet gateway and wondered how to make it less noisy... in
> the process, I spilled out lots of text and wonder if I should turn it
> into a HOWTO.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Athlon-Powersaving-HOWTO/index.html
 How to enable the power-saving functionality of the Athlon/Duron/AthlonXP
 processor on some motherboards/chipsets. This is usefull for saving Power
 and lowering the Temperature of the CPU and the System. (It also will
 reduce noise if you use temperature controlled fans in your case/on your
 cpu heatsink.

I think we already have the start of this document in our collection.
Perhaps you'd be interested in contributing notes there?

It's very important to read the list of documents in our collection before
proposing new ones. We want to avoid duplication of effort.

thanks,
emma

-- 
Emma Jane Hogbin
[[ 416 417 2868 ][ www.xtrinsic.com ]]

I think this would be very useful.  One way we can help Linux
gain allot of ground against Windows is to have very good
documentation on how to set up dedicated Linux machines
for special purposes.

There are many pages on the Web about making computers
quiet for home media centers, and many articles have
been written about it.  I would encourage you to address
this heavily in your HOWTO, or perhaps make it the primary
subject of your HOWTO.  Many people would like to watch
movies and play music from computers with out background
noise. There are specially made fans, harddrives, even
cases with noise insulation.

A "Quiet and Silent Linux Server HOWTO" might be the
perfect form for your content.  You can find many references
on the web.  I will see if I can find an email someone sent
me about this when I had discussed it before.


       - VAB

Christian Schnobrich wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> recently I exchanged a few mails with someone who used an Athlon 1800
> for his Internet gateway and wondered how to make it less noisy... in
> the process, I spilled out lots of text and wonder if I should turn it
> into a HOWTO.
> 
> I guess the starting point for most people is to share an Internet
> connection for several boxes. Whether they start with fli4l or skip it
> right away: once there is a box running 24/7, there's a certain
> temptation to add more services.
> The document will cover three main aspects:
> a) how much CPU power / RAM / disk space will be necessary to run a
> certain service (in other words: will my old box suffice)
> b) an overview of old hardware and possible issues
> c) how to make it more silent, mostly centered on keeping the harddisk
> powered down and a few other tricks of the trade
> 
> Well, now... does anyone think there is demand for such a HOWTO?
> 
> cu,
> Schnobs

On Thu, 2004-05-06 at 18:03, Emma Jane Hogbin wrote:
> On Wed, May 05, 2004 at 03:58:36PM +0200, Christian Schnobrich wrote:
> > recently I exchanged a few mails with someone who used an Athlon 1800
> > 
> http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Athlon-Powersaving-HOWTO/index.html

> I think we already have the start of this document in our collection.
> Perhaps you'd be interested in contributing notes there?

Not at all -- wrong topic. The point is that for most services and the
little number of users involved, a 486 could do it with one hand tied to
it's back. The fact that someone threw an Athlon at the task was what
gave me the idea that an HOWTO might be in order.

Here's what might become the introduction of my Document. However,
English is not my native language and while I could come up with a
fairly decent english version, I already noticed that a truly good
translation is beyond my capacity.

-snip-
You have a broadband internet connection you want to share with your
family or flat-sharing community. Either you want more than current
black-box routers can offer. Or maybe you have old hardware left in the
cupboard, that could be put to good use as an internet gateway (a
so-called "router") and save you the money for a black-box router -- and
once there is an actual computer running 24/7, there is a temptation to
add more services. Unfortunately, most people do not have a dedicated
server room where the beast can happily hum away.
This HOWTO shall provide a rundown of suitable hardware and some guides
and tips on keeping the machine quiet.

The contents of this document may to some degree be applicable to
"living-room machines" like mp3-boxes and perhaps even self-made digital
VCRs. It will be of little use to people who want to silence a current
workstation.
-snap-

The hardware rundown mostly deals with issues like 486's slow IDE
interface, RAM limitations on many Pentium boards, points out that you
may run into trouble if you want to connect a large disk to an old board
and such stuff.
Plus some information (both gathered data and rules of thumb) about
power consumption, as any power turns into heat you need to get rid of.

The "keep it quiet" part consists mostly of my experiences with fanless
operation, noise insulation and so on. I had some phenomenal false
starts with sophisticated approaches, and in the end found out that you
can have decent results with little effort.

I do not yet have a section on services and their hardware requirements.
All services I'm running myself and most I can think of are easily
satisfied -- but there may be exceptions. What about squid, privoxy or
spamassassin?

cu,
Schnobs

At 16:52 5/6/2004, Christian Schnobrich wrote:
>English is not my native language and while I could come up with a
>fairly decent english version, I already noticed that a truly good
>translation is beyond my capacity.

I will be happy to write along with you and create the English version 
simultaneously, or translate when you are done. I also speak Spanish 
fluently along with some French and Portuguese should there be a need or 
market for those translations as well.

Cheers,


-- 
Rodolfo J. Paiz
####@####.####
http://www.simpaticus.com

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On Fri, 7 May 2004, Christian Schnobrich wrote:

> The "keep it quiet" part consists mostly of my experiences with fanless
> operation, noise insulation and so on. I had some phenomenal false
> starts with sophisticated approaches, and in the end found out that you
> can have decent results with little effort.

Like the rubber-band suspension and so on.
 
> I do not yet have a section on services and their hardware requirements.
> All services I'm running myself and most I can think of are easily
> satisfied -- but there may be exceptions. What about squid, privoxy or
> spamassassin?

If you do talk about services, there is the time to start looking into 
other TLDP docs and point to the appropriate ones where possible, but I 
agree that as far as the other parts are concerned, this can be a separate 
HOWTO.

What I would appreciate in such a HOWTO is which distro to choose, as the 
standard ones will be overkill and maybe to heavy to run on old PCs.

Tille.

- -- 

My Penguin, my freedom.		http://tille.soti.org
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On Fri, 2004-05-07 at 08:23, Machtelt Garrels wrote:

> If you do talk about services, there is the time to start looking into 
> other TLDP docs and point to the appropriate ones where possible, but I 
> agree that as far as the other parts are concerned, this can be a separate 
> HOWTO.
> 
I don't have a section on services (yet). But anyway, I had no plans of
giving detailed advice on how to get a certain service running, merely a
brief description of common services (1), their hardware requirements
(2) and perhaps underline a few common gotchas (3).

(1) there may be services one might like but doesn't even know about, as
the case for me with NTP. On the other hand, many people are eager to
get DHCP running although they hardly ever need it, having a static
network.

(2) most services have no special needs. But if there is one that will
require better equipment, I'd like to point it out.

(3) for example, many BIND installations query the root servers by
default. IMO you can't tell folks too often that everybody and his
little sister clogging the root servers is bad practice and the user
ought to use his ISP's nameserver(s) as forwarders. Include link to
appropriate HOWTO or other documentation.

> What I would appreciate in such a HOWTO is which distro to choose, as the 
> standard ones will be overkill and maybe to heavy to run on old PCs.

Ooops.
Generally, I don't like it at all when HOWTOs are specific for a certain
distribution, or someone tries to explain why a certain distro is better
than others.
But yes, re-using old hardware may become tedious if your only means to
configure the system is through a graphical setup tool, or if the distro
insists on spilling gigabytes of applications on your disk.

Personally, I'm using Debian anyway and hence was not aware that it may
be a better choice than others when it comes to lean systems and
security. But still, there has to be a way to get it done using any
other distro -- I'd rather have a few hints on how to bypass the
official setup tools than declare certain distros unsuitable for the
task. But being a Debian-only user, I have no clue whatsoever. Could you
provide a few lines on the subject?

cu,
Schnobs