I’ve been working on a fail over system for my hosted services. Getting this working means that I am no longer locked into my internet provider for a static public IP. Instead the IP of the VPS is used.
In this case I have setup OPNsense on a VPS hosted by Binary Lane (although any VPS with an external IP would work). My OPNsense box at home connects to the VPS via OpenVPN (P2P). Then a bunch of routing and firewall rules take care of the rest.
A setup of gateways with priorities covers off on the dual WAN on the home router side.
About 12 months ago (2018) I decommissioned my FreeNAS based file server in preference of a Synology DS918+. While this device has been fantastic, and I do recommend it, it’s a bit boring and not fitting my theme of DIY and putting retro hardware to good use.
The main considerations for this build are:
Ability to run virtual machines.
As much retro hardware that makes sense.
Low power draw.
Reliable and very long lasting hardware.
CPU performance and feature set that will future proof this build for FreeNAS.
RAM upgrade capacity.
Plenty of physical drive capacity in the case that is easy to access.
So here is a sneak peak of the project while I wait for the remainder of the parts to arrive.
Parts List
Intel Xeon L5640 CPU @ 2.27GHz, 6 Core HT with 12MB Cache, 60W (2010)
Super Micro X8STi Motherboard (~2010)
Fractal Design Define R6 in White with Glass Side
48GB RAM
Corsair RM550x PSU
Cooler Master H411 Cooler
2x 30GB SSD for OS (ZFS RAID1)
3x 250GB SSD for VMs (ZFS RAIDZ1)
4x 2TB HDD for Storage (ZFS RAIDZ2)
Continuing the retro theme, all the working parts are second hand and out dated from their usual intended purpose. Although in this build the parts are still reliability new, this is for power consumption, performance and reliability and also for certain feature sets on the CPU.
The board was chosen because it was relatively cheap to purchase with a CPU included. The CPU for its instruction set and very low power consumption. New PSU to help protect the nice hardware. Drives because they will be carried over from my old NAS. The Case for style, to show off the hardware, drive capacity (more than 10x 3.5″) and overall quality. And lastly the Cooler as they are quiet and long lasting.
The first PC projects for the site. The aim is to setup a Dual Slot 1 Celeron as a router. I’m not sure if the performance will be enough for my 50Mb VDSL connection, so will have to wait and see.
The Slot 1 Celeron does require some modification to work with SMP (Symmetric Multi- Processing). CPU Central have details on this modification here.
The plan is to try and run OPNsense on the machine and use it as a gateway/firewall for my VDSL connection. Failing that, Windows NT and some retro gaming!
All the retro parts will be wrapped in a nice new case from Corsair and powered by a Corsair Rm550x (overkill, but I wanted a quality PSU to protect the hardware).
Back in the day I used to own a Leadtek Winfast GeForce2 Pro. This, at the time, wasn’t a bad 3D card for the PC. The cooling solution on this card wasn’t fantastic and soon failed.
Using whatever I had laying around at the time I had a solution. Basic, crude and dodgy, but worked very well for about 12 months until I upgraded the card to a GeForce4 Ti 4200 8x. The cooler used was a Silver Orb, a great CPU cooler at the time.
