What to do with this?

Toms88

Toms88

Toms88

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Joined
21 May 2011
Posts
150
Location
Addlestone, Surrey
Managed to nab myself an IBM x3550 and LaCie Ethernet Disk from work for free :D

The LaCie needs building and i need to get some drives for it as well. The IBM Server currently has 2008 R2 installed on it, now the question is....what do i do with it?

I would quite like to setup VPN, possibly mail server and file storage. I have little to no experience working on 2008 Server, only really used the AD snap-ins etc. The server only has two drive bays on so i will probably look to hang something of the back of it for more storage. I produce music and videos so have a vast amount of data i want backed up. In total im looking around 8TB storage (16TB total for backup) It sounds a lot but i have my DVD collection stored along with all my music for streaming around the house so it will definitely get used!

Any other roles i should think about? Is it worth running a VM Esxi and having a few servers running for different roles? Not really sure on the technical how-to's of doing any of the above by the way, although i have found a few tutorials on youtube for the VPN.

What would you do?
 
I'd plug in the x3550 and be appalled by the racket it makes.

I’d then calculate the annual power consumption and have a nice sit down to recover.

Finally I’d decide that something sensible like a HP Microserver or a ML110 G7 would make more sense.

The one thing that’d give me pause for thought is the 2008 R2. Is it actually properly licensed, or does it just happen to still be installed?

If you want a VPN a router based option is much nicer.

If you want to run a mail server something better than the normal dynamic IP domestic broadband will be required.
 
All things im aware of, the point of this for me really is to learn. Its something im interested in, and would be perfect for me to learn how these things work in a non-corporate environment.

I have a licence for it, kindly provided by my network colleagues at work.

Im sure there are easier ways to do all of this but i simply want to learn how to do it myself, on completely free hardware :)

However seen as you mention it, for long term use a smaller home server would be ideal at some point. Something like that Microserver will be able to cope with Mail Server, VPN, FTP, WebServer etc? Its never going to have much load on it in terms of use i wouldnt think.

And could explain a bit more why my dynamic IP is a problem? There are ways round that i am almost certain?!
 
Dynamic IP - because of DNS resolution it is better to have a static IP if you are trying to publish services to the internet. There are ways around it like using online dynamic dns providers but you wouldn't need to with a static IP.
 
You may have problems sending mail from a dynamic IP.

Just having an IP that's known to come from a range reserved for domestic Internet connections can cause mail to be rejected.

It's almost guaranteed that a dynamic IP will appear on one or more of the spam black lists.

Not having a matching rDNS record can also be a problem.
 
I run a mail server at home using a cable modem which has a dynamic ip address.

The only problem i get when the ip address changes (which is rare) is when sending email from the server is will get a bounce back from Bigfish, which is Microsoft spam blocking as my dynamic ip is residential, but a quick email to [email protected] listing my new dynamic ip address and within 24hrs my new ip address is allowed to send again, it's no big deal.

Hope this helps :)
 
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