Random Questions About Building A Server

[warm sable]

ok my goal would be to learn how to build a server. mostly for 3.5" drives. i've heard good things about raid 10, but i've never used raid with mismatched drives. i've done raid 0 with dual drives but those were both same model drives. if you know what a velociraptor drive is you're older than ssds.

to learn more about this i went down the rabbit hole with a rasberry pi 5. i figured the low power cost would be great. i didn't realize the thing couldn't natively power drives by itself without a power supply, on top of the one cord plugged into the pi. less great. rapidly sounding like a spaghetti mess. for now i'm torn between researching more into pi drive cage hats but none seem built for 3.5". plenty of 2.5" drive hats for the pi i could use if i had spare 2.5's lying around. i don't. needs a 3.5" sled.

curunir recommended a celeron processor on a normal axi/itx board instead of the hand sized mini pc/pi platforms. i know about server stacks. not trying to build a book shelf server lol, but i don't know too much about tower sized servers.

up to this point i've been focusing on hardware. so lets jump to software. i know i'll need internet connection and likely for home use access it via the router. while i understand the general concepts i duno how to accomplish that. like what program would let me set that up, how do i do it without exposing the server to anyone that wanders by? how would i set it up to allow access remotely? my understanding is the server would need an ip address i could access but also some kinda software running to give me a gui i could interact with said server.

i have a decent amount of experience troubleshooting hardware issues and software troubleshooting in windows. on linux i'm still learning. i imagine i'll need a few years to be wizzing around the terminal. i do have an old cm storm trooper full size tower i could use for this build. so i have the case and drives if i go the tower route. duno about the power supply, cpu, mobo.

@fleet summit

[fleet summit]

[warm sable]

k updated it.

[shadow musk]

I'd start by learning how to use OpenSSH and rsync
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FKsdbjzBcc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKCIi-NxJEo

[fleet summit]

Yes, for an actual server, those are basic tools you need to get used to.

[warm sable]

this has been added to the list and i'll take a look in the next couple days. ty nathan.

[warm sable]

this is more or less what i was envisioning when i first was trying to build out that pi. prolly more than 4 slots though.

[shadow musk]

Looks like you want a NAS. I would check out OpenMediaVault if you want an OS to turn an old computer into a NAS (it's based on vanilla Debian).

If you need a quick primer on how networking works, I recommend checking out Chapters 9 and 10 of the book "How Linux Works".

You should set up a firewall on your server (and on all of your computers) if you haven't already:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqXK8zUfDtA

If you want to set up SSH and your firewall to only allow clients on your local network to SSH into your server, check out the top two answers here:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/115940/how-can-i-setup-ssh-so-that-it-is-restricted-to-my-local-network

[fleet summit]

Sure, that kind of thing would work. But all I ever saw were more expensive than a DIY PC.

[warm sable]

oh i wasn't planning to buy the prebuilt product. i was planning to try to buy the individual components like with a pc and build it up myself. like the pi covers cpu/gpu and even ram. that just leaves me needing hard drive sleds, some way to power it, and a fancy box to store it all in. or at least so was the theory for the hardware side.

[fleet summit]

Cool project. But I think if you want the parts that allow for this, you will need to include AliExpress in your search.

Things like individual S-ATA backplates and such.

[warm sable]

finding the case, or the sleds is what stopped the project for so long. i can find the all in one built system, but not individual parts outside of 3d print etsy kinda shops. the prices were a bit much for custom order stuff like that.

[warm sable]

can't say i followed all of that, or will remember it not long from now but it's saved as it's own playlist so i can go back to rewatch it. was more easy to follow than i was expecting. i was expecting a file manager type gui interface like say dolphin for looking at the server, but shoulda expected linux to ❤️ on it's command line... ahem terminal interface.

[shadow musk]

Take your time learning this; it's definitely takes more than an afternoon to understand everything

[dusky apex]

I heard Debian is ideal server.

you will opt to install SSH services in its setup ofc

plain Debian standard in debian.org is essentially no desktop environment, but you may add one anyway in its installer, such as lxqt, or lxde

see some reviews about this.

I heard in some cases, a computer with no monitor attached, and acting as a server, needs some kind of hardware plug called an hdmi or DP dummy plug

[shadow musk]

Yes, I would recommend plain Debian for use as a server

[warm sable]

what do you mean? wouldn't it need those to get a display if you ever wanted to set it up and when you needed to update or interact with it? i know the whole point of a server is being able to do things remotely, but just based on permissions i've gotta assume there are many things you can't do without physical access.

[dusky apex]

you can remote-administer it if it has SSH server running on it.

see YT : joe collins - all about SSH