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Upgrading my home server

earth.li

11–20 of 70 posts

Re: Upgrading my home server

#11
post #6

What is the best and cheapest way to make a home server available to the internet, using a standard "home use" ISP contract? Can you give it a domain name? How do you deal with the asymmetrical upload/download speeds of most home connections?

You register a domain name, set it up on CloudFlare and use a script which checks if your IP changed and submits it to the CloudFlare REST API setting an A record: https://github.com/kissgyorgy/cloudflare-dyndns

Re: Upgrading my home server

#12
On Ebay you can grab a Dell R210 II with 1240v2 CPU for 150-200 USD, it is quiet, idles at 20 watt, 80 watt at full load and plenty of power.

If you need more cores, the Xeon D is another great alternative but costs a lot more.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#13
post #6

What is the best and cheapest way to make a home server available to the internet, using a standard "home use" ISP contract? Can you give it a domain name? How do you deal with the asymmetrical upload/download speeds of most home connections?

cheapest way is to sign up with a dynamic DNS service like http://freedns.afraid.org/ - choose a subdomain you like. Then run an agent on your server to monitor when/if your public IP changes - it will send the new IP to the dynamic DNS. If you'd prefer a paid option that uses your own domain, then some providers like Digital Ocean expose DNS settings via API. Here's a google search to get you started: https://www.go…

Ddns used to be a fancy thing, but these days everyone worth anything has their own API for DNS management. Providers specialising in ddns may have their own agents which make it easier, but you can also use a 3-line script to do it on route53.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#14
post #6

What is the best and cheapest way to make a home server available to the internet, using a standard "home use" ISP contract? Can you give it a domain name? How do you deal with the asymmetrical upload/download speeds of most home connections?

cheapest way is to sign up with a dynamic DNS service like http://freedns.afraid.org/ - choose a subdomain you like. Then run an agent on your server to monitor when/if your public IP changes - it will send the new IP to the dynamic DNS. If you'd prefer a paid option that uses your own domain, then some providers like Digital Ocean expose DNS settings via API. Here's a google search to get you started: https://www.go…

Afraid.org is great, note that you don't necessarily need to install any software to use it - you're given a line to paste into your crontab and it's setup. It simply wget/curls an update URL every few minutes.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#15
post #6

What is the best and cheapest way to make a home server available to the internet, using a standard "home use" ISP contract? Can you give it a domain name? How do you deal with the asymmetrical upload/download speeds of most home connections?

cheapest way is to sign up with a dynamic DNS service like http://freedns.afraid.org/ - choose a subdomain you like. Then run an agent on your server to monitor when/if your public IP changes - it will send the new IP to the dynamic DNS. If you'd prefer a paid option that uses your own domain, then some providers like Digital Ocean expose DNS settings via API. Here's a google search to get you started: https://www.go…

CNAME'ing your own domain to a "dynamic DNS" provider is also an option.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#16
post #6

What is the best and cheapest way to make a home server available to the internet, using a standard "home use" ISP contract? Can you give it a domain name? How do you deal with the asymmetrical upload/download speeds of most home connections?

You register a domain name, set it up on CloudFlare and use a script which checks if your IP changed and submits it to the CloudFlare REST API setting an A record: https://github.com/kissgyorgy/cloudflare-dyndns

I've used ddclient which has support for a lot more DNS services, including Cloudflare: https://github.com/ddclient/ddclient

Re: Upgrading my home server

#17
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cheapest way is to sign up with a dynamic DNS service like http://freedns.afraid.org/ - choose a subdomain you like. Then run an agent on your server to monitor when/if your public IP changes - it will send the new IP to the dynamic DNS. If you'd prefer a paid option that uses your own domain, then some providers like Digital Ocean expose DNS settings via API. Here's a google search to get you started: https://www.go…

Afraid.org is great, note that you don't necessarily need to install any software to use it - you're given a line to paste into your crontab and it's setup. It simply wget/curls an update URL every few minutes.

Any reason they chose "Afraid" as their name? A name is just a name, but it feels a bit offputting to use that in the address of my home server, tbh.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#18
For those wanting a quiet home server for cheap, go for a well-ventilated tower PC, best with passive CPU cooler and a quiet case and power supply fan. You can put that box in a bedroom and almost never see it/hear it.

Rackmount server in home people so often brag about on the Internet is a very loud and impractical way to run network services from home, unless you have separate room for it.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#19
post #18

For those wanting a quiet home server for cheap, go for a well-ventilated tower PC, best with passive CPU cooler and a quiet case and power supply fan. You can put that box in a bedroom and almost never see it/hear it. Rackmount server in home people so often brag about on the Internet is a very loud and impractical way to run network services from home, unless you have separate room for it.

Loudest component will usually be the drives, otherwise something else is to loud.

Re: Upgrading my home server

#20
post #17
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afraid.org is great, note that you don't necessarily need to install any software to use it - you're given a line to paste into your crontab and it's setup. It simply wget/curls an update URL every few minutes.

Any reason they chose "Afraid" as their name? A name is just a name, but it feels a bit offputting to use that in the address of my home server, tbh.

I don't know, but they have many different domains to choose from. I'm not sure if you can even get a subdomain of afraid.org.
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