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Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

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Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#51

Post by heywire »

theHIDninja wrote: post #49
heywire wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year I decommissioned a Pi 2 that had been running nonstop pretty much since it came out, with the same SD card. I used it as a camera/motion detector for my garage, so it isn’t like it had the perfect environment. I also have a pi 3 that runs nonstop collecting data from a couple usb peripherals. I have a pi zero W running as a print server for the last 2-3 years, and a pi 4 with multiple services and docker co…

That is all anecdotal evidence. All four that I have tried using have failed catastrophically for different reasons. See my reply to a different comment on the same thread.

As is yours. I was only sharing my own anecdotes to show that both extremes exist.

Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#52

Post by throw10920 »

Damogran6 wrote: post #20

My RPi's are like lottery tickets. I buy them with the thought of all they could be used for...then collect duct in the junk drawer. I also tell myself I'm supporting the manufacturer, though it would appear they don't need my help.

If you still haven't found a use for them: they make for good low-power, always-on, headless networked servers for processing-light tasks.

Other commentators mentioned pihole/DNS, WireGuard, and music streaming, but you can also use them for a (slow) NFS server, persistent Syncthing node, Maestral host[1] (third-party Dropbox client written in Python (that can actually run on the Raspberry Pi, unlike the official Dropbox client)), or device that maintains a connection to a distributed network (e.g. Hyporborea/cjdns).

[1] https://github.com/SamSchott/maestral

Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#53

Post by jokethrowaway »

Pretty cool!

I wonder if there is a rpi alternative with more gpu power and multiple hdmi outputs just for this use case. You could probably run all the logic on a single rpi.

The rpis driving the screens are probably under-utilised and complicates the setup.

On the other hand, by having multiple rpis, you reduce the risk of everything going down and ethernet cables (or wifi) could be simpler to setup than having super long cables from a central board up to every screen.

Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#54

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

newshorts wrote: post #4

When I see companies build bespoke solutions like this I can’t help but wonder which client paid for that. Don’t get me wrong I would love to spend the time to build a system like that, as an engineer it sound fun! No doubt this project came at the cost of someone paying the company for value that was not transferred Sorry for being Daniel Downer here…

Or.... it just comes out of overhead?

Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#55

Post by thrwyoilarticle »

kd913 wrote: post #26
Damogran6 wrote: post #20

My RPi's are like lottery tickets. I buy them with the thought of all they could be used for...then collect duct in the junk drawer. I also tell myself I'm supporting the manufacturer, though it would appear they don't need my help.

Can I heavily recommend the use of them as a pihole + Wireguard VPN + DNSCryptProxy Server. Pihole -> Great use for a network wide adblocker/DHCP server. Wireguard VPN -> In combination with a DDNS setup and some port forwarding enables the use of a global private VPN. I think it's a prerequisite for a decent home-automation setup. DNSCryptProxy -> Great for ensuring all DNS requests on the network via DNS over HTTPS…

I tried using a Pi4 for a pihole and it kept crashing. Overheating I think. But, if I solve that, the SD card would kill it eventually.

Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#56

Post by bityard »

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #55
kd913 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I heavily recommend the use of them as a pihole + Wireguard VPN + DNSCryptProxy Server. Pihole -> Great use for a network wide adblocker/DHCP server. Wireguard VPN -> In combination with a DDNS setup and some port forwarding enables the use of a global private VPN. I think it's a prerequisite for a decent home-automation setup. DNSCryptProxy -> Great for ensuring all DNS requests on the network via DNS over HTTPS…

I tried using a Pi4 for a pihole and it kept crashing. Overheating I think. But, if I solve that, the SD card would kill it eventually.

Not if you get a good SD card, or a USB SSD.

Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#57

Post by jgust »

moduspol wrote: post #5
bush-bby wrote: post #2

I don’t know why, but there are few things I enjoy more than living vicariously through people who document raspberry pi projects and use cases.

I think it scratches the same itch for me as it does for my wife looking at Instagram recipes. The end result clearly looks amazing. I'd really like to get into doing that, but every time I try, it ends up being way tougher than it looks and the net result is nowhere near as clean as it is in the pictures.

This comment isn't aimed at you specifically, but I hope it helps:

You're looking at the 10th, 20th, 30th+ attempt being documented/curated on the internet. You've gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, so don't let that not-so-perfect first try slow you down if you derive value from tinkering.

Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#58

Post by eldaisfish »

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #55
kd913 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I heavily recommend the use of them as a pihole + Wireguard VPN + DNSCryptProxy Server. Pihole -> Great use for a network wide adblocker/DHCP server. Wireguard VPN -> In combination with a DDNS setup and some port forwarding enables the use of a global private VPN. I think it's a prerequisite for a decent home-automation setup. DNSCryptProxy -> Great for ensuring all DNS requests on the network via DNS over HTTPS…

I tried using a Pi4 for a pihole and it kept crashing. Overheating I think. But, if I solve that, the SD card would kill it eventually.

you can disable all logging in pihole - which i do and my sd card from 2016 is still going strong.

Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#59

Post by somehnguy »

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #55
kd913 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I heavily recommend the use of them as a pihole + Wireguard VPN + DNSCryptProxy Server. Pihole -> Great use for a network wide adblocker/DHCP server. Wireguard VPN -> In combination with a DDNS setup and some port forwarding enables the use of a global private VPN. I think it's a prerequisite for a decent home-automation setup. DNSCryptProxy -> Great for ensuring all DNS requests on the network via DNS over HTTPS…

I tried using a Pi4 for a pihole and it kept crashing. Overheating I think. But, if I solve that, the SD card would kill it eventually.

What power supply were you using?

My Pi 4 running 2 instances of Octoprint kept crashing until I switched to their official power supply. On previous models I always got away with whatever power supply I had around but the 4 doesn't play around when it comes to power consumption.

Re: Nine Raspberry Pis powering an office (2016)

#60

Post by josteink »

aweiland wrote: post #30
kd913 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I heavily recommend the use of them as a pihole + Wireguard VPN + DNSCryptProxy Server. Pihole -> Great use for a network wide adblocker/DHCP server. Wireguard VPN -> In combination with a DDNS setup and some port forwarding enables the use of a global private VPN. I think it's a prerequisite for a decent home-automation setup. DNSCryptProxy -> Great for ensuring all DNS requests on the network via DNS over HTTPS…

Any good tutorials on setting up Wireguard? This (and Pihole) have been on my todo list for a while.

> Any good tutorials on setting up Wireguard? This (and Pihole) have been on my todo list for a while.

Pihole pretty much installs itself (it even has a pre-made image). WireGuard will take reading, testing and failing.

I recommend doing these things one thing at a time, and doing the Pihole first.

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