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Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

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Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#241

Post by simoncion »

literalAardvark wrote: post #126
simoncion wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...no remote management interface... I bet colos will plug a KVM into your hardware and give you remote access to that KVM. I also bet rachelbythebay has at least one article that talks about the topic. > ...can't scale if you suddenly had a surge of traffic. 1) If your public server serves entirely or nearly-entirely static data, you're going to saturate your network before you saturate the CPU resources on that l…

k8s doesn't really weigh you down, especially if tuned for the low end use case (k1s). It encourages some dumb decisions that do, such as using Prometheus stack with default settings, but by itself it just eats a lot of ram. Now using CPU limits in k8s with cgroups v1 does hurt performance. But doing that would hurt performance without k8s too.

> k8s doesn't really weigh you down, especially if tuned for the low end use case (k1s).

Sorry, what "k1s" are you referring to? The only projects with that name that I see are either cut-down management CLIs and GUIs that only work with a preexisting Kubernetes cluster, or years-old abandoned proof-of-concept/alpha-grade Kubernetes reimplementations that are completely unsuitable as a Kubernetes replacement.

The only actually-functional cut-down Kubernetes I'm aware of is 'minikube'. Minikube requires -at minimum- 2 CPUs, 2GB of RAM and 20GB of disk space. [0] That doesn't fit on either of the machines 'nrdvana' was talking about... not the "tiny ... digital ocean droplet", with its 1CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 25GB of disk space [1], nor the "tiny linode" (which has roughly the same specs [2]).

Given that it's not at all uncommon for discarded laptops to have 4 CPUs, 8GB of RAM, and like 250GB of disk, eating 1/4th of the RAM, (intermittently) half of the CPU power, and roughly a tenth of the disk space just for Kubernetes housekeeping kinda sucks. That's pretty damn "heavy", in my judgment. So. Do you have a link to this 'k1s' thing you were talking about? Does it use less than 2 CPUs, 2GB of RAM, and 20GB of disk?

[0] https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/start/>

[1] https://www.digitalocean.com/products/droplets#see-what-you-...>

[2] https://www.akamai.com/cloud/pricing#title-7ba40063be> [3]

[3] Did you know that Linode got bought by Akami? I didn't!

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#242

Post by qmr »

matt-p wrote: post #173

I am surprised a serious facility would be happy having 100 old LiPo batteries in a rack. That is a (nasty) fire waiting to happen IMO. These are old batteries that may even have minor physical damage from being dropped and will be in maybe a ~25-30c environment.

Laptop batteries are lithium ion not lithium polymer.

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#243

Post by qmr »

michaelt wrote: post #153
beAbU wrote: post #135

€7/month is mad considering the hardware is my own.

€7/month is both too much and too little. The cheapest USB KVM-over-IP costs about €50 - that's 8 months of colo fees gone. Colo 'remote hands' in western countries can cost €120/hour, once all expenses and overheads are taken into account. Admittedly, that's for someone to drop what they're doing and rush to your sever. But getting that laptop unpacked, checked over, labelled, installed in a rack, associated to a cu…

There's no way they're offering 24/7 KVM for this. Cheap colos you need to write / call to get an on demand KVM then wait some hours or days for a tech to plug it in.

The operator is in no way responsible for shipping damage, not sure why you imply they would be.

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#244

Post by literalAardvark »

simoncion wrote: post #241
literalAardvark wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

k8s doesn't really weigh you down, especially if tuned for the low end use case (k1s). It encourages some dumb decisions that do, such as using Prometheus stack with default settings, but by itself it just eats a lot of ram. Now using CPU limits in k8s with cgroups v1 does hurt performance. But doing that would hurt performance without k8s too.

> k8s doesn't really weigh you down, especially if tuned for the low end use case (k1s). Sorry, what "k1s" are you referring to? The only projects with that name that I see are either cut-down management CLIs and GUIs that only work with a preexisting Kubernetes cluster, or years-old abandoned proof-of-concept/alpha-grade Kubernetes reimplementations that are completely unsuitable as a Kubernetes replacement. The onl…

Sorry I meant k0s. Off by one error at 3 am.

There are a couple of things here: first off, minikube isn't tuned for low resources, it's a full k8s packaged for developers. Second, it doesn't burn much CPU at all unless you blew it up and it's churning pods. Third, try to remember that you're running a tool that provides most of what you need to run a service, it's not a bare VM, it comes with reverse proxy, tons of tools, and cluster management.

Basically those minimal specs let you actually run quite a lot of stuff on that minikube, they're not just for the management system.

k0s needs roughly 500MB RAM and 1.5GB drive to run a controller+worker. Can probably pare k3s down to that as well.

And I repeat, this gets you single pane cluster management across all your laptops, reverse proxy, DNS, resource shaping, namespaces, etc. Only big problem with it is that adding distributed storage is quite heavy and unstable (longhorn) or really heavy (ceph), so storage management might need to be manual which is a pain in k8s.

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#246

Post by simoncion »

literalAardvark wrote: post #244
simoncion wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> k8s doesn't really weigh you down, especially if tuned for the low end use case (k1s). Sorry, what "k1s" are you referring to? The only projects with that name that I see are either cut-down management CLIs and GUIs that only work with a preexisting Kubernetes cluster, or years-old abandoned proof-of-concept/alpha-grade Kubernetes reimplementations that are completely unsuitable as a Kubernetes replacement. The onl…

Sorry I meant k0s. Off by one error at 3 am. There are a couple of things here: first off, minikube isn't tuned for low resources, it's a full k8s packaged for developers. Second, it doesn't burn much CPU at all unless you blew it up and it's churning pods. Third, try to remember that you're running a tool that provides most of what you need to run a service, it's not a bare VM, it comes with reverse proxy, tons of t…

> ...it doesn't burn much CPU at all unless...

You noticed that I said "(intermittently) half of the CPU power", yeah?

> Third, try to remember that you're running a tool that provides most of what you need to run a service...

I already get everything that I need to run a service with old-ass systems like OpenRC+netifrc or -hack, gag- systemd and its swarm of dependencies. "Run a service on a *nix box" is a thing that we've had pretty well nailed down for decades now. It is -after all- how the services that run Kubernetes get run. Do note that you're talking to someone who does Linux system administration both as a hobby and professionally.

> Sorry I meant k0s. Off by one error at 3 am.

Sure, no problem. Shit happens.

So, k0s? Compared to minikube, the official minimum spec tables [0] indicate that -if you colocate the controller and worker- it cuts the CPU and RAM needs in half, and cuts the disk space by a factor of ten. That's nice, but that's still an eighth of the RAM and (intermittently) a quarter of the CPU of our hypothetical-but-plausible castoff laptop. That's still a lot of resources. And compared to what it costs you, you don't get much. If we were talking about some big, bad, mutually-untrusted-multitenant situation, it could be worth the cost, but -despite what folks like the CNCF might like you to believe- that's not the only scenario out there.

Also Mirantis is responsible for k0s? [1][3] After their rugpull with their Openstack distro way back when, I don't trust that they'll keep maintaining and providing complex stuff that's free to use for long enough to make it worth making a critical part of one's business. (Yes, this has absolutely nothing to do with its resource usage. I'm absolutely not bringing it up to support that argument in any way. I "just" thought it important to mention that I don't trust that Mirantis's free stuff will continue to be free for long enough to safely build (more of?) your business on.)

[0] https://docs.k0sproject.io/head/system-requirements/#minimum...>

[1] From [2] "Mirantis offers technical support, professional services and training for k0s. The support subscriptions include, for example, prioritized support (Phone, Web, Email) and access to verified extensions on top of your k0s cluster."

[2] https://docs.k0sproject.io/head/>

[3] As additional evidence, the only two humans on the first page of commits to the k0s repo are Tom Wieczorek, whose Github profile indicates his affiliation with Mirantis [4], and Jussi Nummelin who is very, very obviously a Mirantis employee. [5] I tried to look at the complete Github contributor list for the k0s repo, but it simply wouldn't load. [6] But, I'd be shocked if this wasn't Mirantis's totally-functional-but-still-pet project that intends to more than make up the cost of development and maintenance with support contracts.

[4] https://github.com/twz123>

[5] https://www.mirantis.com/blog/authors/jussi-nummelin/>

[6] Github's "Zero nines of uptime" guarantee is rock solid and reliable!

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#247

Post by me-vs-cat »

StableAlkyne wrote: post #216
me-vs-cat wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that the notice is effectively useless for such web pages. And if it doesn't matter, then why bother to put anything?

Most people do so because everyone else does; it looks off if you don't see a copyright at the bottom of an otherwise professional site.

That doesn't look off.

What looks off is showing you don't know how copyright works by blindly putting the current year.

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#248

Post by pocksuppet »

Theodores wrote: post #85
perrygeo wrote: post #45

Old laptops as low cost servers? Absolutely, build a homelab in your own basement, rent a cheap VPS, set up wireguard and viola - instant data center for tens of dollars per month. It's not production grade but you'll learn a ton. But colocation? Strip away the learning component and add production uptime requirements - why would you even consider using crusty old laptops for this? If you have production grade needs,…

I have always dreamed of substituting a really expensive rack of servers with a couple of elderly laptops, with their built in UPS, handy screens, keyboards and trackpads. However, for pet projects, I now have a better way of being cheapskate. Some ecommerce software stacks really need gargantuan amounts of RAM and CPU, which gets expensive on the cloud. However, it is possible with some software to have everything m…

Don't use "the cloud", rent a moderately-priced server. This "cloud" fetishism (that means AWS/Azure/GCP) has led to billions of dollars in unnecessary revenue for those companies and unnecessary expenses for the rest of the world.

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#249

Post by pocksuppet »

torginus wrote: post #187
eemil wrote: post #175

Maybe I'm in the minority... but this seems like an extremely compelling offering for certain use-cases. Not for enterprises, but for individuals and small businesses. My off-site backup is a thinkpad x230 with a 1 TB HDD. It's currently at my friends house, and I access it with tailscale. 7 eur/month to colocate this in a datacenter with stable (and fast) Internet + power seems like a pretty good deal. I can underst…

I mean we literally did this in one of my previous places. We took all the old laptops that were to be junked by IT, and used them as a selenium test farm. We saved like $100k per month on the AWS bill at the cost of basically electricity. If all the machines were running Windows, the difference would've been even more drastic. What I dont get is that we have these autoscaling technologies that allow software to be f…

> We saved like $100k per month on the AWS bill

Did you also compare the bill to places that are not AWS, not Azure, and not GCP?

Re: Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers

#250

Post by StableAlkyne »

me-vs-cat wrote: post #247
StableAlkyne wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people do so because everyone else does; it looks off if you don't see a copyright at the bottom of an otherwise professional site.

That doesn't look off. What looks off is showing you don't know how copyright works by blindly putting the current year.

While this is certainly a creative way to interpret the copyright notice's date, I believe most people look at it as a "last updated" sort of thing.
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