How is btrfs nowadays? I have PTSD from it and stick to ZFS now.
Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
41–50 of 119 posts
Re: Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
#42I was hoping for something more akin to what the word "building" usually implies - something a bit more physical. If nothing else, the author made a box for it ;)
The RockPro64 is a good board with lots of expandability. I run NetBSD/aarch64eb on one to build all of NetBSD's pkgsrc packages (26,000). It performs well with an m.2 NVMe, and has been rock solid.
Of course, for anyone using the RockPro64, if you plan to do lots of processor intensive work like compiling, you'll either need a very large heat sink (no Flirc cases for these, unfortunately) or you'll need active cooling. Without good cooling, it'll throttle.
Re: Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
#43Thank you for sharing these notes.
I've been impatient for ARM64 hardware to become easy to use for home servers. I've got an RPi 4 (at retail prices, no less!) and it is quite good but I want more options. The previous stories I've read of RockPro64 have been much worse, it was nice to read this went relatively easily.
Re: Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
#44The hard way? Copy bootloader from somewhere, partition, extract readymade rootfs, setup bootloader, reboot. Sounds more like the Arch way . :) The only ARM specific thing here is probably the need to use a DTB. This just shows that manual Linux installation on random ARM board is not more complex than on x86_64. Perhaps even simpler, since you're just extracting a pre-made rootfs instead of using a package manager d…
Experts sometimes forget being beginners.
Re: Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
#45I set up Proxmox on one of my Pi 4s (using an external SSD) and am quite happy with it. Runs four different LXC containers (one of which is a public-facing ActivityPub server for testing) and gives me zero headaches, so am currently looking for a beefier alternative that has a proper M.2 slot and at least 16GB of RAM... I do wish that alternative boards had better OS support (especially the Rockchip ones, which tend…
> has a proper M.2 slot and at least 16GB of RAM...
Orange Pi 5 16GB RK3588S (8 Core 64 Bit, 2.4GHz Frequency), PCIE Module External WiFi+BT,SSD Gigabit Ethernet Single Board Computer,Run Android Debian OS (M.2 PCIe2.0!)
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/OPI-5/1553371_4000000...
( via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33739176 )
Review:
"""
"Orange Pi 5 Review – Powerful, No WiFi" https://jamesachambers.com/orange-pi-5-review/
Pros:
- 4 GB and 8 GB RAM variants cost under $100
- M.2 slot supports high speed NVMe storage
- RAM options from 4 GB all the way up to 32 GB available
Cons
- No WiFi or Bluetooth included (requires either adapter for the M.2 slot or a USB adapter to get WiFi/Bluetooth capabilities)
- No eMMC option
- PCIe speeds are limited to 500MB/s (PCIe 2.0, benchmarks show closer to 250MB/s write or PCIe 1.0 performance) — this is slower than SATA3
"""
Re: Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Lenovo "Tiny" machines are also cheap on eBay, even one with a Ryzen 5 and 8Gb RAM for ~$140USD. Though there are reasons to specifically want an ARM64 machine for builds, etc.
I just want something small with ECC RAM
Not cheap, but does support ECC:
https://morefine.com/products/morefine-s500-mini-pc
The FAQ question reads a bit funny:
"Q19:Support ECC RAM？
YES. S500+ Support ECC RAM，
But compatibility requirements are higher, and cannot be used casually."
Also, these AsRock products:
Re: Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
#47Got myself a Pi, a plastic box, a memory card, a big usb key, wrote my own SMTP server in super lean no-libc C (c89 with benign bit of c99/c11), put a devuan GNU/linux (NOT debian with its toxic trashy bloat and kludge of systemd). I did the same thing with a nanomimal http server to serve static content and maybe dynamic in the future: a noscript/basic (x)html http server for maps (which uses openstreet map tiles),…
Your efforts are commendable, but you're not correct about Spamhaus and being forced to use Google / Apple.
For starters, nobody is ever forced to use a web browser with email. I'm OK with the fact that pine will parse some of the HTML so I don't see all the silly tags in most email, but it will never follow a link, at least.
If your IPv4 and/or IPv6 is on a Spamhaus list and you can't get it / them removed, likely because you're in a pool of residential IPs, and likely in part because you can't control the PTR, then you can always smarthost through any reasonable provider.
I've been self-hosting email for a quarter of a century, and I'd never blame anyone else if I tried to send email from a residential pool of IPs and it didn't work.
Not sure what this has to do with setting up a nice little ARM server, besides your observation that the ARM architecture is licensed, but here we are :)
Re: Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
#48How is btrfs nowadays? I have PTSD from it and stick to ZFS now.
Synology and Fedora use btrfs by default. I've been using it for years and have had zero issues.
Re: Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
#49Got myself a Pi, a plastic box, a memory card, a big usb key, wrote my own SMTP server in super lean no-libc C (c89 with benign bit of c99/c11), put a devuan GNU/linux (NOT debian with its toxic trashy bloat and kludge of systemd). I did the same thing with a nanomimal http server to serve static content and maybe dynamic in the future: a noscript/basic (x)html http server for maps (which uses openstreet map tiles),…
> The main issue: spamhaus block lists, they are hostile to all self-hosted people Allow me to correct that for you. There is nothing wrong with spamhaus. They provide one of the best anti-spam options amongst all the commercial providers. Spamhaus have many lists, I suspect the one you are referring to is the PBL, in their words "DNSBL database of end-user IP address ranges which should not be delivering unauthentic…
Wrong, sys admin should use grey listing with a similar block lists.
Spamhaus provides a way to be removed from this list, but does not provide an IRC server, only an horrible web javascript only chat, they should fix that. Ofc, they provide an email to request removal from their block list... which is using their block lists.
Since spamhaus is "shadily" hidden in andore and switzerland, my lawyer cannot do much, but I guess I should go after the sys admins using without grey listing those block lists in EU/US but I haven't needed too yet, since there is most of the time either somebody with a smtp server not using blocklists (not even grey listing) or even an irc server.
From a technical point of view, and specific to my ISP in my country (did not check the other ISPs), putting all domestic ranges of my ISP in their block list is text book abusive... spamhaus is doing a really, really, bad job. But I keep that for court if I need too, I may go to EU regulatory orgs directly though, well only if I am pissed off enough (and that's very hard).
Re: Building an ARM64 home server the hard way
#50Got myself a Pi, a plastic box, a memory card, a big usb key, wrote my own SMTP server in super lean no-libc C (c89 with benign bit of c99/c11), put a devuan GNU/linux (NOT debian with its toxic trashy bloat and kludge of systemd). I did the same thing with a nanomimal http server to serve static content and maybe dynamic in the future: a noscript/basic (x)html http server for maps (which uses openstreet map tiles),…
Your efforts are commendable, but you're not correct about Spamhaus and being forced to use Google / Apple. For starters, nobody is ever forced to use a web browser with email. I'm OK with the fact that pine will parse some of the HTML so I don't see all the silly tags in most email, but it will never follow a link, at least. If your IPv4 and/or IPv6 is on a Spamhaus list and you can't get it / them removed, likely b…
If you want to make spamhaus remove your IP from their block list, you must engage in a chat working only with google/apple javascript browsers (I am a noscript/basic (x)html user). Where is the IRC server? They provide an email for IP block list removal... which is blocking smtp servers (not even a grey listing) using their block lists.
Those guys are bad, really bad. Hope they grow up and improve.
Yeah, once I have finished or I am more advanced on other projects, I'll get rid of those pesky arm64 with that toxic IP (that said it is the same for x86_64). I'll re-use first my C code as a stepping stone to perform the jump. One more step towards real digital freedom.