Author Topic: Low power consumption Zentyal  (Read 14908 times)

interlinux

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Low power consumption Zentyal
« on: January 17, 2011, 07:11:59 pm »
Hi Forum

We at Interlinux Ltd (UK Bronze Partner) have been testing Zentyal on low powered Mini-ITX motherboards. We think this is an excellent way to promote Zentyal for small home offices (home offices are very popular in the UK) and small enterprise.

This is a description of our example gateway server for 1-5 users:

CPU: model name: VIA Esther processor 1000MHz, cache size : 128 KB
Ram: 500MiB
HDD: 2.5 inch 5400rpm 60GiB
Power Supply: 60W
Average CPU time: 0.3-0.5

Zentyal Services:

Network       
Firewall
Antivirus       
DHCP
Backup       
Events
Logs
Mailfilter
Monitor
Users and Groups
Webserver
Mail
Filesharing
Groupware (Zarafa)

Modifications:

/etc/init.d/zarafa-indexer stop
/etc/crontab set daily,weekly and monthly for 03:00hrs

I intend to attach a Current Cost IAM device to monitor power consumption http://currentcost.co.uk

This is our hardware supplier http://linitx.com

This is us http://www.interlinux.co.uk

Damian L Brasher
« Last Edit: January 17, 2011, 07:40:40 pm by interlinux »

exekias

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2011, 01:55:36 pm »
Hi Damian,

I don't know if that processor has enough performance to install all that modules, it depends on users usage and load. I have an ITX board too, this one with an Atom processor. It has also low power consumption and is more powerful than a C7 (Atom 230, nowadays there are newer ones, better and multi core). It's running Zentyal with File sharing, VPN, and some more modules, it works pretty well.

I don't know how much will it cost that hardware but you can compare and/or give it a try. If you want I can do test for you on my own hardware ;)

Here you have a store with some solutions with this technology:

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=47

Best regards

interlinux

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2011, 10:22:16 pm »
Hi

Yes the CPU is under heavy load, you can run these services - I do. But performance is not high. The VIA CPU is fan-less and that is the attraction.

I'm working on more configurations:)

Best Regards

Damian

zephyrnet

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2011, 11:11:34 am »
Hi Damian,

How did you get on with this?

Im hoping to use:
Fanless (silence is bliss)  dual core 1.6ghz Zotac Atom Mobo
4gb ram
500gb Caviar Black for o/s
4 x 2TB drives storage to run the following:

Network       
Firewall
Antivirus       
DHCP
Backup       
Events
Logs
Mailfilter
Monitor
Users and Groups
Webserver - (Vtiger CRM running on this) (Zentyal could do with a module for this really :-))
Mail
Filesharing
Groupware (Zarafa)
Transparent Proxy -SQUID

It will only be for 5 users in a home office scenario.

Has anyone else tried installing Zentyal on  a low power PC ?

How easy would it be to build into web interface HDPARM to spin down storage drives when not in use?  I know green computing is not Zentyal projects main concern, but if they want to be popular and last the distance - need to keep it in mind.


Media Streaming capability would also be a dream .....



peso7

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2011, 09:58:50 pm »
Helllo

I run Zentyal on an old Compaq SFF Desktop:
- Pentium III - 800 MHz
- 512 MB RAM
- 2 x 1.5 TB - WD Caviar Green
- 1 additional SATA-controller
- 1 additional PCI-NIC RTL 8139
- FD- and CD-drives removed

These modules are installed and running:
Network
Firewall
DHCP
DNS
Backup
Events
IDS
Logs
Monitor
NTP
VPN
Users and Groups
FTP
File Sharing
HTTP Proxy
User Corner
Printer Sharing

With
- 2 of 5 users online at the moment, there is a system load of: 0.26, 0.42, 0.35
- one of the HDs sleeping (as it's only a backup HD)
the power consuption is 50W.

The system ist working fine except the very slow responding zentyal webinterface.

Peter

exekias

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2011, 01:52:02 pm »
Nice peso7,

If you want you can try Zentyal 2.1 (RC), we have worked on a faster GUI response. Stable version will be released in September but you can join the debugging effort!

If you do it don't forget to tell us the result ;)

Best regards

robb

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2011, 10:03:34 am »
Although an almost ancient topic, but I do want to share my experience on the powerconsumption of a zentyal server.

I have a server running with the following specs:
Supermicro SC733 TQ-500B - Midtower
Supermicro MBD-X8SIL-F-O Motherboard
Intel Core I3 540 Processor
Kingston KTA-MP1333 Memory (4 * 2GB)
Western digital 500GB WD RE4 Sata2 (2 * 500GB in Raid1)

This setup is not the most energy saving solution, but I was looking for the best price/performance combo and the most important thing for me was to use enterprise grade parts. That is why I used Supermicro case and board, and WD RE4 disks.

I hooked up a energie counter between the outlet and the server for almost 36 days and energy consumption turned out like this:
Total use 41,5 kWh
Total time 35d and 21h
Average use 48 W
Minimum 41 W
Maximum use 85W

This can be lowered easily by using an SSD or 2.5" drive for system and a Raidset for data. When the server isn't used at night it isn't a biggie to spin down the Raidset for less power consumption. There are examples of systems equipped with an Intel Core I3 that consume less than 10W.

Since powerconsumption and 'green' computing are hot topics, I started to monitor power consumption. I really think low power consumption is a selling reason and although hardware is a great factor, the powersettings in the OS used are important to get to a low power consumption too.

christian

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2011, 10:38:46 am »
I'm pretty glad this topic it launched again.
I'm running Zentyal on mini-ITX too (Atom 330) and I'm strongly promoting use of lighter solutions within Zentyal.
I'm totally convinced that use of Apache as core HTTP server for console, webmail, user corner and other stuff like this is waste of resources unless you set up a very tightly controlled Apache environment.
I would go for either lighttpd, NiginX or even Cherokee that are all faster and lighter in term of CPU and memory.

Apache is too much powerful for this  :P and should be kept for Webserver (although even for this I would keep one of the above)

I'm also testing some VIA CPU as NAS server (testing FreeNAS and Openfiler because Zentyal Samba is too much complex in term of account management  ::)): the main drawback is lack of X64 support.

ichat

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2011, 11:44:51 am »
@chris i completely agree with you that , changing the httpd to something more suitable for 'embedded' use (also excluding lighthttpd) could be benefitial for use with the  administrator pannel,   i do however wonder when  we would want to start using lighthttpd or apache..   could we still use  nginx or  cherokee  when using  zarafa,  or for example  tikiwiki or some other  dms like alfresco?

All tips hints and advices are based on my personal experience.
As I try my best to be as accurate as possible, following my advice is always at your own risk,
I claim absolutely NO responsibility in any way!

aaron.jacobs

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #9 on: October 26, 2011, 12:41:21 am »
I have Zentyal running on a small fanless atom pc from http://www.tranquilpcshop.co.uk/ I bought over a year ago.
It's always on so needs to be conservative with it's power and noise. It handles everything really well and even has a transmission server running.
Agree with the above comments- Apache is a bit 'fat' for home use.

robb

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2011, 09:45:48 am »
What I am curious about is when you reach the max situation you can handle with an Atom processor and when you need to scale up to something like Core I3 (or similar AMD). If you look at a more or less standard office user with internet acces, how many users could be run with an Atom CPU without stressing the server too much? What impact would database use have on an Atom CPU? Or would you guys never choose an Atom based server in production environments?

Also the used power unit has great influence in total power consumption. The closer the actual power consumption is to the uptimum, the least energie is wasted. Most server powers have 500+W power units. When they 'idle' on 42W (like my server does) this is far from optimal.

If you follow the link I posted about less than 10W ono a Core I3 system, you see that a pico PSU was used in that particular case. Now a Pico PSU is not that suitable for a server, but it would be great to have high efficient PSU's (80%+ efficiency)  with lower capacity (like 200 - 300W peak).

christian

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2011, 10:21:47 am »
You are pointing in the right direction in term of wording: one have to distinguish between low power consumption and efficiency.
I don't think Atom is very efficient compared to other new Intel CPUs. Performance/consumption is not the best but consumption is low.
Then building system with new CPU and specific power supply might be better than Atom. BTW this is where systems like blades (IBM and HP) show their efficiency: multiple redundant power supplies able to adapt to power requirement: you may have only 4 power supply running at half their power for up to 16 blades where standalone servers must have at least one power supply per server. This to explain that CPU itself is not the key point.

Back to Atom: it really depends on what you do with Zentyal:
- network routing, firewall rules, DHCP and DNS consume nothing and Atom may server hundreds of users.
- proxy really depends on what you filter and how (regular expressions with Squidguard can be really slow)
- mail is OK for quite a lot of users depending on number of attachments to be scanned by anti-virus.
- not the best platform for heavy Samba users (I also run Samba -but not Zentyal) on another Atom 330

Here is a screenshot of my Zentyal internet gateway (Atom 330 = 2 CPU + HT) for one year period.
- 5 users (including 3 hard-gamers boys  ;D )
- mail, proxy, firewall, DNS, DHCP, VPN
As you can see, this is pretty low  8)

exekias

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2011, 12:52:19 pm »
Wow christian,

I'm impressed with your setup!

Just some notes, probably you already know this but just in case, you can stop zentyal's apache (and the system one if you don't use it). That will save lot of ram and it's only needed to access the GUI. You can always start it when needed:

Code: [Select]
/usr/share/zentyal apache stop
Very interesting project!
Cheers

christian

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2011, 03:19:48 pm »
I'm also using Web server but only from time to time, reason why CPU is low.
Apache is indeed consuming quite a lot of memory (although this can be tuned a bit) reason why I'm promoting use of lighter HTTP server, especially for admin purpose.

As we discuss this topic: I tried long time ago to run Ebox on the very first fitPC: it doesn't fit, because of high memory requirements while I was able to run similar services (still on this fitPC) with my own settings.  Ah ah, we are very far from the various embedded VM  ;D  ;D

B_Khuwera

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Re: Low power consumption Zentyal
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2011, 07:33:36 pm »
Hi..

I used zentyal for almost a year using 1.5 - 2.0 .. but just try 2.2.1 on Oct 24th 2011, i use Dual Core Atom D510 1,66Ghz, memory 3gb, casing CFI 150watt, almost DVD size, fanless trough out this whole time since 1.5.
feature setup for gateway, FW, proxy+dansguardian+no-ads, trafficshaping, DNS, DHCP, antivirus, PDC, fileserver, monitoring, and GUI always on.
daily traffic average almost 1gb, got user with movie fanatics, kid's playing online gamers.
i remember usually system load under 1, never goes higher than 2.
this is what i got from monitoring after change into 2.2.1 for a view days. but for memory usage .. its always high ..