Wouldn't Zentyal be nice to have at home?

[htt-thalan]

Hi People,

let me just do a very quick introduction. I'm a 29 year old Pre-Sales consultant for a large storage integrator with a lifetime of Windows/Dos knowledge. A few years ago I decided it was time to learn and use Linux (other than through Ubuntu newbie-GUI's) so I started out from scratch learning in the hard way (CLI) and since then I've managed to become an intermediately proficient user of the Debian environment. After building a print/webcam server with it, I decided I could go to the next level: add email/firewall/routing capabilities.

I read about Zentyal on a newssite and my curiosity was immediately sparkled - an OpenSource alternative to the market-dominant SBS from Microsoft - cool! How neat would it be to master this solution, might come in handy some day, so I wanna find out of it's doable and practical to have one at home.


So, my home situation:

- 40mbit/4mbit Cable Internet through a provider-supplied wireless modem/router (currently bridged to my own router because their interface is too limited and sucky)
- Linksys E4200 wireless router (because of throughput speed, 5ghz access, wireless reach, abundance of options) - currently using 2 SSID's, one for 2.4ghz (B/G access) and one for 5ghz (G/N access), both WPA2 secured, no MAC filtering yet.
- Gigabit switch (cheapo Sitecom 5 port model)

Everything is wired on either Cat5e or Cat6. Provider modem (internal switch disabled, dhcp disabled, wireless unable to disable but secured and unused) is placed downstairs (has to be) but linksys router is on the first floor to maximize wireless access on both the attic, first and ground floors as well as having reach out into our yard.

Connected:

- Western Digital Mybook NAS (500gb, 1gbit wire connection)

- Dell Optiplex desktop as a Printserver, running Debian Squeeze w/o GUI, CUPS 1.4 with a Canon IP4700 connected via USB, Logitech STX webcam for motion-activated video surveillance of the area in front of the house via MOTION, writes to the NAS because the server has an 8gb Hispeed CF card for a harddisk to reduce power consumption and noise. Currently has Exim4 configured to be able to send mail through my Gmail account but not actively using it yet. Is connected via Gigabit but has a spare 100mbit NIC installed, not used at the moment.

- Laptop: (wife) recent Toshiba laptop, connected wirelessly on 2.4ghz / G
- Laptop: (mine) Toshiba Qosmio, should be N-capable but the RTL8192SE chipset is a nightmare, connected wirelessly via 2.4ghz / G
- Laptop: (mine, via my employer) Dell Latitude, connected wirelessly via 5ghz / N (300mbit)

- PS3 slim: connected wirelessly, unknown speed but via 2.4ghz
- Humax 5200 HD-recorder, connected to 1gbit wired (has a built-in FTP server to upload/download video material)

Some devices that frequently access or are linked to eachother have fixed DHCP ip's (such as the server, NAS, my laptop) so as not to have to reconfigure my TCP/IP settings when I bring my laptops elsewhere, so static IP's are not preferred here.

The plan would be to build a new server/desktop (focus on economy in terms of energy saving vs maximum usage as a consolidate device) and equip it with Zentyal. I would like to use it as a router, firewall, dhcp server, email server (1 gmail, 1 ISP mail, 2 hotmail), webcam/scan/print server and possibly even as a NAS and/or backup device.

The ISP's modem/router has to stay because it supports the cable connection, the Linksys router could be reconfigured to be used as a wireless access point. I could use the old Dell desktop as a server but it's slow (2ghz P4 singlecore, 512mb ram) and prone to errors because of its age, not to mention unefficient in terms of power usage.


My first thoughts would be to go with a Micro-ATX case, equipped with an Intel setup (power efficient Core i3 model, 4gb ram, 500gb sata 5400rpm notebook harddisk) and dual gbit nics. I don't want to invest in redundancy (power, disks) because that's just not a worthwile investment if the only downside/risk is having to ad-hoc reconfigure the router to take over when the server fails.

Second option is to recycle older hardware (Like the Optiplex machine) but I don't know how much performance I will need to handle the aforementioned tasks. Because Zentyal uses a Debian/Ubuntu platform I expect to have pretty broad hardware support, but I would like to keep the power consumption under 50watts idle if possible. and have the full 40mbit available through the software firewall in Zentyal.


Any thoughts?

[ichat]

first off al, welcome to these forums,

to answer a bunch of your questions,

zentyal is perfecly suitable to run as a home  router/firewall/nas replacement,  and you can even run most linux based (ubuntu) apps on top of it... the trouble could be with support as some of us tend to prioritise the availible resources (our time and effort), toward the main goal of the project...

that said, its always nice to test zentyal, and its modules either for a hobby or for professional intrest... (or just because you want something more cool at home)...

now for a system recomendation,  try to look for something not all to expensive but dont go with any atom based system (atoms are bad mkay)...
other than that your fine with any   core2 core i3,  or some verry low budget / low power  amd equivilent  al depending on availibillety and price 

mine for example is running a 3core 2ghz  45watt cpu, a verry low budget asrock motherbord and some old ddr2 that i had lying around, because at the time of perchase the total cost for the platfrom was a lot lower than the intel equivalent,   since than a lot may or may not have changed...   but i would recoment   choosing a modern low power/budget platfrom over that old  powerhungry p4 that you may have for spare..   

but before buying your new hardware... i would suggest that you try out the software on what you have,  with some 1gb (preferably 2) of ram  your optiplex machine would probably run fine   for discoverying your software / hardware needs ...

[hyerk]

iChat, could you possibly ellaborate a bit about atoms being 'bad'?  I have one I've installed Zentyal on and it seems to be running fine.  Thanks.

[ichat]

hyerk -  that question is a bit technical,  for a topic like this,  but ill try to answer it anyway. 

for start emagine a highway with lots of trafic and a serries of words (packages),  that are send that started in the right order (1st word first)  than the seccond  than the third fourth etc etc etc.   

if the 1st massage arives first thats good,  and all goes well .. but if it doesn't you get in to trouble..

emagine the diferent between,   i saw a pig that looks like you,  instead of   i saw that you looks like a pig

both the same words ... but a verry diferent out come... 

to fix this,  either you have to think really hard and wonder if this is the right  order and what (s)he have meant...  or you add pagination  to each message  (msg 3 out or 5).   

any modern cpu, supports this  pagination and has magical trics to start thinking about parts of the centance befor the whole thing is complete... (called out of order processing), and though in wordts this may seam strange, in math (thats what computers are about), its a lot less strange. 

Now to keep the atom  simple  small and less power consuming as wel als  really cheap,  intel removed this feature from the atom...    that means that it has to wait and think a lot more to complete some of its tasks..   

now this out of order is not the only feature the atom is missing compared to general  cpu's,  but it was just  the most easy one to explain...

as a result many network related tasks  wil require the cpu to run longer at its top spead.

to test this i underclocked a normal amd athlon x2  3800+ EE (35watt) witch is actaully a verry old cpu (for a couple of years back and i compared it to a new atom based system..   

now i had to  run the amd at  1,2ghz (the atom runs at 1,8) to be able to have it use  the same power as the atom...    both ran on a stock ubuntu server.. with the same  pci-e network chip... yet still the attom was slower with smb transfers.  and large trafic to to and from the internet  (25mbit+)


now hyerk - that doesn't mean that all atoms are bad, or that they cant run zentyal on a small lan..   its just that i personally recoment other options... 




 

[robb]

It's good you placed that last remark, since an atom based system will do just fine on a small lan where you have (for instance) max 5 users.
As long your cpu and memory are not constantly at 60% use or more, the hardware used can handle the task.

[christian]

Running here at home on atom  (330) CPU for 5 heavy internet users. No problem so far.
However, Samba is not running on server exposed to internet 
- one (atom) is for internet gateway infra (FW, proxy, mail...)
- another atom is running internally Samba + "office like" services

[ichat]

obviously - its all based on personal experience, 


@christian i had terrible speeds when routing at an atom 520,  with firewall  and non-transperrant proxy for  6 above avarage users   but once one would start using utube or torrents (i had already set the max downloads to 1 at a time)... all connections dropped to rediculous low speeds where they didn't with a more solid cpu.  and using qos to solve it almost brought the whole system down.   - so i would love to read some stats about your setup.

[htt-thalan]

Well, it's a good thing you mentioned the Atom, I was sort of half-eyeing a refurbished Atom box at my local computer store, pondering whether it would make a nice Zentyal box. Even though we only have two users here (my wife and myself) we do have occasional heavy bandwidth usage (torrents, multiple internet connections, downloads for our Ps3, decoder, games, streaming music, etc.

Plus, I will eventually open my server up for outside access to a small FTP and Webcam server so I can peek inside when not at home.

Downside is that a Core i3 will set me back twice the money of an Atom setup .

[robb]

Sure the Core i3 costs more, but it has also quite a good trackrecord for low energie consumption AND good performance. Especially when you are able to spin down your disks when idle, you can have less than 20W poweruse. There are even reports of less than 9W for a running Core i3 system.

[christian]

@Ichat: you are perfectly right. It all depends about your internet usage and heavy use of proxy (with filtering on  ) will show Atom limits quickly.
@Robb: Core I3 is, to me better choice than Atom in term of horse power compared to energy consumption. If I had to build new gateway today, I would most likely go for this CPU.

[hyerk]

Thanks for the input guys, and the explanation Ichat.  This is the atom I'm running. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101364 . I'm currently running the Gateway and office packages.  Things seem to be running fine for me, but those appear to be legitimate reasons to consider an alternative to the atom.  Something for me to consider the next time I setup a Zentyal box.

Any AMD low power suggestions?

[robb]

I think Aitire uses a similar solution for their (very)Small Business Environment. (use google translate if you don't read Spanish)

With already a lot of implementations they have a very decent sollution for situations up to 5 users.

[ichat]

some system based on stuf likethis would do the trick, the fusion apu's by benchmark a a bit slower  than an i3 but the platforum is cheaper.    also the grafics are a lot better than intels intergrated gpu's   also they are not costing a lot more than a atom 330 like sytem (specially if you consider buying the  nvidia ION  type boards..

but to be perfectly honnest  personally i prefer the  µATX or mATX formfactor   mostly supporting  4 ramslots  and (if your lucky) 6 sata ports, as well as more eficient cooling systems.
another upside to the largers size; the posebillity to easily add 3core  4core or  6core cpu's   witch is really usefull if you wand to add the virtualbox module to zentyal...

[stuartiannaylor]

I guess its all down to "Fit for Purpose".

If anyone is thinking of the atoms have a look on the zotac site.

Personally my new toy of the future is going to be one of these.
http://www.zotac.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images-SRW.tpl&product_id=415&category_id=118&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=100170&lang=en
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1387/pg10/zotac-zbox-ad04-plus-mini-pc-review-conclusion.html

I already run Zentyal with the standard ubuntu-desktop with no probs.
It allows me to develop and demo sites and saves me having a separate server.

The AMD450 in the above are supposed to be very good so hopefully if I have a few pennies I will give you a zentyal-ubuntu-zotac-ad04 review soon.

Stuart.

Saying that I must admit that my Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU         650  @ 3.20GHz, 4 cores Asus http://uk.asus.com/Server_Workstation/Server_Motherboards/P7FM/ could cope with quite a load. It wasn't a fortune either.

[ichat]

stuart as far is my current hardware knowledge goes the most of intels i5's are comparable to most high-midrange amd cpu's (specially the bulldozer core's)...  and even the lower i7's should blow away any highend amd stuf...

than again if your on a budget,  i would prefer  to go with the cheaper multi core cpu's since most zentyal tasks are not that haevy anyway and being able to run more small processes would verry likely outperferm a few stronger cores...

but thats all in 1 situation with one judgement call in 1 hypothesis of a non-existing situation...    i have my server and it runs fairly well,  though im considering a ram upgrade...    as well as the  promised for  resources improvements   on zentyal 3, im not planning for a new box... 

i just hope this topic is usefull for new users...

and now im thinking of it... should we maybe start a wiki page for hardware performance  where we explain how and what we can test... an than people can test thair hardware, either to showcase, to brag about it, or just to check if thair system is as fast and lean as it should be (compared to other people with simular hardware... it might even be some kind of  verry simple baseline to compare to?