As a part of my About Me, I figured my inaugural post should be about the server I have running. It’s based on the current version of ProxMox 7.3. I have it configured as a “Domain in a Box” where it can run regardless of the router config.
- ProxMox Host OS
- Is connected to Samba AD Domain Controller for user authentication.
- Has multiple ZFS pools in a mirrored configuration to prevent data loss, including the primary OS drives.
- Does the bulk of the file sharing for the network.
- VM 1 is Debian Bullseye based.
- Runs Portainer in hive configuration for docker management, is connected to LDAP backend for authentication.
- All traffic is sent across a VPN.
- Runs Cockpit for easier management through a browser.
- Is connected to the internal Samba AD system for user authentication.
- VM 2 is Debian Bullseye based.
- Runs Portainer in hive configuration for docker management, is connected to LDAP backend for authentication.
- All traffic is local to the network.
- Runs a Plex server.
- Runs Cockpit for easier management through a browser.
- Is connected to the internal Samba AD system for user authentication.
- VM 3 is Debian Bullseye based.
- Is one of two Samba AD Domain Controllers.
- Has replication and syncing enabled to the second DC.
- Runs Cockpit for easier management through a web browser.
- VM 4 is configured in the same manner as VM 3.
This configuration allows for the server to function separately from the router. In creating the Samba AD in this manner, all that is necessary is to point client devices to the DC’s inside the server for DNS resolution. This allows me to ensure that the domain is always accessible. That way, if the router is unable to be modified, I can statically set the IP addresses for the host and all VM’s and point clients to the necessary services.
The drive configuration is two SSD’s in a ZFS mirrored pool for redundancy. All data drives are also configured in this manner, with one drive being used as a temp drive for data. This allows for some data to kept for a short period of time without consuming space on the primary storage medium.
This is running inside a Supermicro blade utilizing two Xeon processors with 64GB of RAM. All in all, a decent home lab server for spinning up VM’s for testing/learning new skills.