I have a server in my rack that I have really been unable to find a good use for. Its an older Asus rack server that has 2x Xeon E5-2665 processors so works out to be 16 cores 32 threads total and has 176GB of ram. doesn't have a ton of storage and will have even less shortly because I'm going to swap out some of its spinning disks for 250GB SSD's to hopefully improve the overall speed of the machine for whatever I use it for.

Any good home lab type suggestions would be appreciated so I don't just run it as a basic file server or something LOL

In a perfect world what would you see as a good use/uses for this machine.

Re: Suggested uses for my homelab server
By: Deepend to All on Mon May 10 2021 11:33 pm

Any good home lab type suggestions would be appreciated so I don't just run it as a basic file server or something LOL

Chuck proxmox on it and play with containerizing services. I have found LXC containers under Proxmox to be far more versatile than docker containers. I have an haproxy instance on a vps, and another lxc running a debian image with haproxy internally with a zerotier link between them so that I can play with exposing different services and ports to the internet without doing it on my main gateway.

Some things that containerize real nice with lxc:
*postfix/dovecot stack
*nextcloud
*freepbx
*fusionpbx
*plex
*zimbra
*freedos
*synchronet ;)
*tftp server
*pxeboot server
*LDAP
*pihole
*other dns servers or caching options like bind9 or powerdns
*TOR
*I2P gateway
*Ubiquiti controller
===
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Chuck proxmox on it and play with containerizing services. I have found LXC containers under Proxmox to be far more versatile than docker containers. I have an haproxy instance on a vps, and another lxc running a debian image with haproxy internally with a zerotier link between them so that I can play with exposing different services and ports to the internet without doing it on my main gateway.

Some things that containerize real nice with lxc:
*postfix/dovecot stack
*nextcloud
*freepbx
*fusionpbx
*plex
*zimbra
*freedos
*synchronet ;)
*tftp server
*pxeboot server
*LDAP
*pihole
*other dns servers or caching options like bind9 or powerdns
*TOR
*I2P gateway
*Ubiquiti controller
===

Wow.. Thank you for that very well thought out response :) I have had bad luck with proxmox in the past.. However I will give it one more shot tonight when I am home .. see what magic I can make happen.

Re: Suggested uses for my homelab server
By: Underminer to Deepend on Tue May 11 2021 09:01 am

*nextcloud
*plex
*pihole

Regardless of how to implement them +1 to these three, they are all game changers.
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