Re: [CentOS] Intel NUC? Any experience

2015-01-09 Thread Nux!
Have EL7 working great on a DN2820FYKH; everything works including remote 
control. 
Had to use the Elrepo kernel-ml to get graphics working properly though, also 
had to update the BIOS to get rid of some bugs.
You may not encounter any of the above issues since you are running it headless.

HTH
Lucian

--
Sent from the Delta quadrant using Borg technology!

Nux!
www.nux.ro

- Original Message -
> From: "david" 
> To: centos@centos.org
> Sent: Thursday, 8 January, 2015 19:32:17
> Subject: [CentOS] Intel NUC? Any experience

> Folks
> 
> The price point of Intel's NUC unit makes it attractive to use as a
> server that doesn't have significant computational load.  In my
> environment, a USB connected hard-drive could provide all the storage
> needed.  I wonder if anyone has had experience with it, and can answer:
> 
> 1)  Does Centos6 and/or Centos7 install from a USB connected optical
> drive? or a USB flash drive?  I'd prefer to do a NetInstall.
> 
> If the answer is essentially no, there's no point in continuing.
> 
> 2) Is the Ethernet connection supported by NetInstall and the subsequent OS?
> 
> 3) Is it possible to add an additional NIC for possible use as a home
> router/gateway?  If not internally, then via a USB connected NIC?
> 
> Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.
> 
> David
> San Francisco
> 
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Re: [CentOS] Intel NUC? Any experience

2015-01-08 Thread John R Pierce

On 1/8/2015 3:40 PM, david wrote:
Thanks for your comments.  In the particular application, I used the 
word "server" only in the sense that GUI is only rarely used, and CPU 
speed isn't an issue.  The data the server holds has other "primary" 
copies elsewhere, so if some corruption or damage occurs, it can be 
restored within acceptable time.  Thus, I am not interested in ECC 
memory or RAID for this situation, although I do appreciate the need 
for servers with mission-critical data.  As a former employee of 
Tandem Computers, mirroring, backup, check-everything, dual everything 
is in my blood. 


the problem with non-ECC memory is, you never KNOW when data corruption 
has happened.   Making life more complicated, the statistical rate of 
these soft bit errors varies widely from machine to machine as a 
significant cause is background radioactivity, and other components of 
the system such as the chassis materials can contribute to this.   I've 
seen numbers ranging from a few errors per century per gigabyte to a few 
per HOUR per gigabyte.without ECC, you simply don't know this has 
happened, unless the flipped bit happens to be in some code in a place 
and position where it causes the code to crash, or you happen to notice 
corruption, such as a block decode error while playing a video (which, 
for formats like mpeg/mp2/mp4 can cause video block glitches for several 
seconds until a new I-frame restores the whole picture).


I really wish the PC industry made ECC the norm even for desktop 
workstations.  it only adds 12% to the memory cost (9 bits instead of 8 
bits per byte, or 72 instead of 64 per word), and the memory cost is 
typically about a 10th of the total system price, such that the cost of 
ECC would only be 1% or sobut since ECC is 'special server only' 
stuff, it costs a premium far above and beyond that 12%.




--
john r pierce  37N 122W
somewhere on the middle of the left coast

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Re: [CentOS] Intel NUC? Any experience

2015-01-08 Thread Valeri Galtsev

On Thu, January 8, 2015 5:40 pm, david wrote:
> At 01:54 PM 1/8/2015, John R Pierce wrote:
>>On 1/8/2015 11:32 AM, david wrote:
>>>The price point of Intel's NUC unit makes it attractive to use as a
>>>server that doesn't have significant computational load.  In my
>>>environment, a USB connected hard-drive could provide all the
>>>storage needed.  I wonder if anyone has had experience with it, and can
>>> answer:
>>
>>IMHO, its totally unsuitable as a server, there are many better choices.
>>
>>A) there's no ECC, and servers tend to keep data in memory for a
>>long time.  soft bit errors in gigabytes of memory are a more
>>frequent occurance than you might think.  With a file server, that
>>corrupt data stands a good chance of ending up back on disk, where
>>it becomes permanent silent data corruption.
>>
>>B) a single USB drive is a very poor choice for any sort of server,
>>there's no redundancy whatsoever.  When (not if) that drive croaks,
>>you lose everything.
>>
>>something like an HP Microserver is a much better choice for a SOHO
>>server.   Been running one of the older N40L models here for 2+
>>years, running FreeNAS, although it certainly can run CentOS.
>>supports 8 or 16GB ram, with ECC, and has 4 SATA drive bays.  Mine
>>has 4x3TB in raidz (like raid5) for 7.3TiB total usable storage, I
>>have no trouble reading or writing at near gigE speeds.
>>
>>Another good choice would be one of the mini-ITX "Avoton"/"Rangley"
>>Atom C2xxx family of boards (don't let the 'Atom' branding fool you,
>>these are low power high performance server processors).  These have
>>2-4-8 cores at 1.6-2.4ghz, support ECC RAM up to 32GB, and have 6+
>>SATA ports and 4 gigE ports onboard.  A variety of people make
>>mini-ITX chassis that hold 2-4 disks, and a few with 6-8.
>>
>>>...
>>>3) Is it possible to add an additional NIC for possible use as a
>>>home router/gateway?  If not internally, then via a USB connected NIC?
>>
>>for a home gateway/router, I would suggest looking into an APU1D4,
>>such as are sold by Netgate.This little 6x6" board draws less
>>than 10 watts TOTAL ACTIVE, has 3 GIgE ports and a dual core 1Ghz
>>CPU with 4GB ram, it has SD card slot, miniSATA slot (for a SSD),
>>and 2 miniPCI-E slots (for expansion boards such as wifi), its
>>fanless (convection cooled via a heat spreader to the aluminum case,
>>and basically rocks.
>>
>>I'm using one with pfSense (a freeBSD based firewall distribution)
>>and its very slick.routing tons of connections (bittorrent) to
>>my 30Mbps internet, it uses only 3-5% of its CPU, I've been told it
>>can handle AES IPSEC vpns up to about 100Mbps, and 400-500Mbps
>>simple NAT routing.
>>
>>--
>>john r pierce  37N 122W
>>somewhere on the middle of the left coast
>
> John
> Thanks for your comments.  In the particular application, I used the
> word "server" only in the sense that GUI is only rarely used, and CPU
> speed isn't an issue.  The data the server holds has other "primary"
> copies elsewhere, so if some corruption or damage occurs, it can be
> restored within acceptable time.  Thus, I am not interested in ECC
> memory or RAID for this situation, although I do appreciate the need
> for servers with mission-critical data.  As a former employee of
> Tandem Computers, mirroring, backup, check-everything, dual
> everything is in my blood.
>

Still, John, thanks for your brilliant comments (I bet there are many
people for whom they are very instructive), and for pointers to small
footprint/ small consumption units, - these are particularly interesting
for me!

Valeri


Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247

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Re: [CentOS] Intel NUC? Any experience

2015-01-08 Thread david

At 01:54 PM 1/8/2015, John R Pierce wrote:

On 1/8/2015 11:32 AM, david wrote:
The price point of Intel's NUC unit makes it attractive to use as a 
server that doesn't have significant computational load.  In my 
environment, a USB connected hard-drive could provide all the 
storage needed.  I wonder if anyone has had experience with it, and can answer:


IMHO, its totally unsuitable as a server, there are many better choices.

A) there's no ECC, and servers tend to keep data in memory for a 
long time.  soft bit errors in gigabytes of memory are a more 
frequent occurance than you might think.  With a file server, that 
corrupt data stands a good chance of ending up back on disk, where 
it becomes permanent silent data corruption.


B) a single USB drive is a very poor choice for any sort of server, 
there's no redundancy whatsoever.  When (not if) that drive croaks, 
you lose everything.


something like an HP Microserver is a much better choice for a SOHO 
server.   Been running one of the older N40L models here for 2+ 
years, running FreeNAS, although it certainly can run CentOS. 
supports 8 or 16GB ram, with ECC, and has 4 SATA drive bays.  Mine 
has 4x3TB in raidz (like raid5) for 7.3TiB total usable storage, I 
have no trouble reading or writing at near gigE speeds.


Another good choice would be one of the mini-ITX "Avoton"/"Rangley" 
Atom C2xxx family of boards (don't let the 'Atom' branding fool you, 
these are low power high performance server processors).  These have 
2-4-8 cores at 1.6-2.4ghz, support ECC RAM up to 32GB, and have 6+ 
SATA ports and 4 gigE ports onboard.  A variety of people make 
mini-ITX chassis that hold 2-4 disks, and a few with 6-8.



...
3) Is it possible to add an additional NIC for possible use as a 
home router/gateway?  If not internally, then via a USB connected NIC?


for a home gateway/router, I would suggest looking into an APU1D4, 
such as are sold by Netgate.This little 6x6" board draws less 
than 10 watts TOTAL ACTIVE, has 3 GIgE ports and a dual core 1Ghz 
CPU with 4GB ram, it has SD card slot, miniSATA slot (for a SSD), 
and 2 miniPCI-E slots (for expansion boards such as wifi), its 
fanless (convection cooled via a heat spreader to the aluminum case, 
and basically rocks.


I'm using one with pfSense (a freeBSD based firewall distribution) 
and its very slick.routing tons of connections (bittorrent) to 
my 30Mbps internet, it uses only 3-5% of its CPU, I've been told it 
can handle AES IPSEC vpns up to about 100Mbps, and 400-500Mbps 
simple NAT routing.


--
john r pierce  37N 122W
somewhere on the middle of the left coast


John
Thanks for your comments.  In the particular application, I used the 
word "server" only in the sense that GUI is only rarely used, and CPU 
speed isn't an issue.  The data the server holds has other "primary" 
copies elsewhere, so if some corruption or damage occurs, it can be 
restored within acceptable time.  Thus, I am not interested in ECC 
memory or RAID for this situation, although I do appreciate the need 
for servers with mission-critical data.  As a former employee of 
Tandem Computers, mirroring, backup, check-everything, dual 
everything is in my blood.


David 


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Re: [CentOS] Intel NUC? Any experience

2015-01-08 Thread John R Pierce

On 1/8/2015 11:32 AM, david wrote:
The price point of Intel's NUC unit makes it attractive to use as a 
server that doesn't have significant computational load.  In my 
environment, a USB connected hard-drive could provide all the storage 
needed.  I wonder if anyone has had experience with it, and can answer:




IMHO, its totally unsuitable as a server, there are many better choices.

A) there's no ECC, and servers tend to keep data in memory for a long 
time.  soft bit errors in gigabytes of memory are a more frequent 
occurance than you might think.  With a file server, that corrupt data 
stands a good chance of ending up back on disk, where it becomes 
permanent silent data corruption.


B) a single USB drive is a very poor choice for any sort of server, 
there's no redundancy whatsoever.  When (not if) that drive croaks, you 
lose everything.


something like an HP Microserver is a much better choice for a SOHO 
server.   Been running one of the older N40L models here for 2+ years, 
running FreeNAS, although it certainly can run CentOS. supports 8 or 
16GB ram, with ECC, and has 4 SATA drive bays.  Mine has 4x3TB in raidz 
(like raid5) for 7.3TiB total usable storage, I have no trouble reading 
or writing at near gigE speeds.


Another good choice would be one of the mini-ITX "Avoton"/"Rangley" Atom 
C2xxx family of boards (don't let the 'Atom' branding fool you, these 
are low power high performance server processors).  These have 2-4-8 
cores at 1.6-2.4ghz, support ECC RAM up to 32GB, and have 6+ SATA ports 
and 4 gigE ports onboard.  A variety of people make mini-ITX chassis 
that hold 2-4 disks, and a few with 6-8.



...
3) Is it possible to add an additional NIC for possible use as a home 
router/gateway?  If not internally, then via a USB connected NIC?


for a home gateway/router, I would suggest looking into an APU1D4, such 
as are sold by Netgate.This little 6x6" board draws less than 10 
watts TOTAL ACTIVE, has 3 GIgE ports and a dual core 1Ghz CPU with 4GB 
ram, it has SD card slot, miniSATA slot (for a SSD), and 2 miniPCI-E 
slots (for expansion boards such as wifi), its fanless (convection 
cooled via a heat spreader to the aluminum case, and basically rocks.


I'm using one with pfSense (a freeBSD based firewall distribution) and 
its very slick.routing tons of connections (bittorrent) to my 30Mbps 
internet, it uses only 3-5% of its CPU, I've been told it can handle AES 
IPSEC vpns up to about 100Mbps, and 400-500Mbps simple NAT routing.


--
john r pierce  37N 122W
somewhere on the middle of the left coast

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Re: [CentOS] Intel NUC? Any experience

2015-01-08 Thread Digimer

On 08/01/15 02:32 PM, david wrote:

Folks

The price point of Intel's NUC unit makes it attractive to use as a
server that doesn't have significant computational load.  In my
environment, a USB connected hard-drive could provide all the storage
needed.  I wonder if anyone has had experience with it, and can answer:

1)  Does Centos6 and/or Centos7 install from a USB connected optical
drive? or a USB flash drive?  I'd prefer to do a NetInstall.

If the answer is essentially no, there's no point in continuing.

2) Is the Ethernet connection supported by NetInstall and the subsequent
OS?

3) Is it possible to add an additional NIC for possible use as a home
router/gateway?  If not internally, then via a USB connected NIC?

Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.

David
San Francisco


I installed CentOS 7 on a pair of NUCs using a PXE server, but I see no 
reason why a USB DVD wouldn't be a problem. The onboard wired connection 
works flawlessly, the wireless is an optional card so it depends what 
you buy. The Intel wifi card I got worked without hassle.


USB NICs will be fine, I've used the Apple USB2->100Mbps adapters for 
RHEL 6 and they "just work". I've used the Siig USB3->gbit adapters and 
they "just work" in Fedora, but needed the drivers installed for EL6 
(didn't try EL7, I expect they'd just work there).


I would get the model NUC with 2.5" drive and go that route, much harder 
to accidentally known an internal drive out.


--
Digimer
Papers and Projects: https://alteeve.ca/w/
What if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of a person without 
access to education?

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[CentOS] Intel NUC? Any experience

2015-01-08 Thread david

Folks

The price point of Intel's NUC unit makes it attractive to use as a 
server that doesn't have significant computational load.  In my 
environment, a USB connected hard-drive could provide all the storage 
needed.  I wonder if anyone has had experience with it, and can answer:


1)  Does Centos6 and/or Centos7 install from a USB connected optical 
drive? or a USB flash drive?  I'd prefer to do a NetInstall.


If the answer is essentially no, there's no point in continuing.

2) Is the Ethernet connection supported by NetInstall and the subsequent OS?

3) Is it possible to add an additional NIC for possible use as a home 
router/gateway?  If not internally, then via a USB connected NIC?


Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.

David
San Francisco

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