Decentralised server: BeagleBoneBlack as a mail server/other services? Your experience?
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Hi,
after skimming through the highlights of a talk by Eben Moglen (shared by jxself I think),
I felt in love with the idea of small servers (the size of a phone charger or so) that's secure and easy to setup/use.
I've seen people around the web experimenting with BeagleBoneBlack (which is open source) as a server.
Why this idea isn't more developed/discussed?
Sure, the ideal would be Libreboot instead of BIOS, but is it a realistic idea to plan on building such a transportable server? I mean with a USB hub, it's easy to bring a hard drive with it.
Sure, 512 of ram sucks, but for email, it might be more than enough (maybe not for other decentralised services).
So, what do you think? What's your experience with that?
Even if it's not possible yet, I think this is very cool and promising!
Not much time right now (and a bit tired already), but here's something related:
http://freedombone.uk.to/
Possible additional services worth installing besides a mail server (while waiting for dark mail):
- VPN
- Diaspora or GNU Social or whatever
- Search engine: Yacy seems cool but there's no way it would work on 512 RAM. Searx on the other hand might (not sure how that meta search engine works precisely, but there's something to install on a server ideally).
- Anything else worth trying?
Oh, and I wonder if the CPU could handle this much.
Ok now I want to try that even more ! Great suggestions, thanks !
The Libreboot project have plans to Libreboot the beagle bone black.
libreboot.org/docs/tasks.html
That's great ! Thanks for the info !
I have a Beaglebone Black (BBB) and here is what I can tell you...
As you probably already know, the chip that handles HDMI output on that computer requires a non-free driver... as far as I know that is the only part of the board that requires non-free software to use. For server applications like you are describing, this is easy to work around. You may even find this desirable if you are using a USB wifi dongle as the HDMI signals can interfere with the wifi... it is quite simple to disable:
https://learn.adafruit.com/setting-up-wifi-with-beaglebone-black/hardware#hdmi-port-interference
(In this context, "cape" refers to a daughter board for the BBB ... at boot time the board can try to figure out which "capes" it is wearing and configure itself accordingly... the HDMI is in a sense implemented as a built-in "cape")
BBB has a built in eMMC flash chip as well as a micro SD card slot to be able to expand its storage... I don't recommend using the eMMC for storing your data as it can become corrupted if not shut down properly... if possible I would recommend putting the OS on it mounting it read-only... then mount the SD card as read-write for your data. Or you could just run everything off of the SD card, which is how I have mine set up right now. In any case, you will want to back up quite frequently in case your SD card starts to wear out or something like that.
One thing to understand... it is not a fast computer. It is a single core 1GHz processor which is plenty powerful for running a simple personal server, but may be disappointing if someone thinks that they can use it for all kinds of things. As long as you understand that and don't try to do more than it is capable of, you could definitely use it as a personal server for the things you mentioned.
Thanks for the wifi tip, probably useful on the go (provided I secure it properly). Otherwise, if it's mostly at home, I can plug it through ethernet to my router I guess.
I'd definitely try to stay away from flash memory. I suppose I can install the OS and the data on an external HDD.
The CPU is indeed the weak spot. Ideally though, the bare minimum would be a mail server, some sort of search engine (maybe searx, but I need to make calculations regarding potential CPU ressources used on average), and OpenVPN or something similar.
The other services would be great too, but definitely not as essential.
Would you say that these 3 services would be too much for the CPU to handle decently?
I'll read about it, but if you know already, I'm interested.
I think mail and OpenVPN should be fine... looking at the Freedombone site you linked to seems to confirm that as well. I don't know about any self-hosted search engines except that I've heard of Yacy which seems cool but I remember hearing an interview with the developer saying that they couldn't getting running on 512mb of ram
You probably would need to use some sort of flash memory, if only just for booting... I am pretty sure you can only boot off of the SD card or the internal flash. You might find this guide useful if you want to use an external drive (it is about raspberry pi but the steps should be pretty similar for BBB)
https://learn.adafruit.com/external-drive-as-raspberry-pi-root/overview
That's too bad, but at least the data can remain more reliably on a hdd (thanks again for the link BCG).
Yeah I know about yacy. I was thinking about searx instead. Butt it seems that should work since it's an option on yunohost (thanks Magic Banana).
On the way, I learned about freedom box and the dream plug. BBB is better, and is ARM as well (less power consumption). Seems yunohost was first.
Unless there's a serious downside to yunohost, it seems awesome with a future Libreboot on the BBB. Even libreboot seems like being overkill since there's no AMT/ME on the BBB.
never a bad thing to have a webserver
doom server
irc server
ftp server
owncloud server
mail server
git server
mumble server
mediagoblin server
gnu social server
svn server
minetest server(you could try it...)
host a torrent
host a teeworlds server
ssh server
host a file server with loads of music and videos and then access then with xbmc from other machines
At this point, the BBB would probably fry.
Thanks for the list of ideas.
There are so many cool stuff to host, I suppose we need to wait for a more powerful machine, and still small enough to be easily moved. And Libreboot friendly.
After all, it might be possible to have a very small machine for basic services dedicated to mobility, while keeping a more capable (and featured) machine at home, which would be powered off when leaving home for more than a day.
It's not as practical (nor is it as cheap), but it's possible.
The main thing would be easy installation and configuration of such services for a wider adoption, because I think that's what makes it such a great idea. Some sort of every day tool, like what a smartphone is these days.
what server would fry?
i am running these 2 servers with 512mb ram and 700mhz cpu:
http://www.loxleyvalleyprotectionsociety.co.uk/
http://92.19.232.58:82/index.html
i run my owncloud server with 1gb ram and 1.66ghz cpu
but it could easily be run on the other lower spec machines
the only things that i listed that would make it fry i think
is the teeworlds server and minetest server
and it could definitely run a doom server
you can host most of these servers with 8mb of ram if you rely wanted too
Well, that's really impressive. If this much can be run at a decent speed, then my life is complete, at last. Seriously, this is great! Thanks tomluckeywood.
What OS are you using as server?
Why do you keep talking about Libreboot? Such embedded devices usually use a bootloader such as Das U-Boot: http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot
Really? Hey, then problem solved. I didn't know about u-boot. Tanks for the link legimet, looks like some more interesting reading.
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Seems like the BBB has no amt/me. And u-boot seems to be the default boot system.
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