build combined freenas/mediaplayer/accesspoint

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afmobiwx

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Hi forum,

i am using strictly linux in prod environment, but i switched to freenas on my file servers and xen storage. i tend to neglect my home stuff. now at home i have a cable router without wifi from my cable company ( they are so impertinent to charge an exorbitant extra sum per month for enabling the existing wifi on that which i just find annoying ), connected to that is my older fritzbox wifi router that also works as a network storage with a single USB disk to it ( but it has no NFS functionality which i miss ), and connected to this are my computers and a small beaglebone as MPD audio server. my backup consists of numerous USB disks i keep changing when i happen to think of it.

now i want a freenas raid system for my data ( hate changing disks all the time and manually backup. easy snapshotting really is something i dont want to miss anymore ) and a more energy saving design, eliminatin beaglebone and fritzbox as the cable router also can work as a switch for my existing computers ( i am an atypical kind of admin i think, i only have 1 linux and 1 windows box ). i thought about getting some small factor energy saving board ( maybe even ARM ), connect my disks, a wifi card and a soundcard and use it as always-on accesspoint, mediacenter ( with hdmi ), storage and the possibility to add an encrypted array.

I do know how to do this all on linux, even on a pi or beaglebone, and build a system that does exactly that ( very slow on arm boards though ) , but i really like the undoubtetly higher security of BSD and the easy handlingh of FreeNAS. as i said, i am lazy with my stuff at home but paranoid enough to want it safe by all means.

did somebody do something like that, build a kind of green all purpose box? is there a plugin for wifi cards? or how to implant which working drivers for which wifi card into the freenas BSD OS? i want to switch on my computers ( that have and use a lot of power ) only when really needed, not for watching netflix, surfing and stuff.
 

Constantin

Vampire Pig
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May 19, 2017
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The closest thing I can think of is an Apple Extreme base station. It's a simple router, 802.11ac access point, 4-way unmanaged gigabit switch, and potentially a very slow and simple NAS server. AFAIK, none of them have ever been pwned other than via WiFi-consortium-related issues like WEP/KRAK/etc. I use one of my ABS' to serve up media content to my Sonos via a bus-powered burner drive.

You'd have to do your media server separately, however. That's where the FreeNAS might come in, though I have no idea how to implement PLEX via jail, etc. The C2750-based boards that iXsystems uses for the mini and mini XL are a good start re: power efficiency but I have no idea how you would add usable HDMI and/or sound out.
 

Ericloewe

Server Wrangler
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A NAS and a router/firewall do not belong in the same box. That is why FreeNAS doesn't do firewalling and pfSense doesn't do NAS.
 

Constantin

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Agreed, hence my suggestion to use one box as his WiFi access point, switch, and router, the other as his media server and NAS. Though combined NAS / media player / transcoder / Plex host / etc. and low power don’t usually overlap too much on a Venn diagram.

I use a Mac mini to serve up content from the NAS, that way the NAS can focus on being a NAS and I can turn off the Mac mini whenever I’m not using it. But I understand why some would want to combine the two.
 
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