Hello from Luxembourg

[foxi352]

I'm an 45 years old IT engineer with over 20 years of experience in Linux and Windows and 3 years experience with Docker. But i am relatively new to FreeBSD and FreeNAS.
My home server is running ESXi 6.5 free version and i am thinking of migrating it to FreeNAS. I played with jails and so far i feel the learning curve is reasonable when coming from the Linux world, so FreeBSD doesn't seem to be a problem. In fact i really start loving it, everything seems so clearly defined and structured.

My current hardware:
* HP ProLiant DL380 G7 with redundant power supply
* Dual 4 core Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 @ 2.13GHz
* 24GB (most probably ECC, have to check)
* 8 physical NIC
* 8GB SD card with ESXi 6.5
* 8x 1TB 2,5" SATA disks (some 5400 rpm, some 7200 rpm)
* APC SmartUPS 3000 (not yet connected to USB but cable already ordered)
Currently i am using 2TB for production (VM's, data, ...) and 3TB as Veeam backup store. The 2TB for production starts filling up, but some VM's are only for playing and are not really used (like 5 nodes kubernetes cluster just for fun).

My current VLAN's:
* PRODUCTION (computers, smartphones, pads, ...)
* HOME-AUTOMATION (esp8266 sensors, AC system, Heating system, KNX system, ...)
* TEST (for test vm's to not interfere with production DHCP for example)
* MANAGEMENT (All management ports of: Access points, switch, ESXi, ...)
* DMZ (Mail server, Web server, Nextcloud, ...)
* GUEST (For separate guest WiFi SSID to only access internet)

VM's i want to keep or replace with something (unimportant VM's not listed here):
* Nextcloud server (currently Debian 9)
* Mail server (currently iRedMail free is used)
* SmartHomeNG + SmartVISU server (currently Debian 9)
* PFSense firewall doing reverse proxy, keeping Letsencrypt certificates up2date with ACME, doing routing / firewalling between VLAN's e.t.c.
* Unifi controller for 3 access points
* MineOS server for the kids

My plans for existing VM's if moving to FreeNAS:
" Use Nextcloud official plugin and migrate existing data into it
* Use official MineOS plugin and migrate data into it
* Use experimental Unificontroller plugin from official repo (not yet in index)
* Create SmartHomeNG + SmartVISU + knxd plugin. Tested on a FreeNAS test installation and already working. Will probably submit that plugin later on.
* Use iRedmail as Linux VM inside FreeNAS for now until i found a better solution. Maybe jail, maybe docker container inside docker VM, will see

I would then just move my PfSense to external hardware for security, probably something like this: https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07DJ5RLC1

My first idea was to build a new FreeNAS box with SilverStone SST-CS380, Corsair SF450 80 Plus Gold 450 W, XEON E-2126G 3.3GHz 6 cores, SuperMicro X11SCH-LN4F CFL uATX, 1x SSD Corsair Force MP510 240 GB for FreeNAS, 5x 6TB WD RED in zraid2 for my pool, 64GB DDR4-2666 ECC memory.
But then i was not really sure if the hardware i have was not good enough, and if the performance gain (if any), the reduced power consumption (if any) would be worth the money.

I feel it would be wiser to invest in memory upgrade to my current server to 128GB ECC and just keep the hardware ?

Any thoughts on this for a newbie ? :)

Thank you and looking forward for a wonderful time here ...

 

[Spearfoot]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[blanchet]

FreeNAS is a great storage platform with some virtualization capabilities (jails and bhyve) but they are less advanced than VMware ESXi.
If you want to have an all-in-one solution, you can try a virtual FreeNAS on ESXi.
Your processor Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 supports VT-d, so the only thing you need is a HBA.

 

[foxi352]

Thanks @blanchet for your suggestion. You are of course right, and I think i am well aware of the differences between bhyve and esxi. I tried virtualising it for playing @work on my ESXi cluster and it worked without any problems. I created a special portgroup where promiscuous was allowed. On my standalone ESXi @home i can't get promiscuous to work correctly, although it is allowed on both, vswitch and portgroup (where portgroup alone should already be enough). But beside this it does not make sense for me. I already have a debian file server with AFP and SMB and would then not need FreeNAS @ all.

The thing is, and that was my thoughts, nearly all the services i have running as full VM's now (let's forget about mailserver for now) could easely run in containers. So my first idea was to run a docker host VM (Photon OS) on my ESXi and run Nextcloud, Unifi controller e.t.c. as containers.

Now if i run nearly everything in docker containers on ESXi, then i might as-well install FreeNAS and let it do it's file serving way better then my current solution and run these containers as iocage jails on FreeNAS. Most of them already exist as plugins, so except my smarthome system which is only python and lighthttp everything is already there. And i already have my smarthome system working as plugin on my test FreeNAS. I would probably not need a bhyve VM @ all. Maybe to run a linux VM for my development tasks, but even then i could run it in Fusion on my MAC if needed.

Is that conclusion wrong / incomplete in your eyes and with your experience in FreeNAS ?

 

[blanchet]

Yes you can move all your workload on FreeNAS in jails or bhyve virtual machines. It should work.
If you are mainly interested by iocage in FreeNAS, you can try a vanilla FreeBSD, it is lighter than FreeNAS and you can run directly pf inside.