I'm using a SFF Lenovo M700 (i5-6400T, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 16TB USB HDD, Debian 11) for my server.
At the moment, I'm just copying all the files from the drives on my Windows PC to the server using WinSCP to make sure that I have a backup. Speeds are around 40MB/s with large files, which is probably as good as I can expect transferring from/to spinning disk, but sshd on the M700 is using 35-50% CPU, and sftp-server is using 15-20%, so about 70% in total. That only seems to happen with large files, when transferring lots of small files they're using about 10% and 5% respectively, although it varies and can be double or half that.
If it's going to use this much CPU whenever someone (or my sync or backup software) is transferring large files, I'm concerned that it won't have the capacity to run the other services that I need (Adguard, Home Assistant (probably as a VM in Proxmox), Jellyfin, Tailscale, Crowdsec, etc.). The 16TB USB HDD is encrypted with Veracrypt, but I don't think that's the issue as I see separate processes in top for kcryptd, and they generally add up to less than 10%.
Is there anything I can do to reduce the CPU usage when transferring files to/from other PC's on the LAN to the server? Once it is deployed, the users won't be using WinSCP to transfer files, they'll probably use Filebrowser or STFPGo, and I'll set up automated syncs and pull backups, so will it use less CPU to transfer files using those methods rather than WinSCP?
Flying is only safer than driving until the fuel runs out, then you're much safer in a car 😉
I'm not sure, but I think you'd just need to create a script which stops them, runs the backup, and then restarts them.
Some people would say that you're doing something wrong by using Duplicati, because they've had problems restoring data and it's very slow, so if you've never had to restore data before you should test that to check that it works, and maybe switch to something else like Borg to be safe.
Also, backing up the folder without stopping the containers first might result in any backed up databases being corrupt, so if you're running anything that uses databases, you should stop those containers before backing up the folder.
I can SSH into my Oracle free VPS but after a while I find that the console is no longer working, and when I try to reconnect it doesn't respond. I can still ping it, but even logging in to the website and trying to "Launch Cloud Shell Connection" doesn't work, so it seems to be locking up completely after I SSH in, and I have to reboot it.
I'm only trying to use it as a reverse proxy with caddy, but it obviously needs to be reliable for that. There's a few errors in the boot log, which I've pasted here, but I'm not sure if they're important.
Oracle boot log - Pastebin.com
I've enabled Cockpit and the Services tab under that shows that kdump and SETroubleshoot failed to start. Should I just delete the instance and try creating a new one?
I followed this guide to setup the required rules for the VPS instance, and to create the iptables rules in the VPS, and to create the IPV4 and IPV6 A and AAA records on Cloudflare.
How to Host a Website in Oracle Cloud Free Tier (yoursunny.com)
then I followed Steps 2 and 3 in this more recent guide to create the caddy files
Install & Configure Caddy Web Server with PHP on Oracle Linux 8 (atlantic.net)
but even before the VPS stops working the caddy server doesn't serve anything when I try to access it in my browser.
I checked and his TV is a Samsung UE40ES5500 which he bought in 2013, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't use Tizen unfortunately.
Yeah, I use one myself. He's already using all the HDMI ports on his AV receiver though, so there's no room for any extra devices.
I know modern TVs can send the audio from the TV to the receiver, so in theory he could plug the stick into the TV instead, but his one seems to only be able to send certain formats that way, and you can't see the receiver's overlay on the TV when using it that way, so it's impossible to adjust anything.
Definitely no Play Store on his TV. I don't think it has any Chromecast /Airplay apps either, but even if it does I don't think they're any substitute for Plex or Jellyfin.
His TV is a few years old, so I'm not sure if it uses Tizen but I'll have a look, thanks.
They mean Smart TVs. My Dad's Samsung TV has a Plex app, but no way to install anything like Kodi that would let him use Jellyfin instead of Plex to serve media.
I've been having problems getting Mandos to work, so I'm trying to update it to the latest version on my RPi 2 Model B running Raspian 11 (bullseye).
If I run apt-get update with the following lines in /etc/apt/sources.list
deb https://ftp.recompile.se/pub/mandos/debian bullseye-backports main
deb-src https://ftp.recompile.se/pub/mandos/debian bullseye-backports main
I get an error about the signature being invalid, and if I comment out those lines and create /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mandos.sources as shown here for bullseye Mandos (recompile.se) and download the key, apt-get update says that the repository doesn't support armhf architecture.
Can someone help me with this please, as I really need to get Mandos working first before setting up anything else on my server?
I've pasted the full output here Update Mandos errors - Pastebin.com
Linux definitely seems much better in that respect than Windows.
Hmm, I guess I could keep it on a table in the corner to use it as a terminal to control music streaming from my server, so I don't need to turn on my main PC (or let guests use my main PC) for that.
Having a spare laptop I can use on the sofa to experiment and learn stuff without worrying about messing up anything important might be useful too. I might be able to do that just as easily by using my new laptop as a terminal to SSH or VNC into my RPi or M700, and if I'm using docker there may be little risk of messing up anything important, but there's always a bit of a risk, and if I mess up badly on a spare laptop I can just quit until I feel like reinstalling it and starting again, whereas if I mess up on my RPi or M700 and break something important I'd need to fix it immediately, when I might not have the time or energy to do that.
Maybe I could use this laptop as a pfsense machine. It's got a Gigabit Ethernet port and it looks like I can get a USB2 to Gigabit Ethernet adapter for about £15, so if that would be sufficient to maintain full speeds with my Gigabit fibre Internet, that could be an option.
I hadn't thought of putting the guts into another case. I don't think I'll do that with this laptop, as it's running OK and it has a functional monitor and kbm (mostly, the v key is a bit unreliable), but if I definitely wanted to use it as a headless machine to run 24/7 off the mains (with a UPS backup instead of the battery) that would be an option.
Yeah, it's not great. My RPi with an SSD and 6 USB HDDs is only drawing 45W, and about 30W of that is the HDDs.
I'll check what my M700 draws later.
Windows always seems to be running something in the background, either Defender updates or telemetry, so Linux should be much better once the updates have finished.
Yeah, running it without the battery (if that works, I don't think it does with all laptops) is safer but that loses the advantage of having the battery backup, and if you can't leave it running 24/7 that rather limits what you can use it for.
I've got a smart plug that measures the power used, so I'll see what that shows.
I just reinstalled Linux Mint on the whole drive and even with that it uses 60-80% of the CPU when updating. Synaptic used about 40%, right now two instances of rsync are using about 40% between them, dpkg sometimes uses 30-43%, so I'm not surprised that Windows with all its background processes and telemetry would use more.
I've recently bought a Lenovo ThinkPad T480, i5-8350U, 16GB, 256GB SSD, which does everything I need from a laptop (I mainly use my desktop PC anyway).
My old laptop is a Travelmate 5720, Core 2 Duo T7300, 4GB, 128GB SSD. It boots fairly quickly and it's usable for basic stuff like browsing, but running Windows 10 the CPU is at 99% most of the time just from the background Windows processes, so the noisy fan is running at full speed, and doing Windiws updates takes ages
It's not worth spending any money to upgrade the RAM or SSD, but I could replace the DVD drive with a spare 256GB that I've got. The current SSD is almost full but that's because I've got dual-boot Windows and Linux installed, so if I was only running Linux it would probably be sufficient.
Before I scrap it (I'll keep the SSD), I was just wondering if there's anything that it might be better suited for than my desktop, laptop, M700 SFF PC (which is my main self-hosted machine and backup server) and my various RPis?
Maybe being portable gives it an advantage for some task over the other machines? The battery isn't great, probably runs for an hour or so, but at least I can disconnect it from the power and move it around without shutting it down, and it will keep running for a while if there's a powercut, or I have to turn off the mains to do some DIY. Of course, my modem/router wouldn't have any power then, not would any of my other PCs, but I could use my phone as a temporary hotspot to maintain connectivity for whatever is running on the laptop.
Or maybe having a keyboard and monitor gives it some advantages over the RPi for some particular task I haven't thought of? The M700 won't have a keyboard or monitor connected most of the time either, but I'm not sure it matters when I can just SSH or VNC into these machines from my desktop.
Or maybe there's some software I might want to run permanently on a dedicated machine, rather than having it on my new laptop or my desktop, where I need to reboot into Linux or Windows for different tasks (and with the new laptop I'll sometimes want to take it out with me), so they won't be able to run any software permanently? Although if that's the only reason, a RPi would probably be just as good for this.