As a security guy, you can imagine my network setup is “interesting”. I’ve been through times where I’ve run my own server (Domino!) for email and websites. My first cellar installation of a server was in the 1990s on a Dell with a SCSI card and Slackware installed.
Modern times have seen me simplify what I have installed. My home server was something I built myself in October 2011 with lots of disk and, back then, lots of RAM (16Gb). It lives still today and is perfectly capable – now with 32Gb RAM and some SSDs for operating systems. Hyper-V is something I’ve embraced this year with multiple VMs.
The virtualisation happens on two machines now;
- my old server, sat on my internal network, running Hyper-V VMs
- a new server (Dell Optiplex/16Gb RAM/256Gb SSD that cost $50!) which sits between my ISP fibre box and my own router
Additionally, there are two Synology boxes that provide VPN, media server and TimeMachine services.
The Hyper-V servers run a mix of Windows and linux; being the security guy, each server has a VM running OpenCanary. There are two reasons for this – firstly, the box outside my home network has ports open and if a machine is compromised, OpenCanary should light up; secondly, the internal box has an OpenCanary because there is a teenager in the house!
This is all pinned together with a Tailscale layer, thus allowing access to all hosts wherever I might be in the world.
This website – as well as some others – is hosted at an ISP. Some things are better managed by them…for not so much in the way of costs.
Naturally, I can say my other half is not so much a fan of screens and computers and so I aim to keep my set-up stable and low maintenance. And then, there’s Patch Tuesday coming up….! 😳
