Garage LAN – Servers

Inspiration

This might seem overwhelming but, you DO NOT need to do it all at once! Start with just the Essentials Section first and remember to have fun!

Firewall

  • While a router, gateway or even your ISP might have an existing firewall, it is never a bad idea to consider adding additional firewalls to your server(s).
  • You can do this virtually or build your own firewall, just make sure if you build your own that it has two NIC’s (Network Interface Communication).
  • Here are a few software solutions for firewalls
    OPN Sense
    PFSense

Cache Server

  • Is a server that acts as a single point on the network to reach out to the internet to download updates and new releases to distribute across your network without everyone using all the bandwidth to the internet at one time.
  • Here is a solution for a cache server
    LanCache

Proxy Server

  • Goes between two systems and determines what and what not to provide information wise to the “other” system, but there are many types of Proxy Server’s.

Web Server

  • Making an online website for players to be able to get information of hosted game servers running on the LAN, rules, how to reset a pc, software available to download, links to their websites, posting schedules, pictures or any other information makes the LAN even more fun as players can now share with their friends, family and more!
  • Here are some solutions for web servers
    IIS (Already on Windows)
    NGiNX
    Apache
    LAMP – DigitalOcean guide
    WordPress – DigitalOcean guide
    W3Schools – Learn HTML, CSS and more for free!

Storage Server

  • Build a fat game library on Steam. Steam allows you to take those game files downloaded and save them on a network storage point or NAS (Network Attached Storage) for everyone to copy/paste to their system if not on the Cache Server or maybe the Cache Server is to complicated to setup, this is a great alternative.
  • Here are some solutions for Storage
    Windows NAS
    TrueNAS Core
    NextCloud (free cloud like One Drive)

Game Server

  • Hosting your own game server(s) will reduce required bandwidth going out to the internet and allow friends, other friends and players around the world to still be able to join.
  • It will increase interest in “how things work” because it’s just awesome to know you have a world with players exploring on their own adventures, within a server you or everyone built together!
  • You can use an old PC laying around to host a game server(s).
  • You can host a game server with a Linux operating system or windows, whichever you prefer.
  • Minecraft is an excellent game to learn both front end and back end of a game server and hosting. Front end will be in reference to the game play, programming involving python, java, c#. Back end will involve server hardware, network engineering, security and hardening, routing, OSI layers, virtualization, Linux, Microsoft and Cisco networking.
    Fun Fact: I learned most everything with this garage because of Minecraft and then I went to school to “fill in” the gaps of education that I did not learn. Mojang and Microsoft have done an excellent job keeping the game as it was intended which has resulted in the game being a key item in STEM education.

Music Server

  • I like collecting music, buying albums and having a big music collection. One of the servers I had running played music in the garage with the volume very log as background music. A Touchscreen PC was used for a while that was the “Juke Box” like a TouchTunes box in a restaurant. People could go up, add music to the playlist I had loaded into the JukeBox. It’s also great for parties and if you have mastered static IP’s, port forwarding and SSL’s by this point, it will also serve as your own personal Spotify like service!
  • Here is a solution for music hosting
    Subsonic

Hypervisor

Misc

  • There is nothing wrong with using consumer grade hardware or repurposing “old” hardware.
  • The 42U server rack I bought was because there were just to many towers being setup around the garage and the workbench was full of towers. I highly recommend, watching a few YouTube videos on N+ and Server+ before buying old server hardware or new server hardware. This can get very expensive very fast and you have to consider what you’re going to do with your old hardware.
  • Buying a 42U 4-post rack and 4U server chassis to put your old hardware in is highly recommended as I never had an issue putting my consumer hardware in one. Just make sure it can accommodate your PSU and check the length of the chassis.
  • After the hardware transfer is complete and the 4U chassis’s are installed in the rack, you’ll have a lot more room in your LAN.