Who needs a server in their house? You, probably.

    As Amateur Radio operators, it's likely that we all share a love-hate relationship with our computers. A lot of us love to tinker with what's possible on our home PC's, while others just want the things to work. But some of us want to push the envelope even further. Unless you've been living under a rock, it's likely that you've heard of a Raspberry Pi. For those who prefer the Patrick Star lifestyle, these little technological wonders are full fledged computers that are about the size of a credit card. Also known as Single Board Computers, these Pi's have found their way into just about every hamshack around the world. Most are familiar with them for Digital Voice hotspots, some have used them as Linux machines that run HF digital modes and logging software, the possibilities are truly endless.

    However, steering away from the Amateur Radio world for a minute, many people use them as network devices for a plethora of tasks. Some use Pi-Hole, a DNS level Adblocker on their network. Some use OpenMediaVault, a Network Attached Storage solution to share their External Hard Drives to any capable device on the network. Many web servers have been ran on Pi's for people who want to host their own web sites at home. The software packages that have been written to utilize these little devices are truly astounding.

    My relationship with Pi's has always been a love-hate one. I always found myself in two predicaments. First, I found that the Pi's (at least the ones I had, mostly 3 series) were a tad underpowered for what I wanted to do with them. If I were to dive into what I was specifically running, most readers would comment that they were perfectly powerful enough. As true as that may be, it leads me into my second, and most prevalent issue. Many software packages written for Raspberry Pi's are distributed as disk images, which are flashed onto SD cards. This typically means that the Pi is only set up to run one "service" at a time. I found myself running into the issue of not having enough Pi's for the different projects and systems I wanted to run at home.

    At this point, I had two choices. Buy more Pi's, or stick to the two or three services I liked running the most. This was also around the time of the pandemic winding down, where these $30 microcomputers were in extremely short supply, and finding one for less than $80 was rough. I knew there had to be a better way. Luckily, there was one sitting underneath my desk.

    Working in IT, I was exposed to the world of virtualization. For those who don't know what that is, very simply put, virtualization is a way to split the computing power of a device into separate "virtual machines" that run within the host machine. Enterprise level servers have been doing this for years. Imagine taking 5 desktop computers and shoving them into one box. Except, there is no need for 5 processors, 5 sticks of RAM, 5 power supplies, etc. The server operating system is able to divide these resources to each of the separate virtual machines. I knew this would be my way to easily get multiple "Raspberry Pi's: out of one device.

    I started my server building adventure at the beginning of 2023 with an old OptiPlex small form factor desktop computer that was slated for the trash. I started exploring what was possible with Linux Hypervisors using the QEMU'KVM system. This took a good amount of understanding technical instructions and guides, but I was able to run a virtualized Windows OS, Pi-Hole DNS ad blocking, and a Minecraft server all in one little box. 

    This worked fine for me to start, and a few months later, I was given an HP ProLiant rack server that was slated for the scrap pile. This gave me computing power that I had never touched before. 32 Cores, 128 GB of RAM, and 8 drive bays. I spent the next several months on and off tinkering with the system, filling it with Virtual Machines, upgrading the processors, storage drives, and integrating it into my home network. To this day, that same server is running my Hamshack Hotline PBX/Audio Stream, a NAS system, my DNS ad blocker, and a network monitoring system.

    I strongly encourage not just hams to add a server to their shack, but anyone with a bit of technical know-how and a want to tinker and explore what their older computer hardware is still capable of. If you have an old PC that is not up to the task of running Windows anymore, take a look online at how it can be turned into a Home Server, and you may be surprised how many more years of use you can get out of it. It may even lead you into the land of overkill that I have ventured into, and you may end up with a 6'5" network cabinet loaded with a rack server, switches, uninterruptable power supplies, and cables everywhere. At least my ham shack won't need the vent opened for the central air heat in the winter.

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