VM hosting for the space

[Jon Fautley]

Hi,

I'm building a box to host virtual machines, please let me know if you
have any suggestions/things you'd like to see.

kthx,

Jon

[Monty]

So is this box in the space now? if so:

where is it?
is suppose to be left on or off, or be left alone?

[Alexander Wright]

Do we have the bandwidth/can we afford the electricity to leave another
machine running?

Alec

[Russ Garrett]

On 1 October 2012 17:29, Alexander Wright <ale...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Do we have the bandwidth/can we afford the electricity to leave another
> machine running?

Well, it explicitly won't be for anything too bandwidth-heavy.
Electricity-wise, we hope to offset some of the increase by
virtualising what's currently on Babbage and getting rid of that.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Jon Fautley]

On 1 October 2012 17:25, Monty <mont...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So is this box in the space now? if so:

The physical hardware is, it's being used for something else at this
particular moment.

> where is it?

Stratasys corner.

> is suppose to be left on or off, or be left alone?

If it could be left on, that would be great as I'm currently using it
for stuff. If it's a problem, feel free to turn it off.

[Jon Fautley]

On 1 October 2012 17:29, Alexander Wright <ale...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Do we have the bandwidth/can we afford the electricity to leave another
> machine running?

The bandwidth should be unaffected. I have no idea on power, but it
seems to be something that various people have expressed an interest
in previously, so I believe the space can absorb the power bill. I
believe at 100% usage it'll consume about £25/month* of electrickery.

* not my calculations

[tom]

whats the deal with access and resource provisioning? Do we have to ask someone for VM resources when we need them?

[Jon Fautley]

On 1 October 2012 17:37, tom <bollo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> whats the deal with access and resource provisioning? Do we have to ask
> someone for VM resources when we need them?

That depends what software ends up being put on it. I would imagine
like other systems in the space it'll be open access and "don't take
the mickey" with regards to resource allocation. I'm open to
suggestions if you'd like to see something specific.

[Russ Garrett]

On 1 October 2012 17:35, Jon Fautley <jon.f...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The bandwidth should be unaffected. I have no idea on power, but it
> seems to be something that various people have expressed an interest
> in previously, so I believe the space can absorb the power bill. I
> believe at 100% usage it'll consume about £25/month* of electrickery.

Our electricity rate is 13.6p/kWh inclusive of tax. I would anticipate
this server to use between 300-700W idle (300W on the very
conservative end I'd say).

So,

0.3*24*30*0.136 = £29/month or £348/year
0.7*24*30*0.136 = £69/month or £828/year

This is a significant amount of cash - somewhere between 2 and 6
peoples' membership. Some of this will be offset by the savings if we
can virtualise Babbage.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Toby Catlin]

holy crap is that how much it costs me to leave all my computers on?

[Paddy Duncan]

Actually it is Min 390W - Max 1650W. Typical 800W.

-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2012.0.2221 / Virus Database: 2441/5302 - Release Date: 10/01/12

[Jon Fautley]

On 1 October 2012 18:15, Paddy Duncan <pad...@padski.co.uk> wrote:
> Actually it is Min 390W - Max 1650W. Typical 800W.

0.8*24*30*0.136 = £78/mo, or £936/yr
1.65*24*30*0.136 = £161/mo, or £1932/yr

That sounds much less attractive, especially when you consider that
there's no storage with that system, so that would probably add an
extra 800W/mo.

I think, unless anyone shouts to the contrary, that we'll shelve this idea.

Thanks

Jon

[SamLR]

Just out of interest what's the power consumption for lovelace/babbage? 

Would it be possible to get rid of them in favour of a few VMs on the server?

S

[Russ Garrett]

They are likely to be 150-250W each idle.

[Jasper Wallace]

netboot server (to replace netbootyboxxy which can then be sold).

netbootyboxxy has:

dban
dban autonuke
memtest86+
nfs root debian squeeze
nfs root debian squeeze (with lhs auction infodump script)
debian squeeze install

currently the debian bits are amd64 only (I've not got round to updating
the i386 bit).

I'd add:

partition magic pxe edition
system rescue cd
ubuntu installers and live cd's

That way someone with a knackered laptop can netboot it, backup and/or
recover parritions, reinstall if they want etc...

People can also use it to try live cd's without having a cd...

(would be useful to me right now :) )

This can't be on church - it dosn't have the disc space. It could be on
babbage, but might clash with the videos for space.

--
[http://pointless.net/] [0x2ECA0975]

[Mark Steward]

I only found out yesterday that Simon Klyne also has a server in that corner, which is apparently on and being used for something unknown.

Please must email the list whenever they start working on any project that might take up resources from others.  The servers are here under sufferance, and doing things in secret is not only against the spirit of the space, but also discourages us from accepting donations in the future.

Mark

[Jon Fautley]

On Wed, Oct 03, 2012 at 01:20:53PM +0100, Mark Steward wrote:
> The servers are here under sufferance [...]

It was my impression that the trustees had OK'd the storage of servers
in the space. Is this not the case?

[Simon Klyne]

The server that I am working on is only powered on when I am in the space.
I started work on this alongside Jon and he said he would post a status to the list - I haven't managed to follow the list closely this week unfortunately so am not sure on the details of the discussions

[David Sullivan]

I'm not sure the people having to work around the big piles of computer hardware care whether they have or not. They aint the boss of the other members you know.

Sully. 

[Russ Garrett]

Firstly, it's really not the trustees' place to decide whether to fill
up a significant amount of our floorspace with servers. Matters like
this should be discussed by everyone on the list. In this case there
was time pressure so we did approve it without discussing it fully on
the list.

It turned out in this case that there was significantly more hardware
than was anticipated; we only found this out after it arrived.

We were subsequently assured that the servers were going to be moved
out of the space within a few days, and it turns out that this wasn't
the case, and they are still there two weeks later.

I'd like to be absolutely clear that I'm not blaming anyone here.
Hackspace is just not set up to efficiently handle these server
auctions.

As we learned from EMF, it's not fair on the membership to take up
this much of our extremely limited space, regardless of the financial
benefit to the space.

Based on this, I'd strongly recommend we don't consider doing anything
like this again, at least while it will compromise such a large amount
of our space.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Mark Steward]

I don't know how many different ways I can say this.  The space is not run by the trustees.  The space is run by the consensus and co-operation of members, which is generally mediated through the mailing list as the canonical communication channel.

We're here to deal with the legal side of things, and to resolve issues that don't resolve themselves.  This includes - but is not limited to - applying the grievance process to people who flout the rules and ensuring the rules are practical.  Additionally, we spend a lot of our time explaining how things work and filling in the gaps in communication, although that's something every member should do.

The last van-load was given extremely short notice buried in a thread on the list, and the scale of storage was not made clear.  There are now stacks of servers in the space, which people have already promised to remove to storage (this has only become possible because I arranged it myself last night).  They were meant to be stacked out of the way, but they're now being set up around the space for personal projects.  This all concerns me, because the last time we had a number of servers in the space, it ended with everyone saying they weren't interested in doing it again, and it looks like people are already getting drawn away.  I can see the process running for months, and that's not fair on the rest of the membership.

Mark

[Russ Garrett]

On 3 October 2012 14:42, tgreer <ukt...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The VM one isn't a personal project it's for the space. If it's an issue let
> it be known and the idea will be scrapped. I can't talk for Simon's machine
> however.

Filbert decided to scrap that earlier in the thread due to the power
usage. I agree with his assessment.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Jon Fautley]

On Wed, Oct 03, 2012 at 06:42:04AM -0700, tgreer wrote:
> The VM one isn't a personal project it's for the space. If it's an issue
> let it be known and the idea will be scrapped. I can't talk for Simon's
> machine however.

Also please note that while "my" machine and Simon's system/disk shelves
are in the main room, they're there because it has freed up space in the
quiet room, and I decided it was pointless moving them back into the
quiet room where (IMO) they cause more of an inconvenience than they do
in the main room (in so far as the desks are still usable).

As far as I am aware, all these systems should be powered off. If they
are not then let me know which one(s) are still powered on and I'll sort
it out.

Thanks

Jon

[Simon]

it was also felt more sociable to not use the quiet room for noisy servers.

FWIW - the box I was working on was for a storage solution to use with the VM hosting.  Now that that has been scrapped :-( I will dismantle the storage solution when I am next in
I think I will take it home and work on it on my power bill

[Jasper Wallace]

One was in standby mode and the flashing lights from the ilom thing made
it look like it was on. the switch on top of it was on too.

I pulled the power cables on all of it.

I'm using the switch and the desk now to do some disk wipeing, but am
running into some epic yak shaving :(

--
[http://pointless.net/] [0x2ECA0975]

[Martin Klang]

On 3 Oct 2012, at 16:49, Simon wrote:

> FWIW - the box I was working on was for a storage solution to use with the VM hosting. Now that that has been scrapped :-( I will dismantle the storage solution when I am next in
> I think I will take it home and work on it on my power bill

For the opportunities this amazing haul offers us it seems silly, to me, to just go for the cash - why don't we make the most of at least a couple of the machines in the space?
I imagine that the profit from ebaying one or two servers will easily pay the leccy for a year of vm's+storage. VM's for everyone!

/m

[Jon Fautley]

I personally am all for some big iron in the space, but ultimately
it's not up to me. We have problems with space and power, and I'm
frankly tired of having my name tarnished by association with the
servers. The vocal majority are against the idea, and that seems to be
how decision making happens around here.

What a few of us would like to do before disposing of them is link the
IBMs together (they have interlink cables) and produce a super-box,
mostly just because we can.

Cheers

Jon

[Simon]

I am also in favour of having some big tin in the space and hosting some VMs - I know that I will never have the opportunity to get my hands on this sort of kit outside of an office environment again.

These servers have 4 quad core CPUs and 128G of RAM.
upto 4 of them can be connected together to produce a single server with 64 CPU cores and 512G or RAM

The storage solution I was dabbling with was Nexentastor, which can run on any reasonable spec x86 machine with a pair of NetApp DS14 disk shelves - to make a total of 28 FCAL disks.  I also have enough 300G FCAL disks that we could populate the DS14 shelves with to give high performance storage of several TBytes.


However, it does seem as if too few people want this sort of resource in the space so I am tempted to make room in my cellar for them and let my power bill take a hit

[Russ Garrett]

On 3 October 2012 21:09, Martin Klang <ma...@pingdynasty.com> wrote:

> For the opportunities this amazing haul offers us it seems silly, to me, to just go for the cash - why don't we make the most of at least a couple of the machines in the space?

The major issue is that the space's internet connection really isn't
good enough to handle hosting servers over it, so these VMs are only
going to be useful to people who don't need a significant internet
connection, and also don't need any guarantee of reliability.

It seems silly to me to spend £1k/year running a server for the
benefit of Hackspace members. London Hackspace's aim is to provide
physical space, not servers, and it's not as if there's a particular
lack of commodity computing power these days.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Adrian Godwin]

On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Russ Garrett <ru...@garrett.co.uk> wrote:
>
> It seems silly to me to spend £1k/year running a server for the
> benefit of Hackspace members. London Hackspace's aim is to provide
> physical space, not servers, and it's not as if there's a particular
> lack of commodity computing power these days.
>
> --

It seems most of the interest is in the process of configuring them,
we don't have any projects that would use them full time (or at least,
not ones that needed this level of equipment). This seems like a
legitimate learning exercise like many other space activities, but
doesn't really demand them to be available forever.

Perhaps a compromise that would allow some space to experiment (not
for the whole lot, just a useful group like the IBMs) and power,
part-time, for a few weeks would be useful ? After that time, they
could spend most of their time switched off and be powered only when
someone was pursuing a project. Or be disposed of, if there was no
further interest.

-adrian

[930913]

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012 11:52:21 PM UTC+1, artg...@googlemail.com wrote:

we don't have any projects that would use them full time

FoldIt@Home? Or other similar computations. 

[Russ Garrett]

On 3 October 2012 23:52, Adrian Godwin <artg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps a compromise that would allow some space to experiment (not
> for the whole lot, just a useful group like the IBMs) and power,
> part-time, for a few weeks would be useful ?

I have absolutely no problem with that at all.

> After that time, they could spend most of their time switched off and be
> powered only when someone was pursuing a project. Or be disposed
> of, if there was no further interest.

Well, it would be kind of a waste to have the IBMs sitting around
doing nothing when they could probably raise several grand on eBay.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Martin Dengler]

On Wed, Oct 03, 2012 at 11:52:18PM +0100, Adrian Godwin wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Russ Garrett <ru...@garrett.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > It seems silly to me to spend £1k/year running a server for the
> > benefit of Hackspace members. London Hackspace's aim is to provide
> > physical space, not servers, and it's not as if there's a particular
> > lack of commodity computing power these days.
> >
> > --
>
> It seems most of the interest is in the process of configuring them

> [...] Perhaps a compromise that would allow some space to

> experiment (not for the whole lot, just a useful group like the
> IBMs) and power, part-time, for a few weeks would be useful ? After
> that time, they could spend most of their time switched off and be
> powered only when someone was pursuing a project. Or be disposed of,
> if there was no further interest.

+1

> -adrian

Martin

[Martin Dengler]

On Wed, Oct 03, 2012 at 03:22:06PM -0700, Simon wrote:
> I am also in favour of having some big tin in the space and hosting
> some VMs - I know that I will never have the opportunity to get my
> hands on this sort of kit outside of an office environment again.

> However, it does seem as if too few people want this sort of
> resource in the space so I am tempted to make room in my cellar for
> them and let my power bill take a hit

If not you then I'm sure there are others willing to join the queue...

Martin

[David Murphy]

to chip in I'm in favor of the space having one reasonably beefy server it'd be no less useful than some of the other expensive equipment.

[Martin Dengler]

On Thu, Oct 04, 2012 at 02:29:43PM +0100, David Murphy wrote:
> to chip in I'm in favor of the space having one reasonably beefy server
> it'd be no less useful than some of the other expensive equipment.

And take up less space, and probably be functional more often ;).

[Mark Steward]

The problem is there are people out there who are much more geared up for providing processing power on low margins.  We already provide boxes that you can get an SSH shell on, so I don't think the need is comparable to other equipment.

You can get a decent dedicated server for £1000/year or a very generous VPS. It'll have a much faster internet connection, free redundancy & upgrades, and take up no space.  You might like to talk to Bitfolk, who very kindly provide the Hackspace VPS, or just get an Amazon account and pay for what you use.

I'd love to know who's planning use this server for anything more than IRC - I've certainly never seen any attempt to do heavy work on Babbage. Does anyone have any ideas beyond mining Bitcoins or running pretty screensavers?

Mark

[Martin Dengler]

tl;dr -- we have to say no to most things and this might be one of
them, let's just be clear and polite what standard is being applied

On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 09:04:00AM +0100, Mark Steward wrote:
> The problem is there are people out there who are much more geared up for
> providing processing power on low margins.

Yes, but you can substitute many things for "processing power" in that
sentence. I'm just arguing the point though, since...

> We already provide boxes that you can get an SSH shell on, so I
> don't think the need is comparable to other equipment.

...I take your point, completely. The request before us is fully in
the discretionary category and the line has to be drawn somewhere.

I think the tension is that I don't get the impression that existing
hardware / heavy machinery, which is out-of-use a lot and requires a
lot of maintenance, has had to pass a higher bar than has already been
met:

> Does anyone have any ideas beyond mining Bitcoins or running pretty
> screensavers?

...in this instance by Simon / Jon (storage array / mega computer
tinkering / creation -- neither requires disruption / constant power /
more dedicated space than some other heavy equipment).

For me this seems to have been a rough process because the equipment
was donated and should obvioulsy not just be binned, but appears to be
more costly to run or dispose of than anticipated.

> Mark

Martin

[samthetechie]

So the point that is being missed in all of this is that there has been a very valuable donation of equipment to the space. We are very grateful to receive this donation and it is very lazy of our 500+ members to not readily accept this donation in the form of helping Simon and the others.
This guy manually moved hundereds of kilos of valuble electronics equipment (by bike) to the space! It is stupid and lazy to not engage with the value proposition here: some (preferably all) members pull your finger out == lots of cash for the space and we get all our floorspace back. What could be simpler?

So can we PLEASE change this discussion to:

• WIKI: Lessons learnt from: http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Project:ServerHardwareAuction/Servers
• WIKI: List the volunteers on the wiki --> Link needed, cannot find the right page.
• CALENDAR: List the next meeting time to do server shit really visibly on the hackspace calendar (give Simon calendar access so he can say when he is in etc then people can rally to help and we will be shot of the servers more quickly... no?)
  

[tom]

The space got donated stuff, thats cool but not everyone has the time to come help so please dont throw out accusations of laziness.

Given the hassle that this is causing I can see why people arent interested

[Jasper Wallace]

On Fri, 5 Oct 2012, samthetechie wrote:

> So the point that is being missed in all of this is that there has been a very valuable donation of equipment to
> the space. We are very grateful to receive this donation and it is very lazy of our 500+ members to not readily
> accept this donation in the form of helping Simon and the others.
> This guy manually moved hundereds of kilos of valuble electronics equipment (by bike) to the space! It is stupid
> and lazy to not engage with the value proposition here: some (preferably all) members pull your finger out == lots
> of cash for the space and we get all our floorspace back. What could be simpler?
>
> So can we PLEASE change this discussion to:

> * WIKI: Lessons learnt from: http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Project:ServerHardwareAuction/Servers
> * WIKI: List the volunteers on the wiki --> Link needed, cannot find the right page.
> * CALENDAR: List the next meeting time to do server shit really visibly on the hackspace calendar (give Simon

> calendar access so he can say when he is in etc then people can rally to help and we will be shot of the
> servers more quickly... no?)

In my initial emails about the servers i said "email me if you want to
help", and i've been in touch and co-ordinating with the people who have
emailed me.

You said you were going to look after the lovelace -> tesla migration.
When you have finished that you can get involved in other things, so:

PLEASE FINISH THE LOVELACE TO TESLA MIGRATION.

--
[http://pointless.net/] [0x2ECA0975]

[Mark Steward]

While we are grateful to receive them, please remember that storing all these servers is a liability, which we have to cover until they can be sold.  The latest mountain of servers arrived by van, without any reasonable warning.  Would you feel the same if someone filled the space with valuable coal?

As for people seeming lazy, I saw what happened last time, and have no desire to get dragged into the hours required to process servers for comparatively little profit.  My time is more valuable to me than the potential satisfaction of selling unwanted stuff, and if it weren't, I'd work in a charity shop.  I doubt Simon himself has time to deal with them: he's been asked to get rid of the machines from work, and has done so.  That's not a service the space should be providing, imho.

Mark

[Benjamin Blundell]

Sam, I've just read this and I'll tell you the same if you are in the
space tonight or the weekend. Lazy is one view. Other views that are
possible are:

1) people arent bothered about servers
2) people spent their lives working with servers as a job and dont
want that in the space too
3) ADHD. Personally, I think you have trouble finishing the things you
start. I've seen that and it makes people not want to pick up the
pieces after you.

Best consider these before you make a sweeping statement.

B

[Samuel Carlisle]

Fair cop.

--
Samuel Carlisle BEng (Hons) Dunelm MIET
m: +447737577210

twitter: @samthetechie
w: http://www.samthetechie.com/
LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/stt_li

[Samuel Carlisle]

Valuable coal? Sounds like minecraft :D

[Mark Steward]

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 11:54 AM, Martin Dengler <mar...@martindengler.com> wrote:

tl;dr -- we have to say no to most things and this might be one of
them, let's just be clear and polite what standard is being applied

On Fri, Oct 05, 2012 at 09:04:00AM +0100, Mark Steward wrote:
> The problem is there are people out there who are much more geared up for
> providing processing power on low margins.

Yes, but you can substitute many things for "processing power" in that
sentence.  I'm just arguing the point though, since...

That's true, but the issue is about the appropriate level of infrastructure.  The kitchen and toilets, for example, are valuable even though everyone has one.  We don't scale that to industrial recycling or a food processing plant, because other people can do that for us.

 

>  We already provide boxes that you can get an SSH shell on, so I
> don't think the need is comparable to other equipment.

...I take your point, completely.  The request before us is fully in
the discretionary category and the line has to be drawn somewhere.

I think the tension is that I don't get the impression that existing
hardware / heavy machinery, which is out-of-use a lot and requires a
lot of maintenance, has had to pass a higher bar than has already been
met:

No other machines in the space cost us on the order of £1,000/year for the benefit of only a handful of members.  If any do, please enumerate them, as we should look at fixing that.  Regardless, I recommend following Wikipedia's advice on this issue[1].

 

> Does anyone have any ideas beyond mining Bitcoins or running pretty
> screensavers?

...in this instance by Simon / Jon (storage array / mega computer
tinkering / creation -- neither requires disruption / constant power /
more dedicated space than some other heavy equipment).

That's fine, but not what was originally proposed, and Rule 8 applies[2].  I'd have no problem with making something cool with them for, say, a weekend before they're sold.

 

For me this seems to have been a rough process because the equipment
was donated and should obvioulsy not just be binned, but appears to be
more costly to run or dispose of than anticipated.

My understanding is that you're still discussing having a monster VM server for the space, which is currently separate to the issue of what we do with the servers in the meantime.

Mark

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arguments_to_avoid#What_about_article_x.3F

[2] http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Rules