Creative thread: What can I do with a Mac mini Server ?

[Scoops98]

I see what you mean. You're right about it just running DHCP. But to say replace your router is a bit deceptive. Using Internet sharing over Airport is sorta backwards. All of your network services take a performance hit, not to mention that it isn't the say as an actual access point. Plus, not all machines have a wireless card. A $20 USB NIC would take care of all that, using it as the WAN connection, leaving the potentially Gig built-in NIC as the network side connection.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

I'm not suggesting using "Internet Sharing" per say. Internet Sharing is a dumbed-down version of simple routing for those that lack true server software. The Mac mini would be almost a perfect replacement for a router that requires only wireless access (precisely the setup I use at home, btw). You get much more fine-grained control over the "sharing" of the internet connection when you use true routing software (as is included in Mac OS X Server), such as control over DNS, DHCP, SNMP, firewalling, spam filtering, traffic shaping, QoS, etc.

I don't use a single ethernet port on my Airport Extreme other than the WAN port. In this light, if I required finer control over my wireless network, I could replace my entire router with a Mac mini without losing a single feature, and gaining quite a few more features (such as UNIX permission-level control over file shares, managed FTP access, web serving, etc.).

I understand that a network that requires wired clients may not have as much a need for a mini as other networks, but that doesn't mean that the mini wouldn't have its place among bigger, beefier servers as well.

I have to agree with you, if I may mangle your words a bit, that the Mac mini would not make a stellar, high-throughput gateway... but it would still make a mighty fine server if your needs don't require saturating a gig-e network with mountains of traffic.

[#1 Rhapsody]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

I don't use a single ethernet port on my Airport Extreme other than the WAN port.

Don't you have problems with the limited amount of data that Wifi can provide? I know with my Wifi router, if I was downloading a linux iso over wifi, my other wifi connected devices would suffer greatly.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Not really -- I have the dual-band Airport Extreme, so I can have 802.11g devices online at the same time as 802.11n devices without suffering the speed penalty involved with having a mixed-mode network.

I have two 802.11n devices and four 802.11g devices, with an 18mbit internet connection. I can reliably download at about 2.0MB/sec on my 802.11n devices (getting a Linux distro in approximately 10 minutes) while simultaneously gaming on the 802.11g devices without lag.

It took a while to upgrade my equipment to do this, but it works great. I don't typically need to copy multi-gigabyte files from one computer to another (streaming works a charm), and if I did, I've always got a spare cord I can whip out at any time (although I haven't needed it yet). Copying a file in 20 minutes instead of 4 isn't a huge deal to me -- the speed of my network doesn't make me any more or less talented than I already am or am not.

"Big ups" to the Airport Extreme -- a pretty awesome and robust wireless router.

[icemanjc]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

Not really -- I have the dual-band Airport Extreme, so I can have 802.11g devices online at the same time as 802.11n devices without suffering the speed penalty involved with having a mixed-mode network.

I have two 802.11n devices and four 802.11g devices, with an 18mbit internet connection. I can reliably download at about 2.0MB/sec on my 802.11n devices (getting a Linux distro in approximately 10 minutes) while simultaneously gaming on the 802.11g devices without lag.

It took a while to upgrade my equipment to do this, but it works great. I don't typically need to copy multi-gigabyte files from one computer to another (streaming works a charm), and if I did, I've always got a spare cord I can whip out at any time (although I haven't needed it yet). Copying a file in 20 minutes instead of 4 isn't a huge deal to me -- the speed of my network doesn't make me any more or less talented than I already am or am not.

"Big ups" to the Airport Extreme -- a pretty awesome and robust wireless router.

I need to get one of those Airport Routers sometime. I have a netgear wireless N Router, but it only runs at 130 mbps when its set to only wireless N so who knows whats going on.... It works fine for streaming from my laptop to media server, but sometimes lags. Though I wired up the house with gigabit ethenet for the desktop computers which works really nice.

I'd probably use the Mac Mini for a main media server to connect to the tv since the AppleTV can't plant mkv or avi files.

[typsarud]

I accept: The Mac Mini won't work for DHCP as you need dual network cards, unless you went with a USB NIC. There really isn't a "home" usage for a Mac server. Mine runs DHCP, file sharing, FTP, VPN, and Java based with a MySQL database.
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[ElDiabloConCaca]

Originally Posted by typsarud

I accept: The Mac Mini won't work for DHCP as you need dual network cards, unless you went with a USB NIC.

First of all, you only need a single network connection to do DHCP -- as I stated earlier, we have exactly this setup where I work: one machine that does nothing but DHCP, with a single ethernet port. You do NOT need two network ports to do DHCP.

Still, that doesn't matter at all, because the mini does have two network ports: an ethernet port and AirPort. There, done, DHCP in a gateway situation: internet comes in on ethernet, and DHCP goes out over AirPort.

There really isn't a "home" usage for a Mac server.

What's good for you may not be good for others. The Mac mini server edition does, indeed, have many home server uses. If you like, I can rattle off 10 or more implementations that would be great for home use.

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What is this, spam?

[chevy]

Some security basics.
First layer (connected to WAN) : Firewall 1
Second layer (connected to Firewall 1) : Proxy with DHCP, NAT
Third layer (connected to second port of Proxy) : Firewall 2
Server should be either connected to FW 1 if it is to manage a web server or on local side of Proxy if serving files for local users

All this could be put in a single enclosure. Like a Mac mini. But it NEEDS several Ethernet ports.