Is there any point of virtualization your whole network computing in one box? Like with Unraid or something?
-Router
-dns Server
-Storage server (zfs)
-Plex Server
-Torrent server
-Desktop Environment (Gaming)
or is this going full Plaid?
If you have no other option. It’s a single point of failure to bring everything down though so in practice it’s not a setup to strive for if you value reliability.
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I mean if you want to have the most shitty network possixle, go for it.
Lemme know how that packet collision goes
Is there any point of virtualization your whole network computing in one box?
Because you think it would be a fun project that would teach you something. It’s a bad idea for pretty much every other reason.
The minute your video drivers and the ZFS kernel module both don’t build properly on a kernel update, your router’s dead too, and none of your virtual machines work because their filesystem can’t be read. And you’re using a customized enterprise kernel (Unraid) on top of that.
It might work, but I wouldn’t trust my own data to it.
Keep the network and data storage out of it, and it could be a fun playground.
as one of my coworkers said about unraid its a scam i cant give any advice on unraid i have only experience with unix or linux.
If you want to use zfs user ubuntu they have the best support for zfs on of all linux distors. I use zfs for all my bare metal servers and either run lxd containers on them with docker or podman inside the lxd container or i use kvm vms.
But i really also like centos either use 7 or 8 i know of experience that rhel/centos 7 run rock solid and with lvm you cant do much coo stuff.
like run routers on bare metal i have seen issues with networking in virtual routers but that was with with virtual interfaces on both kvm and vmware esxi vm if you do a pci passtrouth with a networking nic you will probably have good performance . Dont use usb nics they will die.
I work for a company that does mission critical systems on linux and windows and i promise you windows server have so much more issues than linux.
my coworkers said about unraid its a scam
You can go to the website, purchase a license, and activate the software. It does what they say, more or less.
Sure, you can do the exact same stuff for free with any modern Linux distro, but people like appliances.
It might not be right for you, but I think it’s unfair to call it a scam.
I did something very similar to this a year ago. here’s my post of absurd length about how it went, along with some of the plus’ and minus’ of it 
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You didn’t joke about the length of it haha, really interesting tho
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If you are setting up a lab environment - sure. I do this with pfsense and various VMs in a copy of VMware workstation at work.
I use multiple VMware LAN segments and pfsense to set up multiple virtual sites for things like multi-site AD. I use pfsense to do latency and packet loss simulation between virtual sites to test how applications work in real-world shitty network environments. Can also do network simulation via GNS3 and VIRL router images.
I’m doing this on a workstation with no direct connectivity to the internet (it’s behind a proper firewall, and the “internet” for the sites i run is NATed again upstream by my real firewall).
However, just because you CAN, doesn’t necessarily make it a good idea for all situations.
As above, single point of failure, and for any of your stuff to be working, you need to fire up a fairly power hungry box (as opposed to just a 5-10 watt fanless router, access point, etc.)
Also, if that one box gets hacked, you’re fucked.
So in summary:
- Lab: fine
- real world: i would not recommend it
edit:
the only reason i’m using vmware workstation is due to familiarity with VMnetwork set up. I really need to get my head around how KVM does the same stuff one day.
This is why I come here. Thank you.
No problem