I could have used VMware’s built-in replication feature or a third party tool like Veeam or Zerto which are designed for this kind of replication, but they all require vCenter and I wanted to see what could be done without additional investment. You can use the internal disks formatted as VMFS-5 volumes natively to store your virtual machines, but I wanted to ensure that I had an effective backup plan that fit into my current system. I’m using pfSense in a virtual machine linked with a VPN to a Cisco RV180. By setting things up as an extended private network, the servers can talk to each other through normal channels without opening up everything to the internet or doing firewall rules on a machine by machine basis. This is important since my mail server is a member of an Open Directory domain that is hosted on another machine. This also allows you to do some interesting stuff like create a private network on your ESXi instance where your machines live, but are connected to your own network via VPN so it becomes just another subnet that behaves like an extension of your network. One nice feature of running ESXi is that you can easily create a set of virtual networks with a router instead of just putting your virtual machines directly on the internet.
#Mac mini server hosting full#
I went with an upgraded Mac Mini with a 500 Gb SSD + a 500 Gb internal HD, running ESXi from an SD Card which leaves the full disk space available for ESXi. Or (shameless plug) ping me for consulting assistance.
#Mac mini server hosting install#
Yes, I could have done the same thing with a base install and VMware Fusion, Parallels or VirtualBox, but the result is not as efficient nor flexible enough for what I have in mind.įor the notes and instructions, I’m assuming you have a basic understanding of ESXi so I won’t be filling in a ton of screen shots, although if I get some feedback, I’ll go back and try and add some more in. This also means that I’ll be able to consolidate some of my other VPS and web hosting services onto this machine. But now I find that some of the Mac Mini colocation services will install ESXi as a standard install, which makes it considerably more attractive since I am no longer limited to one OS instance and can run multiple OS environments. I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time, but put off by the cost. This meant that all mail destined to my domain ended up bouncing after a certain amount of time which was the impetus to finally go out and get a Mac Mini hosted in a datacenter. I had an unfortunate incident where the local telco cut off my DSL line by accident and as a result I was without internet connectivity for almost three weeks starting around Christmas.
One key component is my mail server, currently hosted on OS X Server in a VM running on ESXi at home. Up until now, I’ve been handling my own hosting via my home DSL service for a number of years now, with a few VPS instances and Squarespace service for some other web sites.
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