Low Power, Small Form Factor, and High Utility Home Server - Part IV

Low Power, Small Form Factor, and High Utility

Home Server

Part IV

(Be careful.  This definitely voids your warranty.)

Part I:  Results Summary - and some pics
Part II: Back Story - Why the heck would you spend your free time doing this?
Part III: Build Detail
Part IV: Future additions

Part IV: Future Plans

Here are some other thoughts on next steps for this project.  

• To Do:  OpenVPN server
• Ideally I'd like to use this as an OpenVPN server.  
• Benefits: PKI Certificates, Very Strong Encryption and Authentication, username, password and Google Two Factor Authentication!  Full L3 VPN tunnel with routed Tun interfaces.  Optionally TAP interfaces for a L2 VPN.
• Cons:  Unfortunately the folks that compiled the linux kernel in the image I used didn't include support for Tun.
• "zgrep TUN /proc/config.gz" gives me  "# CONFIG_TUN is not set".  :(
• Since there's no support for Tun/Tap I openvpn won't start - rightly so as it'd be useless without it.  
• Therefore my options are:
• Compile a new kernel
• not fun
• time consuming
• Run VPN elsewhere in my network.
• Perhaps on my router?
• I haven't decided which way to go yet, but I'm leaning towards the new kernel.  
• To Do:  Make a backup of the microSD card using dd.  
• I've been putting this off for quite some time.  But I think now is a good time as I've got it to a (somewhat) steady state.  
• The data on the HDD changes slowly, but the microSD is fairly static at this point.
• Future project modifications/fine tuning.
• Case mod:
• Initially when I put all the various components into the case, I (stupidly) had the power cord going out one end and the ethernet cable going out the opposite end.  This error wasn't immediately obvious to me as I was fighting with too long USB cables and not enough room in the case for them.  However, once I got it fully assembled I quickly realized my error.  Fortunately this was easily corrected and you can see the results here:

• Heat sink for A10 Chip on MK802. [pick of chip]
• When the MK802 was in it's original / fully enclosed state, it got quite warm.  See Video here.  I didn't measure mine, but 50 degrees Centigrade feels about right.
• With the MK802's back cover removed and placed inside a larger, metal case, I haven't noticed any heat at all and it has been working well for a few weeks.
• There have been a few heat sink mods done on the MK802, here's my favorite, but I'd probably only do the A10 SOC (System on a Chip).  This chip contains both the 1 Ghz CPU and the 500 kHz GPU.
• Add Power Switch - I've got my eyes open for a nice little power switch for this project.  Once found, I'll be sure to integrate one into the back/exterior of the case.
• Power Jack - I'll also add a power jack so that the power cord will not have to run interior to the case to be plugged in.
• Do away with the power brick and run it from Power over Ethernet (PoE) from my switch.  
• Power LED (maybe) - Also contemplating a simple power led (probably on the back) to indicate power-on status.
• USB Camera - mjpeg streamer

EDIT: 7/27/2013

• Added RS232 Serial Console - I thought it would be nice to have a good, old-fashioned RS232 Serial console on this little guy.  So I added a spare USB to Serial Adapter I had lying around: a Keyspan USA-19HS.  The process is very simple:  
• Plug in USB to Serial adapter - kernel takes care of the drivers and you get /dev/ttyUSB0
• A simple init script was needed to enable console logins on ttyUSB0.  

Part I:  Results Summary - and some pics
Part II: Back Story - Why the heck would you spend your free time doing this?
Part III: Build Detail
Part IV: Future additions