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Well, it's technically a laptop being used as a server but it's all good. This unit runs out of our home and serves email/webmail for a dozen users, a light traffic public web site and all of our LAN functions (I'm able to safely combine both the WAN and LAN features onto one platform due to strong firewalling and running on Linux).

Hardware: Acer Aspire 3000 laptop, AMD Sempron 3000 Mobile, 1GB DDR, complete with a flopping lid, scratches and chipped paint; an item from our giveaway stash at work.

OS: Ubuntu Linux 6.06 LTS, Server edition

Server applications: Apache2 (with PERL and PHP), Sendmail (with MailScanner and SpamAssassin), BIND 9, Squid (proxy and ad blocking), proftpd, nfs, sshd

Power management: Wireless and sound cards disabled via the OS (no option for them in the BIOS), CPU downclocked from 1.8gHz to 800mHz, laptop-mode controls the HDD, the lid stays closed (so the screen stays off)


This little guy replaces 2 old desktops and one really old Proliant server (the stand-up kind that's made of steel and weighs around 100 pounds, with a whopping 12GB RAID5 SCSI array) that were handling these functions. Those old units served us well for years but the noise and heat they produce has gotten to be too much.

I will miss the RAID array but it was so small that I'll get over it pretty quickly. The laptop syncs its important data to my desktop to provide some redundancy in lieu of a RAID.

After just one night with the 3 units turned off the open room they share with other equipment was 8F cooler than usual.

The old units were much more power efficient than newer desktop and server models but we will still gain a nice savings in our electric bill. The old units together pulled about 5.75kWh/day which cost us USD $21.25/month. The laptop draws just 0.5kWh/day at a cost of USD $1.85/month.


Here's the wattage reading for the laptop under a normal load:

http://www.cyberarmor.net/images/ss/laptop-server-w.jpg

Are you using inetd or xinetd or do you run your servers standalone?

I run proftpd and qpopper via inetd but the rest are standalone.

Edit: The only reason those two are running via inetd is because 1) it's about the only way to start qpopper as a daemon, and 2) dpkg suggested setting proftpd to use inetd for low usage rates, and we only use the FTP feature a handful of times per year.

I'd look into running a lighter weight http server or also running apache from inited if you can.

Thanks for the idea but I have never cared for inetd/xinetd. I prefer the SysV init style of standalone items for the ease of administration and status checking.

Both inetd and xinetd seem to be dying as well. Ubuntu 6.06+ ships with neither by default. I had to manually grab inetd when I wanted it for qpopper.

As for a lighter web server I don't know of any that will handle both PHP and PERL. Additionally apache2 doesn't have a very large resource footprint at all. It spins up a few children but then goes idle. Do you know of a lighter web server for Linux that will handle PHP and PERL?

Scrinchy. Though I have never used it. Also, what about putting in less memory like 256M or something ;)

I'm just throwing out ides now for fun. So you can ignore me if you like :) It is just that you got me thinking.

Scrinchy has a small footprint until you invoke PERL or PHP as it relies on external modules for anything other than HTML, and those modules are not only big but are TSR just like Apache's. In other words once you go beyond HTML Scrinchy isn't a smaller server anymore. hehe

As for the memory amount I don't have any spare memory around that will fit this machine, and what's in there is a single stick of 1GB. I'll keep looking for a smaller stick, though.

Like I said, I'm just having fun thinking about this. I don't think any of my servers are running nearly as little power. I'm going to have to go to think geek and pick myself up one of those power line monitors to see what I can do.

lol, Tom -

I put my other threads about getting the most efficiency out of a (possibly) vehicle-based laptop and PDA in the "Fuel Economy" forum and you moved them to the General forum, where they remain. So I placed this one in General and you moved it to Environmental.

It's like playing whack-a-mole. ;)

LOL sorry about that. I guess I need more catagories, your catching on.

Again, sorry about that. I guess some topics are hard to catagorize.

Maybe I should create a non automotive energy efficiency thread.