Project Grande Paix is my personal data center project. After months of watching various Linux and small computer enthusiast videos on YouTube, all in the wake of the DreamHost debacle I dealt with 9+ months ago, I decided to start building my own data center. The proliferation of aggressive AI theft training and quantum computers capable of breaking password protection in mere minutes has given me the added impetus to embark on this project. I need to get my data off of the cloud.
The name, Grande Paix, refers to a peace treaty among the First Nations peoples that was signed on 04-Aug-1701 by Louis-Hector de Callière, governor of New France, and 1300 representatives of 39 Indigenous nations. As the computer systems I build and maintain will be named after these Indigenous nations, especially the nations of my ancestors, it felt appropriate.
The ultimate goal is to build a cluster of small footprint computers working together to host numerous host-based processing and data storage capabilities. At some point, this cluster will be accessible from the Internet at large, but that is a future, somewhat scary project requiring more security knowledge than I currently have.
The First Step: Huron
Huron is the name given to the Orange Pi 5 Plus computer that I recently built. It is a nod to my First Nations ancestor, Catherine Annennontak. Coincidentally, it was the name of the street in Dracut where I grew up.
The first steps are the tedious ones. I need to make sure that the OS is all up-to-date and that all the software I need has been installed. I need to set up and/or modify root passwords, administrator accounts and the various user accounts for myself and the apps I’m going to build and deploy. I need to rename the machine name from its ‘orangepi5plus’ default and all sorts of other administrative tasks. It’s all a bit tedious, but necessary as I want to remove all “known” access points.
Following these basic steps, I will need to install the various pieces of software that I need: MySQL database, Apache web server, etc. All of these services will need some administrative work in addition to the software install. As I’ve done some of this already on DreamHost’s OpenCompute platform, and took voluminous notes, this should go smoothly.
Finally, I will start improving and building upon my network administration knowledge. For instance, I want these systems to have a dedicated IP address assigned to it from the DHCP server running on my cable modem, if this is even allowed. (Foreshadowing: it is.) As I build and/or add new computer systems and storage, I want to be able to have them communicate as a connected cluster and this capability will require the right software and network hardware and administration setup. And that’s before I make it publicly available to the Internet at large.
The Roadmap
My initial target will be three systems, probably all Orange Pi 5 Plus systems like the current one, all connected with a 2.5Gb switch. While the first system has WiFi, Bluetooth, a 256GB eMMC memory module and a 2TB SSD as extended storage, the other two will not have wireless capability and will each have 4TB SSDs. These future systems will be named Abénaki and Algonquin, also for my ancestors: Marie Olivier Sylvestre (orig: 8chista8ichi8e Manitouabe8ich) and Paule Ouripehenemick.
The networking switch’s uplink will attach to the cable modem via one of its 4 Ethernet ports and the three systems will connect to the other ports. Software will be installed to treat this conglomeration as a cohesive whole, although which software has yet to be determined. It’ll probably be Kubernetes, but could also be Open Stack or something else entirely. I’m figuring this out as I go.
Regardless, the 3-system cluster will have 12 performance ARM cores, 12 efficiency ARM cores, 96 GB of RAM and 10.75TB of SSD/eMMC storage. As a personal data center, it should serve my purposes quite well.