# Story: Fedora Server Edition and Raspberry Pi & Co – First Draft!

#### Table of Content / Master Plan

* Introduction: Analysis of how today's SBCs can be used with Fedora Server. There are four characteristics in particular that are repeatedly praised as typically advantageous in the discussion:
* Favorable price
* Performance sufficient for everyday tasks
* Sustainability, low power consumption
* Small and can be placed in all conceivable places

* Which SBC to choose:
Criteria for selection of an SBC. Different requirements apply for productive use than for experimental or DIY use.
* Performance: How do SBCs compare to Intel mini computers?
Hypothesis: Performance difference makes SBCs less suitable for interactive operations, but more suitable for background services.
* Power consumption: Practical (and selective) comparison in typical application scenarios.
Hypothesis: Especially suitable for moderate background services that need to be available 24/7.
* Ready for a productive deployment?
In some places ARM Fedora Server reminds more of DIY than a professional tool
* Installation of SPI 2nd stage bootloader
* Switch from a slow bootloader storage to a performant storage for system (kernel) and data.

# 1. Introduction
Fedora Server Edition is also available for Single Board Computers (SBC) like the well-known Raspberry Pi. It started as an experimentation and education tool about a decade ago and for the intended purpose, one goal of the hardware development was to create an inexpensive device. This required compromises in performance.

What's a solid, professional server system like Fedora Server Edition doing on such a device?

Over the last years, the technology evolved into an affordable but sufficiently powerful tool suitable for many task of everyday life.

Fedora Server Edition Installation media for ARM SBCs have existed for a long time, without earning a lot of attention so far. It installs a dedicated modern, solid server system and works on an application level in a familiar fashion.

We want to investigate whether SBCs are suitable for productive use and which application scenarios are worth considering. The origins of SBCs point the focus first and foremost to the private sector. However, even a deployment in a professional context or in small to medium businesses would be worth considering.

# 2. Which SBC to choose
Fedora is considered difficult to run on SBCs and is only bootable on selected models. This is not so much a problem of Fedora as of the manufacturers, who extensively use OSS software for their boards themselves, but are conversely very hesitant to make their driver adaptations available as OSS upstream.

The limitation to selected models is due precisely to Fedora's advantage of consistently insisting on OSS software without exception. Thus, with Fedora all advantages of OSS are available for use on SBC devices as well, especially security and unrestricted, unlocked, and reliable usability.

1. Open Source friendlyness und Fedora supported
2. CPU Power and Performance (at least 64 bit)
3. RAM, 2 GB at minimum, 4 GB recommended
4. Wired network connection with 1 GB speed continuously, no throughput slowed down by hardware properties
5. Availability of high-speed mass storage, Sata or PCIe / NVMe, without bandwidth limitations
6. Bootability via onboard firmware (SPI) or internal high-speed storage
7. Solid and compact case to protect hardware and efficient use of space
8. Stackability for safe and long-term accommodation
9. Efficient and economical power consumption

### Some tested reference models
The following list contains some models available to the Server Working Group.

| **Model** | **(1)** | **(2)** | **(3)** | **(4)** | **(5)** | **(6)** | **(7)** | **(8)** | **(9)** | Sum |
|:----------------: |:-----------------: |:-----------: |:------------: |:---------------------: |:----------------: |:----------------: |:---------: |:------------------: |:------------------: | :---:
| LibreComputer Roc-RK3399-PC (Firefly Maker) | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ??/18 |
| Pine64 RockPro64 | +2 | +2 | +2 | +2 | +1 | 0 | +2 | +2 | +2 | 15/18 | |
| Radxa Rpck Pi 4a | +1 | +2 | +2 | +2 | +2 | +1 | +2 | 0 | +2 | 14/18 |
| Rasapberry Pi 4 | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ?? | ??/18 |
| Yet another model | | | | | | | | | |
| one more model | | | | | | | | | |
| last model | | | | | | | | | |

Possible additional models
- Khadas Edge V
- Odroid H3+ (x86_64 SBC)
- Additional models?

Maybe: model-specific installation Quick guide and workarounds

# 3. Performance
Comparison of 2 – 3 common tasks
* Building Fedora Server User Documentation (includes creating a podman container, download a UI toolset, converting the adoc source files to html, starting a local web server)
* Startup of wildfly and retrieving a greeting page (includes startiong a JVM, starting Wildfly itself, running Wildfly)
* Executing some Postgresql Test procedures

Details TBD

# 4. Power efficiency
Compare a set of 4 general tasks running w.g. 1 Hour , e.g.
* Starting and Stopping (again and again) Wildfly inkl. JVM
* Building (again and again) Fedora Server User Documentation
* Streaming mp3 and video files
* Copy a X gb File

Details TDB

# 5. Selected use cases
(everything getting part of Fedora Server documentation, use cases)

### Fedora Server on SBC as dedicated Cluster Monitor
* Tester: pboy?
* Exmple: Dedicated, „offband“ OpenNMS Server
* Advantage of Fedora Server on SBC
** Solid operating system for unattended long term usage
** Low power consumption
* Installation Quick guide and workarounds

### Fedora Server on SBC as secure Cockpit access proxy

* Tester: ? coolshirtguy? mowest? pboy?
* Fedora Server on SBC to improve security of Cockpit server administration
* Configuring Fedora on SBC as Cockpit proxy to access remote Cockpit instances via ssh and key based authentification (instead of https and password login)

### Fedora Server on SBC as backup server
* Tester: eseyman ??

### Fedora Server on SBC as identity manager
* Tester: eseyman ??

#### h4Fedora Server on SBC as mail server
* Tester: jwhimpel? pboy?

# 6. Beneficial improvements

In some places ARM Fedora Server reminds more of DIY than a professional tool
* Installation of SPI 2nd stage bootloader (eg. Like tow-boot)
* Switch from a slow bootloader storage to a performant storage for system (kernel) and data.