Build your own server

Yea, I was thinking of using a port over the 10,000 range, just for.... safety? No idea if that would make it any more secure... speaking of which, how could I make it more secure? The whole point is that I can leave it up all the time so if I ever need, it'll be there. Or would opening that port make it insecure no matter what?

(I feel like I'm hijacking this thread for my personal use =/ )

putting it on a non-standard port wouldnt _really_ make it more secure if you port sniff, but it would stop the opportunist.

If it's just for personal use? Let the webserver only serve to localhost, and make an SSH tunnel (like with the VNC server) to the box.

I have my Xubuntu Server up an running for about a week! I love it. This is my first time on Linux, I'm learning something new everyday. Torrent Flux is FAST.

My wife works from home and knows nothing about computers. Originally I had the network setup through Apple Airport Express. I dowloaded my torrents using BitComet's c++ program. The only problem is that I had to do all my downloading at night because it not only bogged down my wifes computer, but if I was on the network as well internet browsing was painful. Averaging 50kb/s to 150kb/s was ok for me.

Setting up this box was a challenge. My old engineering computer from college was in a cardboard box in the basement. P4s8X 533FSB w/ 18GB 15000RPM SCSI and 15GB 7200RPm SATA. At first no luck. xUbuntu could not mount the drives. So I used Killdisk bootdisk. Killed both drives. Installation ran fine after that. I put the Filesystem on the SCSI and I later mounted the 15GB SATA. I then linked a folder in Torrent Flux folder to the 15 GB. I have to manaully trasfer files, but they are still on torrent flux to download. Pretty cool.

First of all my downloads were ok about the same. Then I pulled out an old Belkin 4 port router and connected the server directly to it. I could route as many connections as I wanted so I did all 140 I think it was. BAMM 700kb/s and higher. No lag on the network at all. My friends can download my movies off of torrunt flux at about 300kb/s

I can search for movies at work and have them download at home!!! Awesome. They are done before I get home.

Belkin router craps out. MY wife is complaining that the internet shuts off. It does. I know want the D-Link DIR-655 for gigabit routing. Do you guys think it will run a lot faster downloading? I can't convince the my wife spending $130 on it though. I'm back on the APPLE express so it's all wireless, back to slow downloading. I might just get the linksys wrt54g. $50 at Circuit City, but Gigabit would be cool.

Cons: Files transfer is EXTREMELY SLOW! on my network over the wireless it takes forever in what used to take 5 minutes to transfer wirelessly. Does this have something to do with SAMBA?

Additional setup. I got a www.no-ip.com address for my dynamic IP. I haven't figured out how to setup the client yet on linux, but I can manually enter it in on the site and it works. I might put the client on the wifes XP it would sen
d the dynamic IP just the same.

Additional setup. NO XBOX360 here, but I have the Philips 5982 USB DVD 1080p upscaler. I want a external USB with Both firewire and USB so I can connect both the DVD and the Linux box. I won't have to transfer files to a flash drive or burn DVD DIVX files.

I think I installed Torrent Flux like 4 times in 4 different directories. Can someone tell me which on is the correct one so I can delete the others. What is the Directory Tree. It works so I don't want to "F" it up.

Nice that you like it... :)

There is a no-ip client in synaptics, just search for it on your Xubuntu box ;)

On the router, Wired is generally faster then wireless, that's why you get the slower speeds when connected through wireless (also about link strenght etc...) I generally use wired for workstations/servers that don't move, and wireless for stuff that moves around :D

Well, I've tried to install the Xubuntu on a old Proliant 3000 i got from my company, it holds a compaq smart array 3200 scsi-controller and 10 scsi disks, 2*9Gb which are in mirror, and 8*32 Gb disks in a JBOD formation,

My question now is if it is possible that i use the array-controller, because i've tried installing with the cd and when it tries to boot into the live-cd or install the system hangs.

Also, ive cleaned out all old configs by using the smartstart cd 5.50
and updated all the bios.

So please HELP.

Thanks in advance, i'm really trying to make this in a headless fileserver for in the basement.

edit: Nevermind the sig :end

Hardware controllers are mostly listed as /dev/cciss/c#d#p#, so that won't be a problem.

You could fiddle a bit with boot parameter, or google your hardware, most have some sort of pointers foating around the net.

Thanks for your tips, This weekend i'll try to get some stuff working.

So i will keep you guys updated here.

http://www.no-ip.com/support/guides/update_clients/setting_up_linux_update_client.html

I found a newbie guide for the NO-IP client. I can now take it off the XP machine.

This was an EXCELLENT article! everything is working fine now. However, I use ubuntu on my regular desktop more than windows, does anyone have a preference for a vnc viewer on ubuntu? i'm using xvnc4viewer, which seems a little faster than the pre installed xvncviewer.

Also, I would greatly prefer it, as would others, if there was another article written to tighten up security and set things up to allow access to the server over the internet. I go to college where they flat out block all torrenting, and this server would be the perfect solution. I could torrent remotely, then ftp the files from home to college. If another article on this isn't possible, it would be a great help to be pointed to the proper how-to's.

Hi there, First off, i must say i agree with spartan, i would be great having access trough internet to the server.

But as we speak im in the middle of installing Xubuntu on my proliant 3000.
The live-cd hang all the time, so now i'm using the alternate version, and i works like a charm , it recognised all my hardware, even the smart array controller 3200.

So i'll let you guys now how it went, for now good bye. ;)

A follow up article which more focuses on security (and some other things) is in the planning stage... Brett asked me to do it (which I would gladly do), but I have been having exams last month. Now just 1 week of finishing up schoolstuff and then I'll start writing it. So be patient ;)

that's excellent news glider! I can't wait.

I did a little work on my own, and knew that firestarter would be a good place to start in securing the server. to get firestarter, install it however you usually would install things(cli via ssh or whatever). After its installed, be SURE to go in firestarter, go to the "policy" tab. In the bottom pane make policies to allow ports 20, 21 (ftp), 80 (http), 22 (ssh) and 5900 (vnc). Either allow only the ip of the computer you remotely admin the server from, or allow everyone, which might be a security liability (i'm no security expert, any security guru's are welcomed to comment). However, allowing everyone access is just simpler as the ip's on my network are all assigned via dhcp, so they are subject to change. Then hit the button to "Apply Policy." When you are done with setting up firestarter, your server will be one step closer to being secure.

Calvin Miner

I must say, this article was awesome. I have had some old PCs sitting around that were just waiting to have some linux installed on them so I could start learning.

I had some issues installing Xubuntu, but I was able to find out the solution on their forums; turns out the Xubuntu terminal app has problems on older pcs. Anyway.. hehe

I have minimal experience with linux aside from some ubuntu foolery, so this was a great opportunity for me to get my feet wet, and get a useful box out of the process. I followed the guide step by step, hit some snags, researched solutions in this thread and elsewhere, and eventually got everything working, so all in all, it was sweet! I even like that I hit problems, because I probably learned more stuff while trying to get them solved than I would have otherwise.

That said, I'm gonna drop my issues and solutions here, in case others don't want to bother, and so that the guide can get updated with the edits, if necessary.

First, FTP setup problem. Others had this issue here with the fix here

The file posted as the fix, which is the same as the file I downloaded from glider's site, and is different from the one in the guide. The one in the guide can be corrected by:

Change line 98:

<directory>

to

<directory *>

and add

</anonymous>

to the end of the file to close the tag set

I also had the vnc problem here and used the fix here. Basically, the VNC server wasn't started. Starting it as suggested fixed the problem, and a reboot likely would have as well, since it was now set for autostart.

I hit an issue changing my root password for the mysql database; my syntax wasn't recognized. The guide says to use

 
SET PASSWORD FOR root@localhost=PASSWORD(‘MYNEWPASSWORD’);

I was able to fix the issue using

SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('MyNewPassword');

Basically, some single quotes were missing, and the ones around the password text are the wrong type (at least when doing a copy/paste)

Near the end, I also received the error mentioned earlier when trying to enter the /tf/ directory. I tried Glider's solution of reinstalling the phpadmin package, but still hit the same error. I rebooted the computer, and everything worked like a charm. I would guess that a reboot would have fixed the issue originally; some service probably was not started.


All in all, the guide was Excellent! I liked hitting the issues I did, and know I am pretty sure that I'm smarter. (though I probably forget something else that my brain was storing.) In any case, Thanks again; hope my notes above help someone.


Heck of a first post huh?

I have followed the instructions as written, however I have had multiple issues, too many to list. WTF??????????????????????/////

@skapegoat

Thank you so much for the great fixes!

Any reason why when the install gets to 15% it just stops working? its on a new laptop as i was just testing the laptop really so wanted to see how this worked, anyone else get this problem

Just my sodding luck - half my components are stuck in a shipping depot thats cut off thanks to the Sheffield flooding.

Dammit!

Originally Posted by skapegoat
...
All in all, the guide was Excellent! I liked hitting the issues I did, and know I am pretty sure that I'm smarter. (though I probably forget something else that my brain was storing.) In any case, Thanks again; hope my notes above help someone.
....
Heck of a first post huh?

Reminds me of a Homer Simpson quote:

Originally Posted by Homer Simpson

“How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?”

Anyways! I want to thank you glider for a good article! I plan to use this in a few months time when I'm upgrading my primary PC..

Well, finally got to get started over the weekend :)

I've changed the parameters a little bit in my server and am using standard Ubuntu and also adding MythTV to it. Since I've not yet got the TV-Card (waiting on stock) I've started on the rest and will worry about Myth/Lirc later once I've got the kit :)

Install went fine, had to modify X a bit to match my TV resolution but that was trivial. VNC broke X but a single reboot sorted it out fine. LAMP setup went fine but like z4114 I got SQL errors when running Torrentflux. Running Ubuntu update took care of that though and thats now up and running properly too.

Netatalk install went fine (AFP server for native mac file sharing) and Samba sort-of works - my macbook can connect via SMB or AFP but my missus's XP home laptop chokes and can't even see it - will have to come back to that one later and get it going.

So far so good :)

Hi, I'm a total newbie when it comes to Linux but I've been wanting to experiment with it for a long time. This file server looked like a great idea, especially since I just bought a new computer and don't know what to do with my old one. Now, I've been following the guide to the letter, but I'm stuck at a rather stupid place. When comes the time to set up Samba, I don't know what you're referring to when you say "Replace all the contents of the file with the following. Make sure you replace "Name" and "Server Name" with the correct data from your XUbuntu installation!" I did not see any of that information during my Xubuntu Installation. All I have is my name, my username, and my computer name (hostname). Can someone help me! I feel so stupid being stuck at this point!

Hey all,

I've been playin and i think i have broke something

i was playing around with chmod & chown, i know how stupid am i.

i found that i could'nt VPN to the server anymore, but i could still ftp and ssh, so i connect up a monitor and it had this messager on screen just before you get to the "desktop"

user's $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignord, this provents the default session and language from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permission, user's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users.

i click the ok button and it continues to load. but i still can't VPN?:(

Please help.

Bulb66

Originally Posted by AFX
lol, I totally forgot to create the user in xubuntu first. that solved my problem

It is rather odd that the instructions did not advise this. I have just spent hours figuring out the instructions are incomplete.

Jonathan

Originally Posted by holeyman
Hi, I'm a total newbie when it comes to Linux but I've been wanting to experiment with it for a long time. This file server looked like a great idea, especially since I just bought a new computer and don't know what to do with my old one. Now, I've been following the guide to the letter, but I'm stuck at a rather stupid place. When comes the time to set up Samba, I don't know what you're referring to when you say "Replace all the contents of the file with the following. Make sure you replace "Name" and "Server Name" with the correct data from your XUbuntu installation!" I did not see any of that information during my Xubuntu Installation. All I have is my name, my username, and my computer name (hostname). Can someone help me! I feel so stupid being stuck at this point!

Name will be the workgroup name you choose, and servername is the hostname. I'm sorry if that wasn't very clear in the guide.

Originally Posted by Bulb66
Hey all,

I've been playin and i think i have broke something

i was playing around with chmod & chown, i know how stupid am i.

i found that i could'nt VPN to the server anymore, but i could still ftp and ssh, so i connect up a monitor and it had this messager on screen just before you get to the "desktop"

user's $HOME/.dmrc file is being ignord, this provents the default session and language from being saved. File should be owned by user and have 644 permission, user's $HOME directory must be owned by user and not writable by other users.

i click the ok button and it continues to load. but i still can't VPN?:(

Please help.

Bulb66

VPN has a lot of flavors, and isn't that easy to install. I'd suggest google-ing some guides consisting of openswan. That's a good VPN endpoint/server IIRC.

I don't quite get the chowning/userrights you are trying to explain. But I advice being carefull with chowning (certainly recursive) and chmodding... They break a lot if done incorrectly.

Originally Posted by JonathanSummers
It is rather odd that the instructions did not advise this. I have just spent hours figuring out the instructions are incomplete.

Jonathan

The first useraccount is created with the credentials you give during the install wizzard. So how is this not mentioned?

Well, making good progress :)

Torrentflux is fully up, as is Samba and Netatalk, however I found the smb.conf file specified in the guide didn't work, instead I used the default one and just added the numerous shares I wanted to it - turns out theres a perfectly good shares admin tool for that.

For anyone interested in adding Netatalk (Apple AFP file sharing server) then be aware the Ubuntu repository version sends passwords in the clear. Instead use the guide here to recompile using SSL here.

Still waiting on the bits of kit I need to add Myth to the mix though :(