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**cantab** · Mar 02, 2009, 09:56 AM

Re: suggestions needed for server OS, semi odd requirements

Originally posted by sithlord48

i have recently built a new machine.. so my old machine i would like to retire to my closet as a server. fitting being its config, its always provided a dual server/desktop role within my home network.

Machine Specs:

MoBO:Asus k8vse-deluxe (onboard ac97 audio and marvel lan)
Proc/Ram: Amd Athlon64 3800+ 1.5 GB DDR 333mhz
Video: 32mb Geforce 2mx (AGP 4x. vga and svideo out)
Optical Drive:20x Light-on dvd-+ r/rw drive (IDE 2nd Channel Master)
HD1: 80 Maxtor (IDE 1st Channel Master)
HD2: 160GB (IDE 3rd channel Master)
HD3: 320GB(SATA1)
HD4: 750GB(SATA2)

The current config:

os

p sp3
servers: wamp(web)+hfs(files)
SMB shares for the other computers (not using "simple" sharing so you have to log in and have rights)
remote desktop

the task:
what i would like to do is get windoze off this machine and have it set up as a server,with maybe a lightweight gui perhaps xfce or fluxbox. now the problem i have is that i have some odd requirements(windows can't do them all easily), and i don't know if i can manage all of them w/ a *nix system,most of them i know can be easily done however and would provide a much faster responce time from the other machines in the network.

the requirements.

1. must be able to correctly talk to a mixed OS network (xp,linux machines and a mac w/ os 10.4) should be no issue now a days.

2. nfs would be preferred for shares for the linux machines and mac. smb for windows and my ps2 (this i can do but i don't know much about setting up nfs server)

An alternative to nfs may be sftp. There's no setup required on the server, just install ssh. On the client, you can use sshfs if you want to mount a remote directory. Also your traffic is encrypted with it. Drawback is it may not perform as well as nfs.

3.a proper lamp server that i can config w/o remote desktop or vnc

Don't know an awful lot about lamp, but I do know that the best remote desktop, if you'll tolerate proprietary software, is NX.

4. ftp or better yet something like hfs

See aforementioned discussion of sftp. Unless you want an anonymous ftp server for downloads, sftp is probably better, certainly easier to setup.

5. it must handle all torrent related stuff for the network (if i download a torrent file my computer should send it there via a shared folder and the server should just start dling it. also some how letting me know its done would be cool too.

Hmmm...interesting and clever idea. Not quite sure how you'd do it. Presumably the bittorrent program, running on the server, would monitor the specific shared folder, and automatically download any torrent files it finds there. You may find you need to write a seperate monitoring script.

6. remote desktop/vnc server this must work quickly i use vnc now for this and idk if its xp but is very slow and i have tried many diffrent configs, remote desktop even worse.

See above comment about NX. It's fast because it understands how X windows works. However it only works for Linux server.

7. i would also like to NOT have to format the ntfs formated drives 3 + 4 because there full of documents that i need, is there an easy way to convert them to ext3 or another recommended FS. (note the 750 has 11gb free the 320 about 70gb)

No. Linux can access them, but I'm not sure if ntfs write is 100% reliable. You could use a unioning filesystem, with the NTFS as read only and another partition read-write, but it's a complicated solution.

8.system load should be as low as possible from above 7 items, as i would like to give it "jobs" like convert this video or compress this, etc.

so what os should i use for this? and what programs or suggested reading should i look at to accomplish the task at hand.

thanks for reading,and for ne suggestions.

Your last requirement is the key one. Everything else (except #7) should be fine with pretty much ANY Linux distro. But when you start seeking performance, you may find things differ. In general, avoid having needless things running, in particular a graphical desktop.

**sithlord48** · Mar 02, 2009, 11:52 AM

Re: suggestions needed for server OS, semi odd requirements

cantab thanks for the input...

NX i have never heard of but i will give that a shot, vnc is just to slow for me even in the network,

as for the torrent thing i am currently doing this w/ utorrent (as i have xp on the box right now) it scans a folder and when it sees a torrent there loads it then moves it (so it don't load it twice) i can do this also w/ vuze/azurith but its not so instant takes scans on a timer,

i really would like hfs over ftp if you don't know about hfs its just a http file server w/ ftp like setup but for client side only need a browser good cause i use my cell phone to dl stuff quite often

#7 now thats the kicker cause i know i can use ntfs-3g and i have before w/ those disks but i would rather not cause of the not 100% working on the write side ( i have never had a problem , but that don't mean ne thing as we all know) suspose i need to make space to empty them and format the disks...

again thanks for your suggestions.. gonna do some further research on distros and see if i can get something for most of this "out of the box"

**sithlord48** · Jul 10, 2009, 04:59 PM

Re: suggestions needed for server OS, semi odd requirements

I wanted to make a little guide about setting up every thing that i needed because i found stuff all over the place and figured that if any one is trying to set up something similar it would be easy to follow these steps (omitting or adding where necessary) to set this all up.

now i have had to do this twice because HD1 in the machine died (and it had the os on it) so seeing how i just set it again i know this method is working at least twice in a row.

so first off the machine stats. as i said when i started this thread the machine is

Mobo: Asus k8vse-deluxe (on-board ac97 audio and marvel lan)
Proc/Ram: Amd Athlon64 3800+ 1.5 GB DDR 333mhz
Video: 32mb Geforce 2mx (AGP 4x. vga and s video out)
Optical Drive:20x Light-on dvd-+ r/rw drive (IDE 2nd Channel Master)
HD1: 80 Maxtor <-RIP (IDE 1st Channel Master) NOW 80GB Seagate (was just around the house)
HD2: 160GB (IDE 3rd channel Master)
HD3: 320GB(SATA1)
HD4: 750GB(SATA2)

SERVER OS INSTALL

Installed ubuntu-desktop 8.10 64-bit (i disabled on-board audio).
ok so the first time i did this all my drives were NTFS and i managed to moved all my data around and one by one format the drive to ext3.

if you have one or more EXT3 partition (i.e my other drives) during the set up of your disks give them mount points by editing each partition to use ext3 (do not format) and a mount point for each partition. (this is the same if you have other native file systems on a drive like riserfs)

if you have one or more NTFS partitions you do not want to touch those yet.

other then that i set up as normal during install

POST OS INSTALL
Tackling The Items Listed Above
#0 quick side note:
i needed the server to have static ip address (it makes everything easer in the end) <thanks to genii in the irc> who suggested i manually edit my /etc/network/interfaces file (after setting in the gui failed after a few days)

i found this for some options to set them on each machine (used for ezer nfs on the clients)

Now Back To that list above .. were gonna be starting with Number 2 because item number 1 is just really not an issue.

Originally posted by Item #2

nfs would be preferred for shares for the linux machines and mac. smb for windows and my ps2 (this i can do but i don't know much about setting up nfs server

well i did end up using both samba and nfs, i use nfs for the machines that need rw (since its all linux that need rw.. this is very easy,)
i found this usefull page on setting up nfs

and samba for "guests", windows and my ps2.
i found some useful info on setting up samba as well...

now the best way to config samba is to edit
/etc/samba/smb.conf
manually and your shares just be sure that the user you are using in samba has the proper permissions in the directories you want to share. Also remember to restart samba after editing the conf file. Use this command to restart it

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

can also substute restart for stop or start when needed

Originally posted by Item #3

a proper lamp server that i can config w/o remote desktop or vnc

This one also Ended up being way ezer then expected. Simply install the following packages apache2 php5 and mysql-server and place your files in /var/www (you will need root permission to write there)

[code=install lamp server] sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 mysql-server [/code]

Originally posted by Item #4

ftp or better yet something like hfs

I completely cheated on this one just installed wine and used hfs I am happy to report it works GREAT!

Originally posted by Item #5

it must handle all torrent related stuff for the network (if i download a torrent file my computer should send it there via a shared folder and the server should just start dling it. also some how letting me know its done would be cool too.

This One also was easy using Gnome you can use transmission , with kde you can use ktorrent, if your want one that runs reguardless of gui/ or with out one you can use torrent-flux just install it from the repos.

If you use transmission or ktorrent then the set up is basicly the same turn on the web interface for the program, SET A PASSWORD! And look through the options for open torrents from automaticly and auto save torrents to , also disable any popup like a detail or confim dialog that would prevent it from auto starting.

to use it you open a browser and give it the servers ip with the port (transmission's is 9091 default) and log in with the username /pass you set up .

Originally posted by Item #6

remote desktop/vnc server this must work quickly i use vnc now for this and idk if its xp but is very slow and i have tried many different configs, remote desktop even worse.

ok this again has more then one solution many of them in fact, cantab suggested I try NX and did I ever. nx is awesome, not only can u connect like vnc to a gui desktop , but it does even better then that you can spawn a new session , meaning that the session running locally on display0:0 is never shown remotely, you can also choose the desktop environment (although I have no idea how to set up new ones in the list, or custom for lxde or xfce), but it does come with options for both gnome and kde. Installing nx was not very hard and requires that you set up ssh first,

SSH is easy to install, just install the openssh-server and openssh-client packages (and client where needed elsewhere). More Info on ssh can be found here.
Then you can install nx server, info on installing nx
Be sure to install the client on machines you wish to connect to the nx server, once its all set up try it out, and remember you have to log out when your done.

Since I like to be able to see that user on display0:0, is vnc , basically in gnome you just look in the control panel and set the options under remote desktop, to allow remote desktop , SET A PASSWORD!, and disable any prompts that would stop an unassisted connection. If you have kubuntu you might just want to install the vino-server package (although I have not done so my self as my server does not have kde) or use one the the many other vnc servers in the repos.

Also there is ssh for when you want to do stuff without a gui. Ssh allows terminal access it p0wns everything for speed.

Originally posted by Item #7

i would also like to NOT have to format the ntfs formated drives 3 + 4 because there full of documents that i need, is there an easy way to convert them to ext3 or another recommended FS. (note the 750 has 11gb free the 320 about 70gb)

This item did have a non format solution by using ntfs-3g, but for speed reasons and the fact that ntfs is closed source and not 100% perfect with ntfs-3g and writing, I just moved all my data around on the disks till I could empty one and format it to ext3
and note on formating drive for data: if you format under (k)ubuntu the system will save 5% by default for root (common with linux) to avoid this usage on drives with data not related in any way to the OS. You can change the amount of space reserved to 0% with tune2fs -m 0 (from terminal).
DO NOT do this on your '/' or '/home' partitions doing so can result in a completely bad time if you run out of disk space!

Originally posted by [url

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DiskSpace]A[/url] certain percentage of an ext3 filesystem is dedicated to root, as a way of preventing a rogue process from filling the disk to the point that the system is unusable. This dedicated portion is 5%

Originally posted by Item #8

system load should be as low as possible from above 7 items

Ok this is not a problem item but more of a want over all. With All of my stuff running my avg. system load on the server is <1% (because i don't have a zillion users only 2 or 3 max at a time) more users will = more load plain and simple but, there is plenty of my system left over for various tasks I give it on the fly.

Thanks for reading hopefully this helps some one get there stuff set up.

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[SOLVED]how to setup server (semi odd requirements)

[SOLVED]how to setup server (semi odd requirements)

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