Simon COK, don't mind trying. I used centos as the OS, its not as good as ubuntu as a desktop, but is great for a server. Make a list of what you want. When you say mail server, do you intend to have mail delivered to your server? If so, you need a domain, and a fixed ip address to point the dns server to.
No reason why not BTW, thats just what I do, you just need the domain naim. If it helps I can run the DNS for you.
I use sendmail for the MTA and cyrus as the mailstore, though you could use other MTA's (postfix for example). Print server isn;t something I have done myself, but should be a simple enough job for samba. And if you are setting up a mailserver its worth installing spamassasin to filter your mail, and possibly a virus filter if you need.
Nick
Linux Music server
#1 Linux Music server
Rather than hijack the computer audio thread I've started a new one based around setting up a Linux based music (and other things) server.
#2
Ok, well, first you meed to find the server, if you intend to use raid, it needs to have space for two identical disks. If you can use a box with space for three its better in some ways. You can use the first disk as the / or root partition (in linux all the disks are joined together into a tree structure, starting with the root. All sub directories hang off the root, and other drives, or partitions on drives are mounted onto the tree and look like extra partitions. So there isn't the C:, D:, etc that you have for windows)
To try and prevent loosing all your hard copied music, you can use whats called RAID 1 (raid = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks), the one means the two disks are mirrored (there are various other types). Anything written to the disk is copied to both drives, so if one fails, all the music is on the remaining one, and all that needs doing is replaceing the failed disk, reinserting it into the raid array, and the system will copy all the files onto the new disk, so you again have two identical copies.
You can use raid on the entire filesystem, so the /boot partition (where the startup files live) and / the root of the filesystem can both been raid arrays. But its simpiler if /boot and / is on a smallish disk allong with the rest of the operating system files, and the two big disks for storing music are set aside as a raid array, and mounted off / as (for example) /music.
That does mean that if the small disk fails, the system is down, but the music is still safe, and just needs a new small disk, and installing the OS again. Which hopefully by the end of this Simon will know how to do.
I wonder if the best way of doing this to make it helpful, is for Simon to do much of the typing, and I or anyone else with useful suggestions can add to it as it goes.
To try and prevent loosing all your hard copied music, you can use whats called RAID 1 (raid = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks), the one means the two disks are mirrored (there are various other types). Anything written to the disk is copied to both drives, so if one fails, all the music is on the remaining one, and all that needs doing is replaceing the failed disk, reinserting it into the raid array, and the system will copy all the files onto the new disk, so you again have two identical copies.
You can use raid on the entire filesystem, so the /boot partition (where the startup files live) and / the root of the filesystem can both been raid arrays. But its simpiler if /boot and / is on a smallish disk allong with the rest of the operating system files, and the two big disks for storing music are set aside as a raid array, and mounted off / as (for example) /music.
That does mean that if the small disk fails, the system is down, but the music is still safe, and just needs a new small disk, and installing the OS again. Which hopefully by the end of this Simon will know how to do.
I wonder if the best way of doing this to make it helpful, is for Simon to do much of the typing, and I or anyone else with useful suggestions can add to it as it goes.
Whenever an honest man discovers that he's mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest.
#3
Hi Nick,
Happy new year,
Ideally I'm planning a very low power machine so it can be left on all the time without costing too much, plus there's a longer term plan to solar power it.
A nice piece of kit looks to be http://www.aleutia.com/products/intel_atom_pc.html. Space for 2 x hard drives, 25W on full load (about 2 when sleeping) and should be nice and quiet.
Not quite ideal in that one of the drives would have to house the OS (unless I run it off a USB stick...).
Any thoughts on other pieces of kit to look at before I part with my cash?
Simon C
Happy new year,
Ideally I'm planning a very low power machine so it can be left on all the time without costing too much, plus there's a longer term plan to solar power it.
A nice piece of kit looks to be http://www.aleutia.com/products/intel_atom_pc.html. Space for 2 x hard drives, 25W on full load (about 2 when sleeping) and should be nice and quiet.
Not quite ideal in that one of the drives would have to house the OS (unless I run it off a USB stick...).
Any thoughts on other pieces of kit to look at before I part with my cash?
Simon C
#4
Yep, that looks nice, if you were using RAID (not sure what you intend) then both drives would need to hold the OS. MIght be worth getting with the optical drive though.
This is what Ian used http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149948
This is what Ian used http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149948
Whenever an honest man discovers that he's mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest.
#5
Touch wood mine has been working perfectly. For now it sits behind my TV in the lounge and I can't hear it even when the TV off. It consumes very little when in standby (can't remember just how much but its negligible.). Nice one Nick 
"Its good enough for Government work."
#6
This is quite a good site for all that is bespoke...
http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/Default.aspx
They certainly have rounded up most of the stuff that is fanless and headless, which is what most of the audio servers are...
This is where I'd spec'd my 6" touch screen system....it got abandoned when I discovered the ppc linkstations for SB tho.
http://www.itx-warehouse.co.uk/Default.aspx
They certainly have rounded up most of the stuff that is fanless and headless, which is what most of the audio servers are...
This is where I'd spec'd my 6" touch screen system....it got abandoned when I discovered the ppc linkstations for SB tho.
There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
#7
OK, Following a few weeks of bargin hunting I now have the hardware.
The basic set up is an Intel atom dual-core mobo, 2x 320gb sata 2.5" drives and a 4gb CF card on an IDE header. Plan is to boot from CF and RAID1 the two big drives as data storage.
Right then Nick, time to work some magic. You will have to bear with me in the early stages as I'm farily new to linux and might need some hand holding to get it up and running.
I'm going with Centos on your recommendation
. I guess my first steps are:
Download the Centos distro's
Get them onto the CF
Swear a lot
I'm tempted to go for the network install .iso and push it all into the atomiser from my main PC, but this may not be quite as simple as it sounds....
Simon C
The basic set up is an Intel atom dual-core mobo, 2x 320gb sata 2.5" drives and a 4gb CF card on an IDE header. Plan is to boot from CF and RAID1 the two big drives as data storage.
Right then Nick, time to work some magic. You will have to bear with me in the early stages as I'm farily new to linux and might need some hand holding to get it up and running.
I'm going with Centos on your recommendation
. I guess my first steps are:Download the Centos distro's
Get them onto the CF
Swear a lot
I'm tempted to go for the network install .iso and push it all into the atomiser from my main PC, but this may not be quite as simple as it sounds....
Simon C
#8
Ok, but we are learning together with the USB boot. But still, should be fun. What it should mean is that we can ignore the disks for the time being and just get the OS installed.
Whenever an honest man discovers that he's mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest.
#9
Just had a quick read of stuff. Do you have USB on the box? I wonder if it might be simpiler to have the network installer on a bootable USB stick, then install from a NFS mounted disk on another PC to the CF and configure the raid array at the same time.
I am assuming that you would set the disk layout to make the CF mostley read only, so you would put /tmp and /var onto the raid array. I know the CF doesn't have to be read only, but it seems to make sense. /etc would be (I guess) on the CF so it would not have to be strictly read only.
I am assuming that you would set the disk layout to make the CF mostley read only, so you would put /tmp and /var onto the raid array. I know the CF doesn't have to be read only, but it seems to make sense. /etc would be (I guess) on the CF so it would not have to be strictly read only.
Whenever an honest man discovers that he's mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest.
#10
I have USB on the box (6 of them!) and space on my main PC to partition it off. I'm guessing I'll have to format the NFS space as EX3, or will the installer happily let me mount this from an NTFS partition...ermm, over to the experts on this one.Nick wrote:Just had a quick read of stuff. Do you have USB on the box? I wonder if it might be simpiler to have the network installer on a bootable USB stick, then install from a NFS mounted disk on another PC to the CF and configure the raid array at the same time.
I am assuming that you would set the disk layout to make the CF mostley read only, so you would put /tmp and /var onto the raid array. I know the CF doesn't have to be read only, but it seems to make sense. /etc would be (I guess) on the CF so it would not have to be strictly read only.
I know there's been quite a few tweaks to reduce the R/W to a minimum when using Ubuntu on CF's and USB sticks as they have a limited R/W life. Don't see any reason why I should not do this as well.
Didn't realise just how big the download would be, BitTorrent is on its second evening and still showing over 6hrs to go...
Might take a while
Simon C
#11
Consider that Centos contains the full functionality of Red Had Enterprise, and all the docs etc. Just to depress you, normally the first DVD is all that is needed.
Where is the NFS server running? if its a *nux, I think you can just add the DVD mount point to the export list and go from there.
Again as Cantos == Red hat the RH docs for diskless install and CF installs are valid.
Where is the NFS server running? if its a *nux, I think you can just add the DVD mount point to the export list and go from there.
Again as Cantos == Red hat the RH docs for diskless install and CF installs are valid.
Whenever an honest man discovers that he's mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest.
#14
There's a spare IDE header on the board, I can just hook up a spare CD drive direct to this and install from there. I think this will be much easier than setting up dual boot etc on my main PC just to load the OS onto a card.Andrew wrote:Can you beg or borrow a USB connected CD/DVD drive? That's how I did my small headless server.
-- Andrew
Simon C
#15
Coward . I agree it does sound a lot simpiler.
This may become of interest: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... 21/1332208
. I agree it does sound a lot simpiler.This may become of interest: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... 21/1332208
Whenever an honest man discovers that he's mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest.