Project: Rackmount Overkill

Bobnova · Dec 11, 2009

Gotta click the text, not the little pictures.
It all works for me.

Automata · Dec 11, 2009

Try it now, IE works for me. You may have to hit the "List" icon (the lines in the upper right), select all and hit "view". You can then click on each one.

Aynjell · Dec 11, 2009

Cleared my recent cache and it works.

Automata · Dec 12, 2009

I completely broke Cacti, I'm not sure what I did, but no graphs are coming up. It is gathering data and I can see that, it just isn't making the graphs .__.

VinnyTAMU · Dec 12, 2009

thideras said:
Filesystem:
Undecided between XFS/JFS/others. I'm going to use VMWare to run Debian to see how much I can get used to it and see how good it really is. I'm open to suggestions, but I'd rather not use Solaris or Redhat. I'd consider CentOS again.

I am assuming you have given ZFS a shot? FreeBSD 8.0 now has production support for ZFS and I am a FreeBSD fan. Another option is to use Debian as your base OS and run the Xen hypervisor.

thideras said:
*Backup folders WITHOUT paid software (aka: Acronis). I have two legit copies of Acronis, but I don't like the proprietary format that it uses and I've hit some snages when trying to restore files. I got a really good deal on the software and it does an amazing job, but I need more than 2 copies and I have no money; so buying more is out of the quesiton. I'd rather just have a gzip'd file or individual folders as backups. I believe that rsync can help with this, I just need to find a suitable Windows based client.

I believe DeltaCopy is what you are looking for.

thideras said:
*Hostnames. This sounds silly, but even when I give the server a name like "thideras-server" and the host OS is linux, I can never use "thideras-server" to access shares or services, I always need to use the IP address. This isn't a huge issue and more of an annoyance, but something I'd like to fix. This is mainly so that users who don't know anything about my server, can still use it.

What device are you using for routing/DHCP/DNS/NAT? Most home routers (Access Points) use a program called dnsmasq. You need to look into allowing expand-hosts, which will resolve "thideras-server" to the IP.

thideras said:
*Monitoring of system resources. I didn't have a really good way (graphs, etc) to monitor the server. CPU usages, memory usage, hdd usage/activity, network usage and many more; the more detailed, the better. A web interface (internal/external) would be preferred, even if just to "see" the usage.

For linux look into: ntop, bandwidthd, collectd, and rrdtool.

thideras said:
*Understand accessing shares better. I had a really hard time with users/usergroups and shares when I used CentOS/Solaris as the OS. I'm not sure what confused me, but if anyone knows a good explanation, I'm listening.

*Understand SAMBA better. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong, but I was getting terrible throughput for gigabit networks (15-20mb/sec) and massive CPU usage (two cores at 100%) when transferring files. The two processes were SAMBA, that was clear via 'top', but I don't understand why. It seems ridiculous that it would need that much CPU, so I'll chalk that up to being a linux server nub. I've found a few guides that "explain" what each flag does in the setup file, but they fail to show examples or go into great detail. I'm left guessing or trying to figure out what everything does.

I have only setup samba once but this looks like a good guide if you haven't seen it: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpSamba

thideras said:
*Find a FTP server. I'm spoiled. I've been using FileZilla in Windows and I absolutely love how easy it is to setup.

I honestly would suggest using SSH over FTP but if you still need FTP, I would look here: http://www.howtoforge.com/proftpd-tls-debian-etch

Automata · Dec 12, 2009

VinnyTAMU said:
I am assuming you have given ZFS a shot? FreeBSD 8.0 now has production support for ZFS and I am a FreeBSD fan. Another option is to use Debian as your base OS and run the Xen hypervisor.

I've heard there are issues with it not running on a Solaris based OS. I'd consider FreeBSD, I can create another VM later and try it out.

I believe DeltaCopy is what you are looking for.

It is funny you mention this one, that is the first thing I found. Do you have experience with it?

What device are you using for routing/DHCP/DNS/NAT? Most home routers (Access Points) use a program called dnsmasq. You need to look into allowing expand-hosts, which will resolve "thideras-server" to the IP.

I can tell you haven't been following the thread

I use an Astaro firewall. They give out a free home version that is the same as their Enterprise version except it lacks the high availability and cloud computing features.

For linux look into: ntop, bandwidthd, collectd, and rrdtool.

I have Cacti up and running, which using RRDTool. I broke it, so I'm trying to figure out what happened there.

I have only setup samba once but this looks like a good guide if you haven't seen it: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SettingUpSamba

I'll give it a look over, thanks.

I honestly would suggest using SSH over FTP but if you still need FTP, I would look here: http://www.howtoforge.com/proftpd-tls-debian-etch

I actually did not know that it transmits everything in plain text. I've bookmarked that and will check it out.

Neuromancer · Dec 13, 2009

You can run FTPS also (secure form of FTP)

Automata · Dec 14, 2009

If I can get XFS to work on CentOS, I'll move back to that. Debian worked ok, but there were some quirks that I didn't like and had difficulty getting around. FreeBSD confused me at first until I realized it didn't install BASH and I had to run it manually; didn't really care for that OS.

Just finished the install for CentOS and I'm working on configuring it.

Automata · Dec 14, 2009

This just went down, I gained a new friend, Setenforce.

(12:46:07 PM) thideras: stupid selinux got in the way
(12:46:24 PM) VisualBits.net: ROFL
(12:47:47 PM) thideras: setenforce is my friend
(12:48:00 PM) thideras: sounds german
(12:48:04 PM) thideras: he is my german body guard
(12:48:25 PM) thideras: SETENFORCE, PUT IT BACK IN THE BOX
(12:51:01 PM) thideras: setenforce says "Werde ich alles tun Sie bitte" (I'll do anything you ask)
(12:51:05 PM) thideras: and he says hi
(12:53:06 PM) VisualBits.net: LOL
(12:53:12 PM) VisualBits.net: SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND

*sighs*, I really need to stop being bored. I'm waiting for the drive to be created so the virtual machine can start up, then to XFS testing!

VinnyTAMU · Dec 15, 2009

thideras said:
FreeBSD confused me at first until I realized it didn't install BASH and I had to run it manually; didn't really care for that OS.

FreeBSD comes with the Bourne shell by default, you just need to install BASH either by binary packages or source packages, then run:

Code:

chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash

However I would not recommend changing root's default shell to bash.

Automata · Dec 15, 2009

VinnyTAMU said:
FreeBSD comes with the Bourne shell by default, you just need to install BASH either by binary packages or source packages, then run:

Code:

chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash

However I would not recommend changing root's default shell to bash.

I had BASH installed, but I didn't know how to load it by default, good information.

Regardless, I believe I'm going with CentOS again. The only thing that isn't working right now is printers, but I'm sure it is a setup issue as I have never done it before. I also decided on the EXT4 filesystem which surprised me. Not that the selection surprised me, but how fast it ran. I was getting 50mb/sec transfer to the virtual machine, which was storing its file on a Windows NTFS partition running on top of a Perc 5. I found that extremely impressive and hope to get better performance when it is the host OS.

VinnyTAMU · Dec 15, 2009

thideras said:
The only thing that isn't working right now is printers, but I'm sure it is a setup issue as I have never done it before.

Are you using CUPS?

thideras said:
I also decided on the EXT4 filesystem which surprised me. Not that the selection surprised me, but how fast it ran. I was getting 50mb/sec transfer to the virtual machine, which was storing its file on a Windows NTFS partition running on top of a Perc 5. I found that extremely impressive and hope to get better performance when it is the host OS.

So this is useing CentOS as the host OS and using VMware Server?

Aynjell · Dec 15, 2009

VinnyTAMU said:
Are you using CUPS?

So this is useing CentOS as the host OS and using VMware Server?

I had to read it a few times to understand it. The way I understand it is, he's using FreeBSD currently, but using CentOS guest in a VM. Centos was apparently copying a file from an NTFS share to itself at about 50mbps.

Automata · Dec 15, 2009

VinnyTAMU said:
Are you using CUPS?

Correct. The printer is a Brother HL-2140. I have the PPD file for it, but I don't know where to put it. The guides don't really "guide" you.

So this is useing CentOS as the host OS and using VMware Server?

Aynjell said:
I had to read it a few times to understand it. The way I understand it is, he's using FreeBSD currently, but using CentOS guest in a VM. Centos was apparently copying a file from an NTFS share to itself at about 50mbps.

The host operating system is Windows Server 2003. I have virtual machines under that (CentOS, etc) until I am confident that I want to go with a particular flavor of linux. I'm going to try out Fedora shortly since a friend requested it.

For fun, and because I was asked, I ran ATTO on my RAID5 array. Read speeds are absolutely amazing, but write is terrible :-/

Automata · Dec 17, 2009

Going to be moving this server a lot sooner than planned. I had to restart the server today and it never came back up. Moved it out so I can watch what it was doing to find it is basically hard locking at the login screen. The mouse moves, but no keyboard I have will work with it. I shut it down, started in Safe Mode and it did the same thing for about 20 seconds. Got logged in, killed all services and programs (even Windows Services) and restarted, came up normally and I could log in. Enabled services and restarted (Windows only), it restarts and logs in, whoo! Still can't access the server through the network, it is pulling an IP and I can't ping or access the server remotely. I try to open the network connections and explorer hangs, great. Had to play around with that a few times to get it working.

Short story: I'm backing all the files up off the server and formatting it tonight. No idea what is wrong with it. This will also give me some time to see what settings are optimal for the RAID array. I'm also tempted to put the OS drive as a RAID10 with a small partition laid out for it, undecided there.

TechJunky · Dec 17, 2009

Can you post a picture of the rackmount that all the equipment is in?

Automata · Dec 17, 2009

TechJunky said:
Can you post a picture of the rackmount that all the equipment is in?

I don't have a rack yet.

Aynjell · Dec 17, 2009

thideras said:
I don't have a rack yet.

I myself want to see the rack more than anything, thid. Better hurry up and get 'em racked.

Automata · Dec 17, 2009

Aynjell said:
I myself want to see the rack more than anything, thid. Better hurry up and get 'em racked.

I want one too D:

No one around here sells 'em.

Aynjell · Dec 17, 2009

thideras said:
I want one too D:

No one around here sells 'em.

Myself, I'm just content with the single box... doing almost everything all your boxes do... albeit to lesser degrees. Come to think of it I need to repurpose my DD-wrt router to be simply a firewall... that's ap project for another time I think.

Project: Rackmount Overkill

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