Server Build 1

I'm brand new to the forum and have never been on a tech forum before. I was hoping I could get some extra advice on a server I am making/planning on making soon. Building a small server so that I can share files/vides/music/software/ect. It will function also as a media / HT machine for my home.

Parts:

small FF micro atx case
i3 sandy bridge at 2.1ghz
ASUS h77 micro atx mobo
OCZ Solid 3 60gb boot drive.
Seagate sata6g 750 for mass storage
8GB of Corsair DDR3 @ 1600LG Blu ray drive
PSU included in small case.

OS hasn't been decided on but here is what i am thinking.

either ubuntu 11.10 or ubuntu server
or I have a license for Win server 2008 standard edition.


this servers role will be to provide:
Dns
DHCP
FTP
and all file sharing services.


all of the above I have experience using and implementing but I'm challenged by one thing....

the server must be visible from outside my lan so that I and friends can hit it up for stuff. how do I do this without opening the server up to all kinds of

mastak89 said:

the server must be visible from outside my lan so that I and friends can hit it up for stuff. how do I do this without opening the server up to all kinds of

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First thoughts are to put the server into the DMZ so your friends can "hit it" from the outside. However doing so you are going to increase your attack vector if anybody is out there looking to cause trouble.

When you say you want your friends to be able to access the server for things, exactly what type of "things" are they needing to access? Depending on what you want to give them access to you can set up security in the appropriate manner to facilitate them access to your server while keeping things secure in the meantime.

We snowmobile, hunt and fish and take vids from helmet cams a lot and we like to be able share this stuff so we can compile and edit it and show our other friends how dumb we were.

I also am the only somewhat IT oriented person of them all and the lot should not be allowed to have computers. That being said i am often fixing machines for them and needing to reinstall software so it would be nice to have somewhere to pull software from other than a cd.

I want to share pics of the fam and all that too. It would be nice to be able to toss a movie out there to and stream it to their PC's / internet enabled TV's too.

With that being said, my advice for you, would be something like dropbox. This will keep your server behind the DMZ and not expose it to the outside world. If you don't want to do something like dropbox, then sit your server behind the DMZ and use port forwarding.

No offense but for a home user, discussing putting things inside DMZ and all that fuss is really a bit much, I think.
I would use cloud storage for the items that you want to share, unless you are going to need more than what is offered for free? Dropbox is 2GB, iirc, and box.net is 5GB (there was a free upgrade to 50GB some time back and it seems they do it here and there). Skydrive is 25GB and Google Drive is 5GB.

Know Nuttin said:

No offense but for a home user, discussing putting things inside DMZ and all that fuss is really a bit much, I think.

Click to expand...

I dunno, this quote down below kind of eliminates the fact that he is some sort of basic "home user" as you call him.

mastak89 said:

OS hasn't been decided on but here is what i am thinking.

either ubuntu 11.10 or ubuntu server
or I have a license for Win server 2008 standard edition.


this servers role will be to provide:
Dns
DHCP
FTP
and all file sharing services.


all of the above I have experience using and implementing

Click to expand...

A silly question. OP stated that the server should provide DNS & DHCP. Arn't these taken care of by a router? Please excuse me if I sound stupid.

A router can take care of those services if one wishes it to do so. However if you want to get creative and just feel the need to manage those systems yourself, you can do that and simply not have the router take care of that for you.

I'm no geek but just a simple user. I have a simple "server" setup at home which appears to do all that the OP wants. I've played around with Server software (not Linux of any kind) but found them to be more hassle than help. So I finally settled on plain Win 7.

I converted the "server" for my home from an old computer which was just lying around and added a 2TB HDD to it. It already had Win 7 so I formed a Workgroup among all my computers at home and shared ALL folders. Then I installed GoodSync and had it periodically backup all the important folders in my home computers onto the 2TB HDD.

Lastly, I installed FileZilla to create a FTP server. With FileZilla I just assign User Names and Passwords to members who are allowed access to the files in the "server". This way I don't have to worry about security and DMZ. I don't use it as a HTPC but I'm sure that would be no problem. I leave the server in the living room and ON 24/7. I've never had to bother about it or think about it.

Am I doing it wrong?

neo668 said:

Am I doing it wrong?

Click to expand...

Not at all. If that works for you and you're happy with it then you're doing good. To cover the important part is the fact that you're still behind the DMZ, which is important.

Also it's important to keep in mind that if you are going to install a server class operating system, say Windows Server (insert version), chances are you will be using the advanced functions of the operating system. If you have no experience with a server class OS then I can see how confusing it can be.

I can only give advise based off of the information the OP provides and the fact that he said specifically he has experience in DNS, DHCP, and FTP while considering Windows Server 2008 or Ubuntu as his OS this leads me to believe he is more than an average joe at this. This is my sole reason behind even bringing up the DMZ to begin with. I can only assume off of what the OP said, that he is proficient enough to understand what that entails.

So with that being said the OP wants to have all of his 'stuff' available, on demand, for himself or his friends no matter where they are. FTP is the easy part because you can password protect logins and call it a day.

The OP also says he wants to be able to toss a movie out there to and stream it to PC's / internet enabled TV's too. With a server class OS he can set up a web server and stream his video's out to whomever he wants to. If he does that all he has to do is to port forward all http 80 tcp / udp requests to his home server.

I dunno, without getting too long winded there are many different ways to do this. Simply because the OP sounds like a tech minded person I simply gave the most simple answer of tossing it out into the DMZ as one approach.

Thanks Gnusounduave. Glad to know I'm on the right track.