• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Linux File Server for Home-LAN

O

Olias

Senior member
I was planning on picking up a referb 200-MMX Dell and a large HDD to connect to my home LAN as a file server. I have 2 other WinXP machines tied into a Linksys 4 port router. Do I need to run a GUI for this purpose or does it just make it easier for setting it up. After I setup Linux do I then configure SAMBA? I also have the 6.0 version of Mandrake that I bought some time ago and never got into it. Can I use this or should I look at downloading a more resent version? As you can tell, I'm a Linux infant and would like to know more. This little project might help motivate me to gain experience. Any direction to this end would be very appreciated.

Olias
 
You don't need to run a GUI per se, but it's up to you. I have it installed just in case I ever want to play around with it.

You need to make sure that you install Samba at installation time, otherwise you will have to dl and install it yourself. Once you have your network up and running smoothly, pings are good, and you can ping the net from your linux machine, it's time to get samba up and going. If you are using 2 XP boxes, might want to use encrypted passwords with Samba (it uses plain text by default).

And yeah, you'd be better off downloading a newer version of Mandrake, RH, or whatever you decide to use. THey will support the newer hardware out of the box better than the older releases.
 
Thanks flippinfleck for the tip on installing Samba at the same time as Linux. I seem to remember that making changes to Linux required recompiling the kernel. I also read that RH allowed many choices at install time and that it was easier than Mandrake to setup.

Is there a good place to dl Linux RH or am I better off buying a "How to" book that includes the CD?
 
Thanks man, I'm dl'n both RH GNU/Linux iso's right now at about 80 KB/Sec each. Its from ftp.mirror.ac.uk and could take a few hours.

I know I'm getting off topic here but will Nero do a good job at restoring these iso's and will disk1 be bootable?

Thanks again, Olias
 
Yes, Nero will burn those ISOs just fine. 🙂

Samba can be installed at the OS install but it's one of the easiest packages to get compiled and running on most Linuxes/UNIXes. It will not require a recompile of your kernel. You do not need any sort of GUI interface to get Samba up and running. All of samba's configuration takes place in the smb.conf file probably located in /etc/samba/. You start and stop samba by running the "samba" script oddly enough. 🙂 "samba start" "samba restart" "samba stop" are all valid commands.

The Samba package that you download includes a ton of easy to understand html help files. You could download the package onto a Windows box, ungzip/untar and read through the docs that way...though I'm sure www.samba.org has those docs available online somewhere.

Good luck!

Gaidin
 
OK, I burned the "RH 7.2 disc1 iso" to a CD and it is bootable. I also downloaded the disc2 but not sure if I'll need this???

I'll be doing the install on a old Dell Optiplex GLi Pentium 200 with a 2GB drive. Once the OS is setup and Samba is configured, I wanted to mount a 30GB drive as hdb. Its formatted with FAT32 and has all my mp3's, movies and other user documents on it.

The idea here is to stick this box in a closet and leave it on all the time as a file server on my home network.

Am I on the right track with this... ?

TIA, Olias 🙂
 
you will need disc 2 definatly. There's always one or 2 packages that come off of it when I install.

Go the easy route and just have it install samba on install. It's easier that way and then it's integrated properly at startup without any linking files to script locations, etc. Of course you will have to make sure it actually starts.
do that by moving the /etc/rcx.d/KXXsamba to a SXXsamba (where x is your runlevel, 3 if no xwindows, 5 otherwise)


For the easiest administration, put on the swat package as well. That will let you do web administration via port 901. If you do, edit the /etc/xinet.d/swat file after install and change the disable = yes to no. Thex give an /etc/init.d/xinet reload for it to take the changes.
 
samba comes with a good GUI to configure it called SWAT
just open up a browser and type in "localhost:901" or "127.0.0.1:901"

don't forget www.samba.org to get some info and help
 
I am wanting to do this exact thing on my home network and I have a few questions. Excuse my ignorance but I am fairly new to networking in general and completely new to Linux. I have an AMD K3-450 box to use for my server and I have downloaded Mandrake Linux 8.1.

First of all, what is Samba and what will I need it for?

I have two 60 gig hard drives I would like to run in a raid 0 configuration, can I achieve this on a Linux box?

I have several sticks of 128M PC-133 memory laying around so I can install up to 384 megs of RAM in this box and I was womdering how much I actually need to get the job done.

Once I get this system setup can I unhook the monitor and store it until I need to do some management on the server?

Excuse me for asking what might sound like stupid questions to most here but I am really new to this stuff but I do have a healthy appetite to learn it. If there is anything else anyone thinks I might need to know to get started please let me know.

Thanks


 


<< I am wanting to do this exact thing on my home network and I have a few questions. Excuse my ignorance but I am fairly new to networking in general and completely new to Linux. I have an AMD K3-450 box to use for my server and I have downloaded Mandrake Linux 8.1.

First of all, what is Samba and what will I need it for? >>

Samba sets linux up with a "Network Neighborhood" type fileshare. It allows you to access linux partitions from a windows box, or windows partitions from a linux box. It's not the only way to do it, but it took me all of ten minutes to get it set up properly for my netowork.

<< I have two 60 gig hard drives I would like to run in a raid 0 configuration, can I achieve this on a Linux box? >>

I'm not sure about the raid question, I'm not using that feature. Any particular reason you want raid? I don't think you will have any problems with filesharing accross the network if you are using decent cards (and some of the next question).

<< I have several sticks of 128M PC-133 memory laying around so I can install up to 384 megs of RAM in this box and I was womdering how much I actually need to get the job done. >>

I've got 384 pc133 in my linux box, so that's what I would reccommend. Can't hurt to have more than the minimum, right? As for the minimum that you are looking for, look at the main site for the distribution that you are downloading. It will be on there.

<< Once I get this system setup can I unhook the monitor and store it until I need to do some management on the server? >>

Yup. Use SSH to connect from your windows boxes, and you could even take the keyboard off that linux box. Make sure that your bios is set to ignore any keyboard errors though, otherwise it wont get past the post.

<< Excuse me for asking what might sound like stupid questions to most here but I am really new to this stuff but I do have a healthy appetite to learn it. If there is anything else anyone thinks I might need to know to get started please let me know. Thanks >>

There's no such thing as a stupid question, just a stupid answer. In which case, read my answers 😉

Anyways, I had a lot of fun when I first started with linux (with a lot of headaches too) because it was something new. Something fresh.

Good luck!

>edit To actually answer your last question, READ READ READ Get a few books (OReilly is good and highly reccommended round these parts) and sit down in front of your linux box with book in hand. Also, not that they are a huge help, but RH has a user forum that you could peruse for some answers. They are very slow though (not a lot of quick responses) so you are better off using Search over there edit<
 
Thanks for the help flippinfleck. I would like to raid the two 60 gig drives so they look like one 120 gig drive since I have quite a few mp3s, and many more on the way as soon as I get around to encoding all my CDs. BTW what is SSH? Could I also use a KVM switch to use my monitor and keyboard on both both the server and my main box?
 


<< Why would you need soo much RAM for a file server? >>

Who said anything about needing it? 😉

I had it laying around, and I'd rather have it someplace where I know it's safe. And now I know all that money I spent on ram isn't going to waste!

Although, I've never found anything that I could do to max out the ram in my linux box. I run RC5 24/7, the server hasn't been restarted in forever (only to add another hd), and I never run X. It's installed in case I want to play, but I've got windows for playing 🙂
 
Thanks again flippinfleck. I guess I have a lot of reading to do. I went to the sites you listed and I didn't understand a thing on any of those pages, it might have well been Hungarian. I guess I need to learn some basics of Linux and the command line structure before I will actually understand any of this.
 
Hmm, sorry bout that. I didn't think to find a page that spoke winders 😉

But yeah, best bet would be to pick up a book or two, freqent linuxnewbie.org and DON'T GIVE UP!

Sure, linux is a little harder than windows. But don't you remember the first time you played with windows, it was new and scary. Same with linux, just keep at it and you'll be all set.
 
I?m just curious but, why go through the bother of setting up a fileserver at all? I mean, wouldn?t it just be easier to add those disks to a preexisting box and then share them through the network? Even if you don?t have enough IDE ports left you can always go out and get a good UDMA or even a RAID controller and just slap it in an open PCI slot to add more drives.

Have fun,

Satori

 
Satori80,

It's really very simple. The server is a stripped machine with minimal power requirements that can be left on all the time to act as a large storage device and print server for all the other machines on the network. The purpose for running linux is it is stable enough to be left on and running indefinately.
 
I also believe an advantage to a central fileserver is, for people like me that like to format and screw around, that you can have all your files on the fileserver and mess with your comp all you want, thus not losing all those files when you muck up your computer badly...
I really have to get a fileserver going 😛..

 


<< I?m just curious but, why go through the bother of setting up a fileserver at all? I mean, wouldn?t it just be easier to add those disks to a preexisting box and then share them through the network? Even if you don?t have enough IDE ports left you can always go out and get a good UDMA or even a RAID controller and just slap it in an open PCI slot to add more drives.

Have fun,

Satori >>


Why? Well, here are my reasons...

I have two computers that I use on a regular basis at home. One is my gf's, and the other is mine. I want to be able to access the same files, in the same place, all the time. No matter which computer I am using. Setting up a centralized fileserver allows me to do this with minimal setup. I also know that it is secure. Only the people that I allow to get at my files are gonna get at em.

Another reason, I wanted to learn. Linux was something that I was not very familiar with. Neither was networking (though I'm still not as good as some of the folks round here). Not only do I have experience with Windows, now I know enough about linux to get by. And I'm learning more every day.

So yes, I could have grabbed an extra pci hd controller and slapped that in my rig. But where's the fun in that?
 
Nice to here that others are motivated by the "fun" factor in linux. I began my trip into linuxland a little more than a year ago. First, I built a linux router project machine to share my cable modem connection. Then I built a server, to do fileserving/webserving. Then I played around a bit and built my own mailserver and caching DNS. I've only ever needed the DNS once, when my cable providers DNS went down for a night, but it was worth it for that night.

With the unlimited supply of free software at sourceforge, linux is a never ending project. I use a project called RIMPS to share my mp3 to any computer I am on through a webbrowser. I set up a software called Gallery to help me keep track of my digital pictures and create albums that my family can browse.

I actually use my fileserver and ssh to setup filesharing with my computer at work. I just use the file sharing tool in ssh and I can transfer any of my files to and from home by just dragging and dropping.

The best reason to have a fileserver is the ease of backups. I can backup all my critical files from a single machine.

Well, those are just a few of my reasons for playing with linux.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top