Squeeze or Ubutnu for home server?

GeX · 6 Apr 2011 at 20:43

Hi all.

I'm over hauling my setup at home, and have purchased an HP Proliant Microserver (AMD Neo 1.3ghz, 1gb, GbE).

I have 4 1TB (SpinPoint F1s) to go in it, and intend to use the servers internal USB port for hold a flashdrive with the boot OS on it.

Before doing the final configuration I may replace the 1TB drives with 2TB drives. I would like a software RAID5 solution (the hardware controller does not support RAID5).

The server will run 24/7 so power useage is a factor I'd like to consider - shutting down disks that are not needed, removing services that I am not going to use etc.

It will be connected to the net via a GbE switch and an FTTC connection (33down/8up). From the GbE switch is a powerline link to the HTPC.

I want the server to do the following;

Serve files to the HTPC
SMB support for backing up files from Win7 Laptops
Upload backups to offsite FTP server
DNLA support to stream directly to TV
Remote access to media, to include resampling to suit client
Ability to run a torrent client with webUI (uTorrent)

I have limited Linux experience (just have a laptop running ubuntu) but am not an idiot (I'm a software developer) and am looking forward to learning more about Linux.

After some research, I think a Debian based Linux distro is going to suit - as I have said though, I'm a Linux noob so would love some pointers on which distro to go for, and some example apps that would be able to do what i'm wanting to do.

russ0r · 6 Apr 2011 at 21:32

Avoid Ubuntu because it's full of bloat and somewhat unstable.
Debian would be good as it's rock solid stable and relatively lightweight for servers. A trade-off for the stability is that software repos tend to lag behind other distros. You'll be familiar with apt though which is a bonus.
Also worth considering is Arch.

Some pointers for example apps:
1. I'd just do this over samba shares
2. Easily doable with rsync. Somebody else has a thread going on this already, check that out.
3. Also doable with rsync.
4. There's a whole host of apps to do this. I liked uShare.
5. See above. I think uShare does on-the-fly transcoding if that's what you mean. Not sure your server will have the horsepower for anything above SD video though!
6. torrentflux is about the best solution for a web-based torrent client.

Where did you get the server from and how much did it cost btw? I'd be interested in one for pretty much the same purposes.

GeX · 6 Apr 2011 at 22:11

Thanks for the reply.

I have read the threads about rsync - seems simple enough to do

Thanks for the list of DLNA apps - I'd found a different list as well, seems to be plenty about.

The transcoding thing will just be for cutting it down for mobile viewing really.

For details on the server, check here;

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18216324

In short, after cashback it cost me £112

FirebarUK · 6 Apr 2011 at 22:54

russ0r said:
Avoid Ubuntu because it's full of bloat and somewhat unstable.....

This is complete rubbish imo. Heard of JeOS? As for unstable, eh?

Anyhow, I'd either go with Ubuntu LTS or Debian. Tbh you'll find more of the funky stuff you want in the Ubuntu repo's.

BigglesPiP · 7 Apr 2011 at 00:05

For a home server I'd be looking at debian.

My microserver is getting a HDMI graphic card & dual DVB-T tuner to become my HTPC. Going to use the XMBC stack on gentoo so I can get a 15 second boot.

JonJ678 · 7 Apr 2011 at 01:06

Debian unstable, frozen then patched by the ubuntu devs, is never going to be as stable as Debian stable.

1. Serve files to the HTPC
2. SMB support for backing up files from Win7 Laptops
3. Upload backups to offsite FTP server
4. DNLA support to stream directly to TV
5. Remote access to media, to include resampling to suit client
6. Ability to run a torrent client with webUI (uTorrent)

The software which comes to mind for the above is,
1 depends what OS the HTPC is running, nfs is an option if linux, samba if windows. I'd also just use samba
2 apt-get install samba, config file is in /etc/samba/smb.conf.
3 cron and sftp
4 mediatomb has worked brilliantly for me
5 i'm doing this with sshfs, but vlc (as a server) or mediatomb + a vpn would be better
6 rtorrent, and your choice of webui for it. I've set up a watch folder, and log in over ssh when I want it to do something unusual

Something worth looking at for backups (which I haven't got around to setting up) is rsnapshot with cwrsync. The idea is to pull data off the laptops periodically & maintain a rotating incremental backup system. Rsnapshot does that much, cwrsync lets it talk to windows.

You can then share the backups read only using samba, as far as the windows machines are concerned there's a (network attached drive containing a) folder called daily.1 with yesterdays "documents" folder in it, daily.2 with the day before and so on. Cleverness with hard links (i.e. pointers) prevents this using anything like as much storage space as it first appears.

I'm vaguely planning on turning the link in my sig into a usable guide on setting up a home server with debian, but it's still in the very early stages as I'm new to non-x86 hardware.

ps you can switch off hard drives using sdparm, there are scripts knocking about which monitor a drive for lengthy periods of inactivity then turn the drive off if idle.

FirebarUK · 7 Apr 2011 at 10:02

JonJ678 said:
Debian unstable, frozen then patched by the ubuntu devs, is never going to be as stable as Debian stable.

That may be true but to say its "somewhat unstable" is a wishy-washy and bold claim. Some of the Enterprise customers I deal with running Ubuntu would disagree there.

GeX · 7 Apr 2011 at 13:11

I see Ubuntu as a more 'user friendly pretty GUI' kind of OS, which I admit - is nice on my laptop, but on a server that won't even have a monitor 99.9% of the time there is no need. I just need something that's not going to hog resources so that the tiny CPU can handle transcoding if asked to!

Thanks for the replies so far guys. Will give me something to sink my teeth into when I get a free evening.

MasterPlan1 · 7 Apr 2011 at 13:39

I used a fedora deriv (vortexbox) and built upon that on mine. Although I've managed to either **** up sabnzbd and/or apache.

Invictus · 8 Apr 2011 at 15:12

ubuntu

try to stick to the most popular flavours otherwise youll get bogged down with incompatablilites

russ0r · 8 Apr 2011 at 18:34

FirebarUK said:
This is complete rubbish imo. Heard of JeOS? As for unstable, eh?

JeOS is a variant designed for very small virtual machines. The fact that you're recommending it for servers sort of proves my point.
This doesn't change the fact that its package management is tied together in such a way that installing certain bits forces you to install 300+ Mb of 'dependencies' that you could quite easily get along just without.

On instability I'm going from past experience. It has on more than one occasion failed to boot for no apparent reason on both my home server and my desktop, necessitating a reinstall. Sometimes after a large update, sometimes just because it seemingly felt like it.

I can't see any reason why you'd use it. If you want something more bleeding edge, go with Arch. If you want something more stable, go with Debian. Ubuntu sits on this weird middle ground and has nothing to redeem it, really.

FirebarUK · 9 Apr 2011 at 08:31

russ0r said:
JeOS is a variant designed for very small virtual machines. The fact that you're recommending it for servers sort of proves my point.
This doesn't change the fact that its package management is tied together in such a way that installing certain bits forces you to install 300+ Mb of 'dependencies' that you could quite easily get along just without.

My point is that the same principal applies. You can strip it down to be pretty lean.

I'm curious though, are you suggesting Ubuntu deb packages create needless dependencies for the heck of it? Dependencies are dependencies.

JimAroo · 15 Apr 2011 at 21:27

I'm running Debian 6 squeeze. It does everything I want, for torrent client I'm using the uTorrent linux server (comes with webui). No need for wine anymore, which is a plus (although I never had a problem with Wine and uTorrent).

Sharing folders with Samba, running TightVNCServer for remote desktop (Never use it though), SSH, IRSSI that I route through PuTTY and got an installation of Apache for web stuff.

Running on an AMD Athlon 3700+, 80GB IDE HD, 512MB DDR RAM. Only ever uses about 300/400MB of my RAM, runs very nicely.

I'd defiantly recommend it.