Setting up a Linux home server - tips?

[Autarchist]

Right now we've got 4 computers total on our home - my main desktop, our HTPC, and my wife's laptop all currently running Win 7 64bit. My laptop runs Ubuntu. The desktop and my wife's laptop would also be running Ubuntu if it weren't for dependencies on Win-only software.

I want to turn the HTPC into a file server for movies, music, photos, etc. It will run Ubuntu with XBMC. I also would like this machine to act as a LAMP web server. I've got two 2TB drives ready to put in it (one for backup). I figure I will partition off 30GB or so of the 2TB drive for the OS, and use the other partition to store files.

Now for my specific questions (so far):

1. What is the best backup solution? I don't want to use RAID, I just want to be able to run nightly backups or something similar where all the data from one HDD is backed up to the other. If I need to initiate it manually, that is fine.
2. How difficult would it be to make this machine accessible remotely? It would be nice to have a central LAMP/FTP server that I can access from my laptop wherever I am.
3. Is it very tricky getting Win 7 and Ubuntu to play nice on a network?
4. Any other general tips or advice?

I'm starting today and hope to have everything running by Friday because we've got family visiting this weekend.

[DoomeD]

Right now we've got 4 computers total on our home - my main desktop, our HTPC, and my wife's laptop all currently running Win 7 64bit. My laptop runs Ubuntu. The desktop and my wife's laptop would also be running Ubuntu if it weren't for dependencies on Win-only software.

I want to turn the HTPC into a file server for movies, music, photos, etc. It will run Ubuntu with XBMC. I also would like this machine to act as a LAMP web server. I've got two 2TB drives ready to put in it (one for backup). I figure I will partition off 30GB or so of the 2TB drive for the OS, and use the other partition to store files.

Now for my specific questions (so far):

What is the best backup solution? I don't want to use RAID, I just want to be able to run nightly backups or something similar where all the data from one HDD is backed up to the other. If I need to initiate it manually, that is fine.
How difficult would it be to make this machine accessible remotely? It would be nice to have a central LAMP/FTP server that I can access from my laptop wherever I am.
Is it very tricky getting Win 7 and Ubuntu to play nice on a network?
Any other general tips or advice?
I'm starting today and hope to have everything running by Friday because we've got family visiting this weekend.

#1, you could always use a tar -cvf folder /harddrive2/backups/folder.tar
#2, shouldnt be to hard if you have a router you might have to forward ports from the wan to the linux box.
#3, Not to sure about, havent used it in the home in awhile.

Tips: Learn command lines if when you arent at the console. use SSH, make sure your box is updated.

If you need some help with scripting or anything let me know.

[JavaBrewer]

I cannot answer about the network configuration however if you really want the desktop and laptop running Ubuntu you can always do that and then install VMWare. With VMWare (free) you can create a virtual machine with your Windows OS disk & licence and install the needed apps there. I run a Mac and need to support both Unix and Win and have various VMs for each. Works great plus you can create snapshots of the OS that you can revert to if the Windows VM gets corrupted/virus.

[Cowboy T]

For your backup, I would recommend an external USB hard disk and use rsync to back it all up.

Any of the major GNU/Linux distros will work well as a server. I use CentOS, primarily, but my mail and Web server does run Ubuntu. For your Microsoft clients, Samba is your saviour.

You can use SSH to get access from the outside, but since this is going to hold all your personal data, I would recommend an IPSec VPN setup, or if you want something a little easier to set up, OpenVPN. You want that server, and for that matter, your entire internal LAN, protected by a good firewall if you don't have it already.

[sfwdiy]

What is the best backup solution? I don't want to use RAID, I just want to be able to run nightly backups or something similar where all the data from one HDD is backed up to the other.

RAID is not backup. If the array goes south, so does your data.

Since you're setting up a linux box, do some reading about rsync. You can set up a cron job to rsync the data from one drive to the other on a schedule.

--B

[yellowsulphur]

In the past for ftp I liked FileZilla. There are a bunch of backup utilities out there, but you can use command line if you wish. I've used dd for hd backup in the past.

[chaunbot]

Turn that file server into your router.

http://www.clearfoundation.com/Software/overview.html

If you like Ubuntu you can go with Zentyal, it's based on Ubuntu.

Both are fully managed from a web browser.

Both have openvpn From web interface


Clearos is straight forward and powerful

Zentyal takes a little while to get used to.

Im running Zentyal for the FS and router and using a jail broken apple tv 2 with XBMC to stream it to my tv.

Server has a raid 6 mdadm ( software raid ) works awesome.

[orchard]

I elected to run mine as a VM under HyperV. Made it easy to move files around, plus I have a Win7 VM as well as the Ubuntu. I back up to a Netgear Stora, as well as a cloud.

[ocabj]

RAID is not backup. If the array goes south, so does your data.

Since you're setting up a linux box, do some reading about rsync. You can set up a cron job to rsync the data from one drive to the other on a schedule.

--B

But RAID *is* hardware redundancy, so it's not a bad idea to backup to a RAID array.

If you want to backup a given piece of data, you want data redundancy, meaning you keep that piece of data in multiple places.

If each of those places happen to be a RAID store, then even better, since you have more confidence that if one of those places (RAID stores) loses a drive, then the store is recoverable.

[the86d]

This is what I have been doing (testing as a server) with my Slackware box for a long time now, however it has been off for like 6 months, as I have stopped using it for a while (and it is a LOUDEST RACKMOUNT I have). I have never run kernel RAID for any length of time, or on a production machine. I have used Slackware for many one-(to three)trick-ponies, and as a temp. machine when my old rig needed a replacement board.

How susceptible is the data to corruption w/say md(Kernel?) based RAID5?

[chaunbot]

JFS file system is sexy. ZFS protects against silent corruption

[the86d]

Since you have to do almost everything manually in OpenFiler, and FreeNAS, I have had better results (less post-install boot boot failures) with Slackware (especially if running IDE and SATA drives on the same board utilizing unused IDE hardware for OS, and CD/DVD drive.) It helped me be more proficient with the cli.

Slackware actually fell into my lap, as it was the only distro at the time that had OOTB kernel support for my wireless card... Redhat/Fedora at the time did not.

[y3kspoo]

always a good resource; justlinux.org
help when you need it and interesting reading when you are up for that....

[Merc1138]

But RAID *is* hardware redundancy, so it's not a bad idea to backup to a RAID array.

If you want to backup a given piece of data, you want data redundancy, meaning you keep that piece of data in multiple places.

If each of those places happen to be a RAID store, then even better, since you have more confidence that if one of those places (RAID stores) loses a drive, then the store is recoverable.

I think what he was actually referring to, are the people that only put their data on a RAID volume and nowhere else, then think that counts as a "backup". Sadly, people do this on a regular basis and then wonder what to do if a controller fails, a disk dies but they didn't feel like immediately replacing it so they waited until the next one died and they were only using a raid 4 or 5 equivalent, etc.

The key difference being that you mentioned backing up to a RAID volume, which is fine since your data is in 2 places.

[mark11]

I'm surprised I'm the first vote for Unraid. Especially since you are using XBMC.

I love my Unraid media server. I have three XBMC players (HTPC in main room and an AppleTV2 in each bedroom). Unraid is extremely easy and flexible and has an awesome online support/user community. Its a software raid design based on linux. I think its similar to RAID 5, IIRC, so you only risk data loss if two drives go down at once. And since Unraid allows the addition of any size drives when adding more space or replacing existing drives, it is very easy to maintain. Been up and rock solid for 18 months on Unraid and completely love it (did I already say that?). Did I mention the basic edition is free?

Still waiting for the price of hard drives to go back down before I spring for the Pro version and expand my 6TB (4TB usable) to 10TB + cache disk.

Unraid Linky