Linux NAS/Webserver Questions

Can anyone push me in the right direction to help me build a NAS/Webserver on an old 200mhz computer over my ADSL line?

I skimmed through the lo-fat Apache websever sticky up top, but I'm not sure if it will give me all the functionality I want. Linux is almost a completely foreign language to me. I'm not computer illiterate, just definately Linux illiterate. I would love to have a server where I can put all my huge files on and access them throughout my house and over the internet when at school or anywhere else. It would also be cool if I could let the box do bit-torrent downloads by throttling its use of the connection (I was reading the NAS Xbox article at www.tomshardware.com...it has resparked my interest).

As far as I know, I need:
Debian
Apache
MySQL
Torrentflux
? (a way to ftp my files, a way to set up a samba share)
A way to put this all together...

I hope I don't seem lazy by not searching the net better, but the enormous amount of complex information has made this a hopeless easter egg hunt, trying to find the right pieces. If anyone has any guides, helpful information, or a kick in the ass in the right direction, I would appreciate it.

 

do you want to serve actual webpages or do you just want to be able to access some of your files remotely?

 

if you would like to try gentoo instead of debian, i think you could find everything you would want to do in the gentoo wiki: http://gentoo-wiki.com/Index:HOWTO#Networks_.26_Services

 

If you're new to Linux, I would strongly recommend that you don't use gentoo, it's designed for a more advanced user. Debian is definitely a good way to go and has an extremely easy install. If you don't want to build the programs from source you can just apt-get them (i.e debian will download all the packages and install them itself.), you lose being able to configure them as much as possible, but for a new user, it's definitely a good way to start.

Samba will allow you to share files over your LAN (and you can also mount shares over the net) so you might want to consider having an FTP server on there too. For torrentflux, you'll need both an actual bit-torrent client (works with bit-tornado and bit-comet iirc) and PHP (apt-getable)

There are a couple of guides around: here and here (Both are guides based around building from source, you can substitute most of it with apt-get if you want to go down that path)

 

I use ubuntu with LAMPP installed. Both aren't that hard to install and LAMPP includes Apache, PROftpd, mySQL, PHP, Perl and loads of other useful things all intergrated so you only need to setup one thing rather than 7 or so.

 

Thanks for all the information. I think I am going to stick with Debian, because it is supposedly user friendly and the main guide I'm working off of uses Debian...also, I've already downloaded the binaries off of Bittorrent . Downloading Linux files is a pain, just because there are about 100 different versions. Trying to sift out the right one wasn't too hard, it just makes me nervous since I'm not 100% sure I've gotten the right ones.

System:
AMD K6-2 400mhz
128mb ram (atleast)
4gb boot disk (I'll add more 250gb drives for storage)
Generic NIC card
CDROM & Floppy

My goal is to create a NAS device and that will allow me to get my files over the internet. I don't plan on running a website, atleast not within the foreseeable future. Lastly, the whole motivation of this project is to spend as little money as possible .

Here is the list of files that I've accumulated so far. Are these the right ones?
Debian (there are 12! binaries, I read the first two are the ones I need)
debian-31r1-i386-binary-1.iso
debian-31r1-i386-binary-2.iso
I now realize I can apt-get these files...whoops
Samba (with SWAT, correct?)
Samba 3.0.21a.ta.gz
Apache (This one was a bit confusing)
httpd-2.2.0.tar.gz <--- The most current stable HTTP server version
MySQL (also a bit confusing)
mysql-standard-5.0.18-linux-i686-glibc23.tar.gz <--- MySQL 5.0 Linux (nonRPM) Linux x86 standard package (community edition)
PHP4 (I don't think this one is right...they only had the source code and windows binaries...they say Linux comes with the binaries...)
php-5.1.2.tar.gz
PHPmyadmin
phpMyAdmin-2.7.0-pl2.tar.tar <--- Latest stable version
TorrentFlux
torrentflux-2.0beta1.tar.tar

I have now realized that apt-get downloads/installs all these files for you. I just won't use those files I d/l last night. I plan on using apt-get just because I think it will do everything I need and will be easier to use.

I hope this won't be an extremely confusing project. Linux is a completely different world than Windows. I'm going to start on Thursday, so if you guys see a barrage of questions, feel free to respond... . Thanks for the help so far! I'm going to go read those other posted guides now.

 

Well, as I understand, ubuntu is based on debian but is more user friendly (although I haven't used debian myself). I built a webserver using it with LAMPP which gives you all of those things (apart from samba and a torrent client obvo) and saves having to track down all the individual packages. I was pretty much a linux n00b when i started, but just playing around with a working server teaches you quite a bit.

 

Tis correct

 

Ubuntu is easier to use than deb in a gui env but isn't any easier in a CLI env (which I presume you're using)

 

If you're not serving webpages, then why bother with Apache/PHP/MySQL? Less to worry about installing and securing. Im not sure Id trust samba shares over the internet either, but Ive never really looked into it beyond local network use.

I found the Samba server a bit tricky to set up, the Samba docs didn't seem very straightforward to me, and I have no Windows networking experience. Heres a few links that I used, not Debian specific but the config file is the same no matter what distro you use.

Gentoo-wiki article
Securing Samba, recommends not using it over t'internet

 

There probably is a better way than a Samba share over the internet.

 

Google TorrentFlux and you'll discover why he needs then

I think Samba will be used for LAN sharing, FTP for Interweb sharing.

 

Ahhh i see

 

I think I may have a potential problem. I'm going to install Debian and the various LAMP software on a 4gb drive, but I intend to install 250gb drives for NAS. My processor is an AMD K6-2, so its pretty outdated. I'm pretty sure the current bios won't recognize a drive bigger than 8gb. In the past, I used a controller card to run a 40gb drive on that computer.

I know serverelements NASLite (which I think is based on Linux) overrides the bios to allow larger disks, but I doubt Debian is like that. Do you guys have a best option to take? I guess I could go out and get a controller card, but if I could just reflash the bios, that would be a hell of a lot easier/simpler. I guess it might be a good idea to go for a raid card if I take the controller card route (I really don't care about raid, though...). Thanks for the help you guys have given so far...hopefully everything goes well tomorrow.

 

I always though this was a feature of all version of *nix?

 

I keep a FreeDOS boot CD around for whenever I need to flash the BIOS on my old IBM Thinkpad, if that helps.

 

Check this out http://www.freenas.org

 

Worth a look too http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php

 

I really hope you are right...I think you are right...I think in the past it used to hang right before it loaded windows. That would save me a lot of trouble.

I've already hit a minor snag. The Debian file I got off of bittorrent had a corrupt file. The MD5 checksum matched, but when I booted it the loader stopped and a dialog showed the corrupt file. I'm downloading the first binary again off of jigdo, which shows each file it d/l...so I have no idea how far along the whole d/l is...it feels like its taking forever, though.

Thanks for the link, but I mentioned that a few posts up... NASLite is cool, but you need to pay for a full featured version...and the floppy needs to be made in Linux (which I don't have ATM...I do have knoppix though, but no floppy drive). NASLite+ needs a cdrom, which kills the NAS appeal...since I can only use three drives. In my NAS/Webserver, I'll only be able to use two storage drives, but it'll atleast be more full-featured. That's my reasoning at least. I hope it all works out.

 

Download from an http/ftp source rather than a torrent/jidgo one. Deb has craploads of mirrors and torrents are just slower than direct http/ftp.