OS For A Home Server, and How to Setup a Safe Acess Anywhere Connection to a Server

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ComputerGeek

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Hey Guy's I am just about to finish up my Home Server Build, and had some Questions. I was wondering what you guy's would recommend for a Home Server / Backup Server OS. I would like to try to go with Linux. I have used Linux before several of the different versions mostly Ubuntu, I have done the No GUI OS's but I think I would like to have a GUI here.

2. I would like to make this accessible from anywhere if possible, Using Wake on Lan, and then some type of connection. The Connection I should use is really what I am unsure about. Will having a connection like this pose a Severe Security threat? What is the best way to Go about this? Does having an OS with a GUI make the OS less secure?

Thanks!
 
Windows Home Server. Supports Wake on LAN, Remote connection, Media Streaming (local and internet), backups.
 
After searching around I went with Windows Home Server (v1 and v2). I chose it due to ease of use (this is just a hobby for me).
 
griffinhart said:
Windows Home Server. Supports Wake on LAN, Remote connection, Media Streaming (local and internet), backups.
Click to expand...

Franko said:
After searching around I went with Windows Home Server (v1 and v2). I chose it due to ease of use (this is just a hobby for me).
Click to expand...

Hmm, I'll keep that in mind. I didn't want to go the Windows route because, it always seem like it 1. Needs a Patch, Update, Fix 2. Has a Virus, Trojan, or A Fatal Security Flaw. 3. Crashes, and is less dependable than Linux (In Some Cases, not all.)

And on top of that I don't have the cash on hand for it.



damarious25 said:
You mean VLAN?
Click to expand...

If you are referring to me NO. I am talking about using a magic packet to turn on the computer so it can be accessed remotely.

Thanks!
 
WHS. As for stability, V2 is build on Server 08 R2 and mine has had no issues whatsoever. It just works. Does it need updates? Yes, but they are security fixes. I'd be more worried if there WEREN'T updates and patches. As for getting malware, run AV on all your machines and have good browsing habits, keep flash, java, etc up to date and you should have no issues.
 
For the secure connection you need a form of a VPN connection to only allow you to connect to your home network and access the server remotely.

If you place the home server directly on your internet connection (static IP or however) you are open to the world and all sorts of automated and manual hackers.

It's a hobby for you and this stuff is fun but what you are looking to do requires some extras that may cost money if you don't have the parts laying around to handle this, firewall devices or pc's running as a firewall/gateway, routers that my have advanced features to handle this or a router you can flash with dd-wrt (sorry may have misspelled this) which can give you very advanced firewall/router features on the cheap.

Basically you need to decide how secure you want this. If you want it secure, do not place your server on an open internet connection. Use a firewall/router/gateway of some sort in between the world and your server. Setup access for your account or accounts you create and have them vpn/access through your entry point to your server.

Have fun... just monitor the server logs after you get it up first day and weeks to see if you've been exposed.

Also... disable any accounts on the server you do not plan to use!

Rename the accounts that are generic (local Adminitrator, Guest, etc...) this adds in some difficulty to prevent the novice hackers that may get in and try to guess/brute force the accounts on the server.

Cheers.
 
I'd go with what you are used to. If you aren't used to Windows then the chances increase that you'll expose something you didn't mean to. I dont believe that Windows is *that* less secure nowadays btw. You can do the magic packet thing - I guess you are doing this to save money on energy bills? As ValeTudo says best to have something firewally in front of it for defense in depth (since you will be running a s/w firewall as well)
 
ComputerGeek said:
Hey Guy's I am just about to finish up my Home Server Build, and had some Questions. I was wondering what you guy's would recommend for a Home Server / Backup Server OS. I would like to try to go with Linux. I have used Linux before several of the different versions mostly Ubuntu, I have done the No GUI OS's but I think I would like to have a GUI here.

2. I would like to make this accessible from anywhere if possible, Using Wake on Lan, and then some type of connection. The Connection I should use is really what I am unsure about. Will having a connection like this pose a Severe Security threat? What is the best way to Go about this? Does having an OS with a GUI make the OS less secure?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hi, ComputerGeek,

Since you seem more interested in using Linux you might ask this question in the Linux/BSD/Free Systems sub-forum or in the Networking & Security forum.

Chuklr
 
Hey Thanks for those answers, those are starting to go in the right direction.

I'd like to start out with Linux and give it a shot. If I don't like it I'll go to WHS, but I really don't have the cash at the current second to get WHS and Second, I'd like to try linux because I am noticing that it is use in a lot of the comerial server, (At Least that is what I have been led to believe someone correct me if I am wrong.) and I would like to get the experience managing a Linux Server.

Chuklr, Once I figure out more about this I'll ask separate questions about the different parts.
 
ComputerGeek said:
What Linux OS do you recommend, what used on servers these days?
Click to expand...

for my personal servers I use ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Any sort of publicly accessible server should be secured with strong passwords, firewalls, Access Control Lists, etc. Insecure services such as telnet and ftp must be disabled.
 
I've been using WHS v1 since it was in beta and now use WHS v2. No issues. I couldn't even tell you the last time I rebooted. I have a total of 16 drives in my mine of differing sizes. With room for a total of 22.
 
Windows Home Server 2011. It's dirt cheap, like $79.
 
WHS 2011 is based on Windows Server 2008r2. It's very robust.

ComputerGeek said:
Hmm, I'll keep that in mind. I didn't want to go the Windows route because, it always seem like it 1. Needs a Patch, Update, Fix 2. Has a Virus, Trojan, or A Fatal Security Flaw. 3. Crashes, and is less dependable than Linux (In Some Cases, not all.)

And on top of that I don't have the cash on hand for it.





If you are referring to me NO. I am talking about using a magic packet to turn on the computer so it can be accessed remotely.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
Ok, Im a huge Windows fan, and heres what I have at my home.

WHS V1

Pros - easy to setup, bare metal backups, drive pooling
Cons - EATS hard drives, only way to really fix it is to reinstall, OR even better sometimes theres a file conflict and you have to delete the offending file.......

Freenas 0.7XXX version
Pros - Super light OS, pretty easy setup thru web admin
Cons - Doesnt recognize my 8 port sata card ;(

Linux Mint based server
Pros - A linux server with a GUI, and a GUI for MDADM.....loving it, wasnt too hard to setup
Cons - Had to learn a little about linux, it could be faster without all my gui stuff


Those are just my humble opinions and experiences. I realize my GUI based Mint install isnt exactly a top of the line, ideal server but I like it. Got my RAID0 setup with relative ease and its pretty fast given its on old hardware. The Freenas box is UNKILLABLE. Its just a little 300 gig thing I did out of boredom with an old system and some OLD IDE drives. Its in a JBOD. On a 250 Mhz processor ( yeah Mhz, NOT Gigahertz) The Windows box is cool, it was the easiest to setup and get media streaming to my Xbox 360 but it seems every day I get more and more frustrated with it.
 
Dare I ask it, do you need to run it on bare metal, or does your box have the hardware to virtualize? That way, you can play with both.
 
^^^Well I only have 1GB of Ram and a dual core Processor at 2.2ghz I think, SO I am guessing that Virtualizing isn't an option. Or could I possibly do this? Ram could be upgraded to 2GB

jay2472000 Thanks for the Comparison I was considering using mint.

Copper0 Could you explain to me more about OpenMediaVault? What are the Minimum system specs you need to run it?
 
OpenMediaVault is basically FreeNAS but based on Debian (same base as the Ubuntus you're getting to now). Although there is no GUI, it is mostly run from a web interface, which I think works out better since servers like this are usually headless.

It can be (and recommended) installed on a usb drive as it only needs 1 GB to install.

From http://www.openmediavault.org/features.html
OpenMediaVault includes the following features
Debian Linux (Squeeze) OS
Web based administration
S.M.A.R.T. monitoring + email notification
Watchdog
HDD power management (APM/AAM)
EXT3/EXT4/XFS/JFS filesystem support
Software RAID JBOD/0/1/5/6 (mdadm) + email notification
LVM
Share management + ACL support
SNMP (v1/2c/3) (read-only)
SSH
FTP
TFTP
NFS
SMB/CIFS
Bittorrent client
DAAP client
NTP
UPS
...

Using the plugin system it is possible to add additional services.
Click to expand...

And WOL :)

I'd suggest installing it on a usb and you can try out the web interface. I find everything I need is there. Of course you can always install a gui if you want. or pull the usb stick if you don't like it.

Oh yeah..

Minimum Requirements
i486 or amd64 platform
1 GiB RAM
1 GiB HDD/DOM/CF/USB Thumb Drive used as OpenMediaVault system drive.
NOTE: The entire disk is used as system disk. The disk can not be used to store user data.
1 HDD for data storage
Click to expand...
 
If you don't want to learn a new OS and you don't work in IT then go with Windows Home Server 2011. I think it is about $60 on Newegg. That is pretty reasonable for a small server OS.

If you do go with Linux you can install a GUI on a linux server, but part of doing it "Linux" way seems to be going command line style, but GUI's will get you where you want as well. It might be a good stepping stone to the command line.

I'd get Home Server, install Virtual Box, Install Ubuntu server and play around with it until you master it enough to implement and then make the change if you want. The $60 is worth if IMO to be able to get it all at once.
 
ComputerGeek said:
I didn't want to go the Windows route because, it always seem like it 1. Needs a Patch, Update, Fix 2. Has a Virus, Trojan, or A Fatal Security Flaw. 3. Crashes, and is less dependable than Linux (In Some Cases, not all.)
Click to expand...
Where have you been getting your Windows information from???
 
Copper0 said:
OpenMediaVault is basically FreeNAS but based on Debian (same base as the Ubuntus you're getting to now). Although there is no GUI, it is mostly run from a web interface, which I think works out better since servers like this are usually headless.
Click to expand...
lol - I've been sitting here playing with a zfs server (openindiana/napp-it from the storage forum) and thinking, "I sure wish it was based on debian instead...."

While this loses all of the ZFS awesomeness...I think I'm going to try this OpenMediaVault instead. Thanks Copper0.
 
tankman1989 said:
If you don't want to learn a new OS and you don't work in IT then go with Windows Home Server 2011. I think it is about $60 on Newegg. That is pretty reasonable for a small server OS.

If you do go with Linux you can install a GUI on a linux server, but part of doing it "Linux" way seems to be going command line style, but GUI's will get you where you want as well. It might be a good stepping stone to the command line.

I'd get Home Server, install Virtual Box, Install Ubuntu server and play around with it until you master it enough to implement and then make the change if you want. The $60 is worth if IMO to be able to get it all at once.
Click to expand...

Would the system specs mentioned above be enough to do this? And aproximatly how much hard drive space is needed for the doing something like that?

Copper0 said:
OpenMediaVault is basically FreeNAS but based on Debian (same base as the Ubuntus you're getting to now). Although there is no GUI, it is mostly run from a web interface, which I think works out better since servers like this are usually headless.
Click to expand...

I will be throwing this on a usb stick when the rest of my components come in and trying it out. Thanks for the recommendation.
 
DeaconFrost said:
Where have you been getting your Windows information from???
Click to expand...

Look at this for example, http://arstechnica.com/business/new...gh-value-machines.ars?comments=1#comments-bar

If you don't think that windows needs patches and updates and has some major security flaws. Then you must be infected, lol. Get it? :D But, really windows machines have always had problems and will have problems still. I am not saying that OSX or Linux doesn't have problems, because they do. Perhaps because windows is so commonly used that it seems to have the most defects.
 
Again, I have to ask where you are getting your info. When there's a security hole discovered in Windows, Microsoft fixes it, releases the patch on a regular schedule, and thanks the person who brought it to their attention. When someone discovers a security breach in OSX, it's ignored for a minimum of 6 months, and the person discovering the issue is given a cease and desist order from Apple's legal team. Read up on that at Secunia, a very well known and respected security site.

Since it's release, Windows 7 has been named the most secure OS at the annual Black Hat Conference.

Most Apple users, and probably Linux users, don't even run AV software...so how would they even be aware that they are infected?

Yes, I'm a Windows fan, but I also use Linux and think it offers some nice features. But seriously...whoever is feeding you your information isn't doing you the courtesy of giving you the correct info. If you truly believe what you wrote to me, you have to update your thinking quite a bit.

It's really common sense. Would you rather run an OS that patches it's holes, or one that ignores them?
 
Always used Debian for my servers. Never had a problem with intercompatibility. Install samba for Windows files, clamtk so you have a nice gui for antivirus, and you'll be good to go.
 
if this is for hobby, then you will have way more fun and bigger learning experience setting up a headless linux server than just running some GUI wizards on windows (subjective).

But of course if you don't find messing with computers fun, or are a "busy person," might as well go with WHS.

For the linux route, I'd go with centOS (and disable SELinux and the firewall until you have everything running, and then deal with that headache later). I'm not sure why the GUI was needed, but if its for managing I'd install webmin
 
I would recommend WHS. The OS has lots of media sharing capabilities and user friendly menus. I have Ubuntu on a usb drive that I boot to with my laptop sometimes, don't use it too much. I think they should offer more updates to the OS like microsoft does for security and features.
 
DeaconFrost said:
Where have you been getting your Windows information from???
Click to expand...

Haha. It's called "experience." That was funny, Deacon.


doctah said:
lol - I've been sitting here playing with a zfs server (openindiana/napp-it from the storage forum) and thinking, "I sure wish it was based on debian instead...." While this loses all of the ZFS awesomeness...I think I'm going to try this OpenMediaVault instead.
Click to expand...

Hey, Doc - Why would you want to lose the ZFS awesomeness? I've been looking hard at ZFS coming up soon so this makes me wonder.

Let's say I'm someone who doesn't have enough unix experience to have a preference between debian-based or solaris or BSD or whatever, what are the real world advantages you see of debian-based that make it better than others and could outweigh what seems like a great feature like ZFS? Divorced of personal preference / being comfortable with how certain things work, of course, because I haven't established such a pref.
 
I was in a similar situation as you ComputerGeek. I put together some misc parts into an old PC case and bought a couple of 2TB hard drives to put together a home media server. But I wasnt sure what OS to use. After asking some similar questions here on the forum, I ended up going with WHS 2011. I'm still putting the last few pieces together, but I have been happy with it so far. With this being my first server, WHS seemed to have all the features that I wanted and it should be easy to set up/install.


WHS 2011 is selling now on Amazon for $53

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-64-bit-English-Builder/dp/B0050TVAWS
 
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dar124 said:
I was in a similar situation as you ComputerGeek. I put together some misc parts into an old PC case and bought a couple of 2TB hard drives to put together a home media server. But I wasnt sure what OS to use. After asking some similar questions here on the forum, I ended up going with WHS 2011. I'm still putting the last few pieces together, but I have been happy with it so far. With this being my first server, WHS seemed to have all the features that I wanted and it should be easy to set up/install.


WHS 2011 is selling now on Amazon for $53

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Server-64-bit-English-Builder/dp/B0050TVAWS
Click to expand...

How come it is so heavily discounted? :confused:
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
for a home server, FreeNAS or Debian are head and shoulders above anything else if you are just slightly computer literate...

otherwise, any windows you have a spare license for, XP, or preferably Vista or 7, for home use, they can serve up files, or run any website you want, with ease.... soooo yea, basically, for home use, fucking *anything* is good enough....
 
Does anyone happen to know if it is easy/hard to move from FreeNAS to FreeBSD if you decide you need more functionality?
e.g., if you have any thought that you might want to upgrade later, it's too much trouble so just do it from the start?
 
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