Seriously, this was simple – and even better, it’s STABLE!
Instructions for this install are basically the same as those for my previous post using Ubuntu 9.04 and VM Svr 2.0.1 – except, now we need new patch files and the good folk at Ubuntu Geek have already written a great HOWTO Guide which steps through everything you need to do – so I’ll just summarise the changes in case you want to follow my guide with the changes
In a previous article, I covered off the installation of Kubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) onto an aging, but much loved and reliable ASUS 701 EEE Netbook. In this entry, I will detail a few of the additional bits of functionality I’ve added to the already awesome Netbook Remix (NBR) of this latest OS drop.
As always, if there are things you think I should be including, or better ways of doing stuff, let me know in the comments
Pairing Bluetooth to a Nokia E71
Using an inexpensive bluetooth adapter allows you to get online without having to drag out cables etc when you’re on the bus, in the car – wherever.
The adapter detected fine – but then came the job of setting up the pairing with my Nokia E71:
On the EEE
From the Home Screen, open the ‘Internet’ group, then open up ‘kbluetooth’
You should see a bluetooth icon appear on your toolbar
Right-click the bluetooth icon, and select ‘Settings’ > ‘Bluetooth Adapters’ from the dropdown menu.
From the ‘Bluetooth Adapter’ dialogue box, set:
Adapter Name: ‘[WhateverYouWant]‘
Mode: ‘Discoverable’
NOTE: Your Netbook is now being all promiscuous and stuff to the world, long-term, this isn’t good.
Click OK
On the Nokia E71
Select ‘Menu’ > ‘Connectivity’ > ‘Bluetooth’ and set:
Bluetooth ‘On’
Visibility ‘Shown to all’(the same promiscuous warnings apply)
My Phones Name ‘[WhateverYouWant]‘
Remote SIM ‘Off’ (not sure what it does, didn’t need it on)
Now, scroll/tab to the right and you’ll see the ‘Paired Devices’ list.
Select ‘Options’ > ‘New Paired Device’
Your phone should now scan for any bluetooth devices in range (if your workplace is anything like mine you’ll see a heap of devices)
‘Select’ the device with the name you set in the EEE steps above.
The phone will now prompt for a passcode – Enter a passcode (numeric) into your phone.
On the EEE
You should now be prompted to enter a passcode on the EEE, enter the same numeric code
On the E71
You will be asked to ‘Authorise device [the EEE] to make connections automatically’, select ‘Yes’
Your connection should now appear in the phone
(Optional)
Select ‘Options’ > ‘Assign short name’ and change the name of the device to something more friendly if you wish.
On the EEE
Right-click the bluetooth icon, and select ‘Settings’ > ‘Bluetooth Device Manager’ from the dropdown menu.
Your E71 should appear in the list, select the device and click ‘Set Trusted’
Congratulations, your devices are now paired… now to do something useful with the connection!
Installing EEE Control (EEE PC Tray)
EEE Control is a utility written to allow easy management of the ASUS EEE embedded devices such as en/disable the Webcam, SDCard, Wifi as well as setting power and performance schemes.
To set it up under Kubuntu NBR, simply open a terminal window and enter the following:
You should see an icon appear on your taskbar which allows you to access the functionality supported by your model of EEE netbook.
Installing UbuntuONE
“Ubuntu One is your personal cloud. You can use it to back up, store, sync and share your data with other Ubuntu One users.”
…it’s just not in the Kubuntu NBR by default. To fix this, simply open a terminal window and enter the following:
sudo apt-get install ubuntuone-client-gnome
You will then find a UbuntuOne cloud icon in your ‘Internet’ applications group, and from there you are only a simple configuration away from your 2GB of free storage out in the interwebs somewhere.
Installing Skype
Skype is a VoIP client, if you haven’t heard of it in the last 5 years, you’ve probably been living under a rock – it works, the voice quality is acceptable and while the video capability can be variable, it’s got a huge number of subscribers so, give it a crack – you’ll probably find a number of your friends are already on there. My Current Skype Status is:
So – Karmic is out, and for those who are looking to upgrade to the new goodness, there’s a few simple tricks to make the process pretty much painless.
If you’re already running (K)Ubuntu 9.04, simply open up a terminal window and type:
update-manager -d
For those installing from scratch (and to be honest – it’s what I tend to still do, hang up from the Windows days?) things are almost as simple.
Getting the Files
Grab a 2GB or larger USB stick
Hit the web for your ISO files
For the Firefox users, I’d recommend using a multi-threaded downloader with MD5 verification like ‘DownThemAll’
Once the files are downloading (and they’ll take awhile as everyone hits the servers initially (trying a torrent may help), head on to the next step… Making your USB bootable
Grab Unetbootin for your OS for a really easy way to create a bootable USB drive
Insert your USB stick, double check where it’s loaded then create!
On your EEE 701
Because of the native resolution of the original EEE, a number of dialogue boxes don’t fit so well on the screen. This is mostly only a hassle during the installation as, afterward, you should be able to hold down the <Alt> key while click-dragging the window you want to see the bottom of.
If you have an external monitor available, connect it and change the screen settings to display a more reasonable resolution, larger than the crippling 800×400 of the native 701
If you do not have an external monitor available, don’t panic – we can simply use the keystroke navigation as detailed below
Ubuntu Install (First Screen)
Press <Alt> + <F> (Forward)
Welcome Screen
Choose your language then <Alt> + <F>
TimeZone / Where are you
Select your location
<Alt> + <F>
Keyboard Layout
This should detect fine so…
<Alt> + <F>
Prepare Disk Space
To install to 4GB SSD (This will delete EVERYTHING ON THE DISK and install from a blank partition)
<Alt> + <E>
<Alt> + <F>
Partitions will calculate
For a Custom Install (to use SDHC card in a EEE for instance)
<Alt> + <S> (to Specify partitions)
<Alt> + <F>
Setup partitions as you wish
I chose to use /dev/sdc (the SDHC card) creating a Primary partition of [Full Size of Storage minus Amount of installed RAM (for swap) ]
Set mount point to ‘/’ and use the ext4 file system
Create a logical partition using the rest of available disk as swap (which should be size as the amount of RAM in your system)
<Alt> + <F>
Partitions will calculate
Who are you- Obvious really:
Your Name <Tab>
Login/Username <Tab>
Password <Tab>
Password Verify <Tab>
Device Name<Tab>
Choose your Login type
“Require My password” <Alt> + <M> – Default
“Login Automatically” <Alt> + <L> or
“Require my password to login and Decrypt Home folder” <Alt> + <R>
<Alt> + <F>
Summary
Last chance to check all your selections
Alt + I (to Install)
And now the installation will start…
At the end of the installation process, you will be prompted to remove the install media (USB drive) and reboot the machine.
The following guide will take you through installing VMWare Server 2 on a minimal install headless Ubuntu v9.04 (Jaunty) Server. For a step by step on setting up the minimal server, read the article I posted here.
Getting the Pre-requisite Packages
First up, you will need to SSH into your server, and paste in the following command to install some additional packages which allow for the changes required to the kernel and the building of the VMWare server.
Once the extra packages are installed, you will need to grab the TAR ball from the VMWare site, and drop it into the directory where you wish to run your VMs from. For me, I’ve chosen to keep them under my users home directory in a directory called (imaginativly) ‘VM’. The following commands will make the directory ‘VM’ under your users root directory, then change to that directory:
mkdir ~/VM
cd ~/VM
From the PC you are using to SSH to the server, open a browser and visit the VMWare Server page from here you will need to download the server which will require you to create a VMware account, and login so that a licence key can be emailed to you.
Once logged in, you will be directed to the download page containing all the binaries for VMware Server.
Download the relevant TAR image for your architecture and linux version to your local machine, and do an MD5 checksum to make sure it arrived intact.
There is also a patch which you will require, you will need a login to the Ubuntu Forums however, to access the file below:
From here, transfer the TAR and the patch file in whatever way works best for you. If you followed my server build guide and installed the optional SAMBA extensions, you should be able to easily open the home directory on your server via a Windows network share – or similar for you particular operating system.
Running the Installer
Back to our SSH session now, unpack the patch into your “~/VM/” directory, then extract the VMware Server TAR ball and run the installer:
tar xvfz VMware-server-*.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib
sudo patch ./bin/vmware-config.pl ~/VM/vmware-config.pl.patch.txt
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Accept the default options (there are a LOT of them) throughout the installation and allow the installer to build any modules or kernels it needs to during the setup.
Choose the Administrative User
When prompted for the name of the current administrative user, select YES and type in YOUR user name (otherwise it’ll use root)
Select the Directory to Store the Virtual Machines
When prompted for the directory to store your virtual machine files, type in /home/[YourUsername]/VM/Virtual Machines and allow the installer to create the directory
Entering the Serial Number
Next you will be prompted for the serial number which should have been emailed to you for your VM Server installation, simply copy out of your email and paste into the SSH window.
Back to selecting the default values now until you are returned to the prompt.
Just in case things didn’t go well
If you think you may have made a mistake in the configuration, you can easily re-run the configuration tool by typing:
sudo /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl
If you REALLY made a hash of it, you can always remove the installation by typing:
sudo /usr/bin/vmware-uninstall.pl
and start again
Accessing the VMServer Console
After you installation sucessfully completes you will be returned to the prompt in your SSH session. That’s it – you’re done. All you need to do now, is attach to the VM Server console via your browser by typing in the address of your server box which will look something like this:
Read the documentation, and start setting up some Virtual Machines, or download any useful looking Virtual Appliances that catch your eye from the appliance marketplace.
Note: If you experience issues with the web console appearing to ‘hang’ ensure that you have loaded the lastest Java Runtime Environment (JRE) – get it here.
This article will address the base (minimal) build that I’ve been using while trying out a number of Virtual Environments for use in my home network. I’ve chosen to use an Ubuntu Server v9.04 (Jaunty) as my base OS – partiallybecause I use a lot of Ubuntu machines, but mainly – because it’s a popular choice with a very supportive community behind it who are all too happy to help others who get into difficulties.
Getting the Software & Burning the Disc
First things first, get yourself over to the Ubuntu Server Download page and get the relevant .iso image for your computers architecture. Because I’m installing on a Shuttle XPC Sn95G5, I’ll be going with the 64bit version.
My laptop is slow to boot – painfully slow. Slow to the point that, after entering my credentials, I’ll go make a coffee or grab an architecture document to review – anything to avoid the minutes of chugging away which occurs whenever the boot scripts are doing their thing and all the Windows background processes are starting up.
This is where fun little tweaks such as those available in the Windows System Configuration editor come in handy. This is a little known tool which allows you to view and edit the things which load during your windows boot. Of course, because you can edit things in the startup files, it doesn’t mean you should. You can probably make quite a mess of your system if you get too free and easy with the clicking via this tool – so make sure you understand what it is you’re telling you machine not to do when if you decide to start unselecting options.
For me, the big one was to change the number of processors available to the startup sequence from 1 to 2 and allow maximum RAM to be utilised. To do this (these instructions assume Windows Vista, but XP should be the same – possibly with different dialogue box layouts), first you’ll need to startup the Windows System Configuration editor – Click Start, Run, and type in ‘MSConfig’. You’ll likely be asked for authorisation/administrative access to run the utility so, assuming you can grant such things, the first screen you’ll see looks like this:
Click the ‘Boot’ Tab
And select the ‘Advanced Options’ button
And there’s the money shot, change the number of processors, the maximum allowable memory, click OK to save and you’ll be asked to reboot.
It’s Firefox 3.0 release day (well, if you factor in the lack of understanding of timezones, to be fair – New Zealanders should have been downloading it yesterday) – anyway, mini soapbox aside, there seems to be a lack of simple instructions as to how to update Firefox on Ubuntu 8.04 from the version 3 beta to the release version – so I thought I’d do the foot (finger?) work for you…
As always, do a backup, YMMV – this is a guide not a guarantee…
First off you’ll need to grab the release version of Firefox from here
Save the file to your Ubuntu box
Shut down all instances of Firefox you may have running
From a terminal window enter the following:
sudo tar -C /opt -jxvf firefox-3.0b2.tar.bz2
Start Firefox again and check things worked by looking at ‘Help > About’
Okay, so I did a painless upgrade from 7.10 to 8.04 LTS while it was still in pre-release, but now that I’ve been playing around with the system for awhile, it’s apparent that my needs are changing and the easiest way to cater to these needs is a full reinstall from scratch, putting in place the learnings I’ve gained since initially getting the EEE and blowing away the default Xandros installation.
Update 19/05/2008: Added a few more applications to the HOWTO
Update 22/05/2008: Added a ‘Weirdness’ Section after having problems removing files from Trash.
Bah – it’s happened again, a new install of Vista results in me no longer being able to connect to my WebDAV folders. So, for my future reference… here’s the link to a posting relating to this error, and here’s the file location itself (Software Update for Web Folders (KB907306))
Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (a.k.a. sarge) was released on 6th of June, 2005. The new release includes a bunch of major changes to it’s predecessor Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (a.k.a. woody). You can check out the press release, review the release notes, or simply click yourself off to the Debian website to read more about it.
Now, while an official installation manual exists, and Google will help you find thousands of people who may be able to answer more technical questions, this page (or pages – depending on how much I end up caring about the documentation) will record my installation experience on my soon to be main server for the house. It’s mainly for my future reference, but you may find it useful too! I have based the instructions on the experience after booting to a CD burnt with the debian-31r0a-i386-netinst.iso file.
Hardware
This section is a little unnecessary as the Debian 3.1 install is actually pretty good at finding everything, but – for the sake of completeness – my hardware configuration for this server is as follows:
Case:
Enermax FS-710B
Yes it’s big, but the case was unutilised from a previous MythTV backend server project. This machine will also be running a number of hard drives and cooling is key
PSU:
Enermax 550W EG651P-VE
Again
big – 550W (peak 650W) is more than the average system needs, but these
are quiet units and I’m expecting to have a large amount of disk in
this unit at the end of all this. – [Review]
It’s an old board and monitoring the environmental sensors on it doesn’t appear to be too easy – if you have this board AND can direct me to an easy to follow howto to get monitoring working under Debian Sarge, please drop and email to rob [dot] inskeep [at] gmail [dot] com (with the obvious changes to unmung my address )
I’ve found this link around running Debian on this board – I’ll need to have a bit more of a play and see if it can clarify any of the issues I’ve been having…
CPU:
AMD Athlon 2100+
RAM:
Generic 512MB PC2700 DDR
Hard Drives:
40GB Maxtor
120GB Western Digital
200GB Seagate
Apollo UATA133 2MB Cache (6E040L0)
(WD1200BB-00DW)
(ST3200822A)
Optical:
LG DVD ROM
It may seem like overkill to put a DVD ROM into a server and I’d agree – but as the distros get bigger it’s making more sense – it also allows me to convince myself (and the accountant wife) that a DVD/RW + CD R/W drive would be a good investment for one of the LAN PCs
Video Card:
Power Color CM64P
I found this card in my box of bits that all us IT types tend to accumulate, I can’t find a manual or anything useful to describe the card so – google may be your best bet here.
Sound Card:
Onboard (C-Media CM8738)
Not planning to use this
NIC:
PCI 3Com 3C905B
Will probably add/replace with a Gig card at some stage
Initial boot from the Network Installation CD
1.0 Choose Language
English
2.0 Choose Region
New Zealand
3.0 Choose Keymap
American English
4.0 Detection Phase
5.0 Configure the Network
5.1 Enter Hostname [Enter a name for your machine]
5.2 Domain Name [Selected Default]
6.0 Partition Disks
I have 3 Disks in this system:
40GB Maxtor (6E040L0)
120 GB Western Digital (WD1200BB-00DW)
200GB Seagate (ST3200822A)
Since there is nothing I want on the box I’m happy to have the install wipe out everything.
6.1 Partitioning Method
6.1.1 Erase entire disk: IDE1 Master (hda)
6.1.2 All files in one partition
This created 2 partitions,
#1 primary 39.5GB ext3 /
#5 logical 1.6GB swap swap
I don’t plan to setup the other 2 disks yet as I want to span them into a very large drive which I can add more space to later – that will take a bit of learning I imagine so for now we just:
6.2 Finish partitioning and write changes to disk
Answer yes to confirm writing the partition tables.
7.0 Write partitions / Installing Debian base system
9.0 Completing Installation
9.1 Remove the CD from the drive
First boot after initial CD Configuration
10.0 Debian Configuration
11.0 Time Zone Configuration
11.1 Clock is NOT set to GMT
11.2 Pacific/Auckland
11.3 Root password
11.4 Users Full Name
11.5 Username
11.6 User Password
English
12.0 APT configuration
12.1 Chose edit by hand
Enter the sources as listed further down in this section – some may not resolve at this point so commenting them out with a # at the start of the line will allow you to continue through the installation.
13.0 Software Selection Note: I would not choose to install applications during the initial setup as, until this guide is complete and I can understand everything which is happening, I want to be able to install all the packages I need via the apt-get method. To do this, it pays to use local sources where it makes sense see below for my sources list which can be copy/pasted into /etc/apt/sources.list
13.1 Unpacks a bunch of files
13.2 Configuring Exim v4 (exim4-config)
13.2.1 Local delivery only; not on a network
13.2.2 Plan to configure things later to grab mail from various POP sources and deliver locally to allow for spam/virus blocking at the network level.
13.2.3 Root & postmaster mail recipient
13.2.3.1 [default user]
13.3 Debian configuration complete
13.5.1 Note that we can run this again via base-config program.
13.5.1.1 OK
13.4 Tries to start X & fails
13.6.1 Disables X Server until X can be configured correctly
13.5 Login Prompt
That’s it – the system is setup, now obviously there is some tidy up to do – but at least the system is running. Now, while we still have a local keyboard and monitor plugged in, we need to set the system to use a static IP address so we can find it later once it’s running headless (without a local keyboard/mouse/display).
You may find it easier to finish off via a SSH connection, first off we need to know the IP address that DHCP has assigned to this machine.
ifconfig
You are interested in the value of inet addr: for the eth0 card as this is the IP for the machine (and you’ll need to use it to connect your SSH client remotely. inet addr:10.1.1.xxx
Once you’re remotely connected, you can carry on to the next step, or go it alone and install any packages you so desire. The only package I needed at this point was vim, a text editor.
As the root/su user, do an apt-get update and an apt-get upgrade first, to ensure you have the latest packages and package list.
Use the command apt-get install vim to install the vim text editor
Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list to restore the lines we commented out during the installation. vim /etc/apt/sources.list
Your file should look something like this:
———————————————————————-
deb ftp://ftp.jetstreamgames.co.nz/debian stable main
deb ftp://debian.ihug.co.nz/debian/ stable main
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
# The non-US source listed below is not loving me at the moment – I need to find
# another non-US apt source.
#deb http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-free
———————————————————————-
Do another apt-get update to test your sources and ensure you have the latest package lists.
Once all your sources are working, do a apt-get upgrade to update your system with the latest packages
Setting a Static IP address
To set a static IP address, you will need to edit the /etc/network/interfaces file: vim /etc/network/interfaces
Change the line:
iface eth0 inet dhcp
to:
To apply this configuration type: /etc/init.d/networking restart
or reboot the system with shutdown -r now
Creating a Spanned Disk using LVM
So, the theroy is like this: I have a couple of largish hard drives (okay, as large as I could afford – and had lying around) and had previously spanned these within Windows XP to store a buttload of files and stuff. Since this server we’re building is going to be up all (most?) of the the time, it goes to reason that the large disk should sit here rather than on a windows box which goes up and down like a whitehouse intern.
On with the section…
Initialize the disk(s) (or partition(s)) for use by LVM pvcreate /dev/[ device_name ]
e.g. pvcreate -ff /dev/hdc
e.g. pvcreate -ff /dev/hdd
The -ff option forces an initialisation
Create a Volume Group vgcreate [ volume_group_name ] [ device_to_include ] [ device_to_include ]
e.g. vgcreate volume_group /dev/hdc /dev/hdd
Create a Logical Volume lvcreate -l [ the_size ] [ y o u r _ v o l u m e _ g r o u p ]
e.g. lvcreate -l 76313 volume_group
To determine [ the_size ] you can run the command vgdisplay [ volume_group_name ] and take the ‘Total PE’ value (or fraction of). See below for an example of this on my system.
Make the File System mkfs -t ext3 /dev/[ your_volume_group ]/[ y o u r _ v o l u m e _ g r o u p ]
eg mkfs -t ext3 /dev/volume_group/LargeDiskVolume
Mount the Drive mount /dev/[ Volume_Group_Name ]/[ Logical_Volume_Name ] /mnt
e.g. mount /dev/volume_group/LargeDiskVolume /mnt
Check the Mount df
Filesystem
1K-blocks
Used
Available
Use%
Mounted on
/dev/hda1
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
xx%
/
tmpfs
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
xxxxxx
xx%
/dev/shm
/dev/mapper/large_disk_volume-LargeDiskVolume
307673208
32828
292011480
1%
/mnt
Set the mount to load at boot vim /etc/fstab
Add the line:
/dev/disk_span/lvol0 /mnt ext3 defaults 0 0
Save the file
Test with mount -a
Right – the mount appears, it’s all done! The next step is to install Samba and create a share that windows machines can see and write to.
Displaying the Volume Group Information vgdisplay volume_group
— Volume group —
VG Name
volume_group
System ID
Format
lvm2
Metadata Areas
2
Metadata Sequence No
2
VG Access
read/write
VG Status
resizable
MAX LV
0
Cur LV
1
Open LV
0
Max PV
0
Cur PV
2
Act PV
2
VG Size
298.10 GB
PE Size
4.00 MB
Total PE
76313
Alloc PE / Size
76313 / 298.10 GB
Free PE / Size
0 / 0
VG UUID
78S1Dh-W6xW-iX1r-nTCQ-egEB-FKan-uRrT0a
Displaying the Logical Volume Information lvdisplay
If you’re following through this in the order that it’s written, it’d probably a good time to take a snapshot of your raw system before we go installing anything (clever) which might cause problems further down the track. This is a good idea as it give you a clean build of your system after all the initial setup has completed – and saves the setup bandwidth should you need to start again
I’ve chosen dd as the tool to create the backup as it’s reletivly well documented so googling will pretty much sort out most issues you’re likely to run into (very important when you’re talking about your digital assets!). The ddcommand will do a bit for bit backup of a Hard Disk. I’m using this to give myself an image that I can always come back to as I try changing and installing new ’stuff’ on my system (given my tendency to haphazardly experiment as I go).
Backing up:
Create a directory to store the backup mkdir /[device to store the backup on]/[backup directory name]
e.g. mkdir /mnt/backup
Copy the HDD to an image file dd if=/dev/[hard drive name] of=/mnt/[backup directory name]/[backup name].iso bs=65535
e.g. # dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/backup/mydisk.iso bs=65535
BE ROOT FOR THIS! Actually I don’t know for sure, but it stands to reason that if you don’t have the access of root, then you won’t be able to back up files owned by root.
Be patient. THIS WILL TAKE QUITE AWHILE (You are after all copying an entire disk) when it completes, you will see something similar to the following (just with numbers not xxxs )xxxxxx+1 records in
xxxxxx+1 records out
xxxxxxxxxxx bytes transferred in xxx.xxxxxxx seconds (xxxxxxxx bytes/sec)
Compress the Image
If you have a large amount of free space on the disk you were copying, compressing it will shrink it’s size. gzip /[device to store the backup on]/[backup directory name]/[backup name].iso
e.g. gzip =/mnt/backup/mydisk.iso
Again, this will take a fair while to complete so I’d recommend taking the dd and the gzip command lines and pasting them to the command line together so your system runs them one after the other – you could of course automate this with a script and run it via cron too. As an indication, I was able to turn my 41,110,142,976 byte .iso into a 32,757,683,474 byte .gz file – that’s about a 20% space saving!
Getting it back (Restore [for the benefit of searchbots]):
From some kind of command line (you could use a Knoppix CD or similar CD based distro) you need to run: dd if=/[device the backup is stored on]/[backup directory name]/[backup name].iso
of=/dev/hda bs=65535
e.g. dd if=/mnt/restore/mydisk.iso of=/dev/hda bs=65535
Reboot shutdown -r now
Note – I haven’t tried a restore at the time of writing this, so I’d recommend testing your backup before you need it.
Creating a Network Share with Samba
So, by this point you should have a machine setup on your network and you may even have a spanned disk with a heap of space which you can make available to your other network machines.
I’m going to use Samba to create the shared drive and control its access so that my Windows machines can also make use of the space.
Install the Samba packages apt-get install samba smbfs smbclient
How do you want to run Samba: [daemons]
Create samba password database, /var/lib/samba/passdb.tdb? [Yes]
Add a Linux user for linking to the Samba share adduser
Enter a username to add: [Share Username]
Adding user ‘[Share Username]‘…
Adding new group ‘[Share Username]‘ (1001).
Adding new user ‘[Share Username]‘ (1001) with group ‘[Share Username]‘.
Creating home directory ‘/home/[Share Username]‘
Copying files from `/etc/skel’
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for [Share Username]
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
Full Name []: [Share Username]
Room Number []:
Work Phone []:
Home Phone []:
Other []:
Is the information correct? [y/N] [y]
Add users to the Samba server smbpasswd -a [Share Username]
New SMB password:
Retype new SMB password:
Added user [Share Username]
Create a directory to share I’m assuming that your LVM is already mounted, if not check the LVM section for the correct syntax mkdir /mnt/[Share Directory Name]
e.g. mkdir /mnt/MediaStore
Allow others to reand and write to the directory chmod 777 /mnt/[Share Directory Name]
e.g. chmod 777 /mnt/MediaStore
At this point, you need to decide if you’re GUI or CLI, for me a Graphical User Interface is quicker and suits my impatient nature quite nicely, others may wish to do all their config from the Command Line Interface – either choice is fine, but for the sake of swift sharing, and given that this server will sit on the inside of my network, I’ve chosen to use a package called SWAT (Samba Web Administration Tool) to help me setup my Samba shares
Install the SWAT package apt-get install swat
As the package configures, you will receive a warning that your smb.conf file is about to get overwritten. Choose [Ok]
Enable SWAT by allowing the service vim /etc/inetd.conf
Find and uncomment the line:
Enable SWAT by allowing the port vim /etc/services
Add the line:
swat 901/tcp
Save the file
Reboot the server (or figure out how to reload the affected configuration files – and let me know)
To REBOOT use shutdown -r now
To RELOAD without a full reboot, use /etc/init.d/inetd reload
Right, now you should be able to point a browser on your LAN to
http://[Server Hostname or IP Address]:901/
You should be presented with an authentication dialogue (which you’ll need to use your root credentials for – don’t worry, you can setup other users once you’re in)
Click the shares link
Create a Share by entering your [Sharename] and clicking the ‘Create Share’ button
In the ‘Base Options’ section, enter the path that you created above ‘/mnt/[Share Directory Name]‘
In the ‘Security Options’ section, add the users you want to have access to the relevant list (valid users, read list, write list) e.g. I will have a user who can read and write from my windows machines, but the media devices which also connect to this share will be write only. In the ‘hosts allow’ line, you may want to add you whole network with
10.1.1.0/255.255.255.0
or just specific IP addresses
Click ‘Commit Changes’ when done setting options
Reference:There is a pretty good article over on Linux Questions on SAMBA, click here to view
Monitoring the box
This section covers a number of aspects of monitoring which I feel are necessary, but then – I do have a soft spot for numbers and graphs!
RRDTool
This is a great tool used to graph pretty much anything, seriously! One of the features I like the best about it is how the databases it creates never get any bigger than they are when you create them. I’ve decided to store all my databases in /var/lib/rrd/ since a number of others out there seem to use this location and it just makes using other peoples scripts a lot easier.
Install the RRDTool package apt-get update && apt-get install rrdtool
Read the documentation on the web for how it all works – it’s explained better there than I can do in this guide.
Hard Disk Drives
SmartMon tools is a package which allows you to interrogate your SMART enabled hard drives for problems. There is a pretty good article over at the Linux Journal here which details the what’s and how’s of the package.
To monitor the hard drive(s) on this system I followed these steps:
Edit /etc/apt/sources.list to add the location of the SmartMon tools package vim /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the lines:
# Location of SmartMon Monitoring Package
deb http://honk.physik.uni-konstanz.de/~agx/linux-i386/debian smartmontools/
Update your sources and install the package apt-get update && apt-get install smartmontools
smartd was disabled and to enable I needed to edit /etc/default/smartmontools vim /etc/default/smartmontools
Uncomment the smartd line
Start smartd smartd
Check your disks /usr/sbin/smartctl -a [disk name]
e.g. /usr/sbin/smartctlsmartctl -a /dev/had
I got output which looks like this:
smartctl version 5.32 Copyright (C) 2002-4 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:
Maxtor 6E040L0
Serial Number:
xxxxxxxx
Firmware Version:
xxxxxxxx
Device is:
In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:
7
ATA Standard is:
ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0
Local Time is:
xxx xxx xx xx:xx:xx xxxx xxxx
SMART support is:
Available – device has SMART capability.
SMART support is:
Enabled
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0×82) Offline data collection activity
was completed without error.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (1021) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0×5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
No Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0×0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0×01) Error logging supported.
No General Purpose Logging support.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 17) minutes.
SMART Error Log Version: 1
ATA Error Count: 1
CR = Command Register [HEX]
FR = Features Register [HEX]
SC = Sector Count Register [HEX]
SN = Sector Number Register [HEX]
CL = Cylinder Low Register [HEX]
CH = Cylinder High Register [HEX]
DH = Device/Head Register [HEX]
DC = Device Command Register [HEX]
ER = Error register [HEX]
ST = Status register [HEX]
Powered_Up_Time is measured from power on, and printed as
DDd+hh:mm:SS.sss where DD=days, hh=hours, mm=minutes,
SS=sec, and sss=millisec. It “wraps” after 49.710 days.
Error 1 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 0 hours (0 days + 0 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was in an unknown state.
After command completion occurred, registers were:
ER ST SC SN CL CH DH
– — – — – — –
04 51 50 40 97 03 00 Error: ABRT
Commands leading to the command that caused the error were:
CR FR SC SN CL CH DH DC Powered_Up_Time Command/Feature_Name
– — – — – — – — —————- ——————–
ef fe 00 00 00 00 00 00 00:03:20.976 SET FEATURES [Reserved for CFA]
ec 00 01 01 00 00 00 00 00:03:20.944 IDENTIFY DEVICE
c1 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00:03:20.944 [VENDOR SPECIFIC]
c0 00 01 01 ff ff 00 00 00:03:20.928 CFA ERASE SECTORS [VS IF NO CFA]
c1 00 ff 01 ff ff 00 00 00:03:20.928 [VENDOR SPECIFIC]
SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 4348 -
SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0×0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.
Loads of info huh? You can obviously pull out what is of interest to you from here.
This article will address the base (minimal) build that I’ve been using while trying out a number of 
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