Sekoyen’s

Studying more about Network-Attached Storage, I came across into Ubuntu.

FreeNAS is very good, easy, stable and hasslefree, but I think I want more than just a NAS.

What I want are:
1. Network Storage - FreeNAS got it
2. Webserver - FreeNAS have it
3. Squid cache server - FreeNAS don’t have it
4. A dedicated game server - how do I install game on FreeNAS?
5. A dedicated torrent download platform - hard to play it using FreeNAS

So, I decided to try Ubuntu. Why? On ealry stage, I had also considered Centos and Fedora but from certain website, currently Ubuntu is the most popular distribution.

Download

I want to build a server, but I think their desktop is also interesting, so I downloaded both of their iso images using torrent. I used torrent because I found out it was faster than download it from their server. Yeah! I got maximum download rate!

1. Ubuntu-8_04-desktop-i386
2. Ubuntu-8_04-desktop-i386

Than I burned them into CDs using Nero.

Installation

I installed Ubuntu Desktop into my main computer(which I usually use) and Ubuntu Server into my FreeNAS computer (Unplugged FreeNAS hard disk and I use another hard disk), because I thought I might want to use FreeNAS again, who knows!?)

The Installation process of Ubuntu Desktop into my main computer is very easy.
1. I resized my hard disk partition and created an unused partition using Partition Magic. So, Ubuntu could use the unused partition for it’s file system. The hard disk also got a Windows XP in it’s first partition. So, it would be a dual boot computer.
2. Than I inserted the Ubuntu Desktop CD and booted up the PC (Using the BIOS, I set it up to boot from CD)
3. Firsly, it asked the language to use. I chose English, then there was a list of avaiable options to use the CD.
4. I chose, the second one which is to install Ubuntu into the hard disk.
5. I just followed the instruction step by step, until it asked about partition to use, than I selected manual and pointed it to use the second partition. than so on..
6. It only took about 20 minutes to finish.

Dual Boot

The default, the system automatically chose Ubuntu to boot up. I wanted it to choose my Windows XP as default boot because my wife could still use the computer without asking too mush stuff.. hehe

What I did was:
1. open the terminal - Application > Accessories > Terminal
2. gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.list
3. Below is the sample of default configuration you might found (which I copied it here from somewhere)

4. Default is 0, is what the default operation system it will boot. I changed it to 5 so it pointed to Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition.
5. Save it and reboot.

Well, that’s it.

Ubuntu Server

What is the different between Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Desktop Edition?

From my little knowledge about Ubuntu, the desktop version will install the GUI (Graphical User Interface) and other extra applications like OpenOffice, Mozilla Firefox, Sypnatic, games etc. Meanwhile, the server version only install the needed application without the GUI. The applications installed such as apache2, samba etc.

The main thing you should know whether you installed a server or a desktop(yup, there are some confused users out there) is when it boot up, the desktop version will ask the login name in a beautiful orange screen but the server only ask the login name in black DOS-like screen.

If you don’t know which to choose, I personally think that you might want to choose the Desktop Edition. If you change your mind later (but still in learning process), you could install the needed application using the Synaptic application.

Installation

The installation would be as easy as the desktop but…
I installed it in another computer system with different hardware, faced some problems which I will write in another article.

I just find out about this tech a few days ago. I found it very interesting and useful. NAS makes it possible for us who have many computers at home or office to centralize all data in one server.

For more detail on NAS - Wiki

Using a free NAS system which is called FreeNAS, I transformed my old PC, a Pentium 3 with 256MB RAM to a NAS server.

The process was very simple.

1. Download a FreeNAS image, and “iso” file.
2. Burn it into a CD using Nero
3. Start the computer using the CD to boot up
4. Install it into the hard disk
5. remove CD and restart computer
6. Setup LAN interface

and it is ready! It only took about a few minutes of my time. You could read a very details explanation on how to install FreeNAS at DailyCupofTech Blog. Although quite an old article, but the current how-to is not much differs.

The next thing is to setup it’s function or network protocol such as NFS, FTP, iSCSI etc. You can see the quick guide from here.

What I am going to do with this NAS.

Actually, at this stage, I just want to test it. May be in the next few months when I got enough budget, I will buy a good PC to make it as a dedicated NAS server. Not a high end PC but a Pentium 4 with 512MB RAM and 2 x 240GB SATA HDD is in my imagination. Set those HDD to RAID1 so I don’t worry about the reliability.

I will put all my photos, mp3 and avi files on that server so that every user in my house could access those files anytime.

What are the advantages?

1. I will not worry about hard disk failure. Learn more about RAID1 here. Wiki - RAID
2. I will not have any storage capacity problem any more. My laptop hdd will not full same as other user’s hard disks.
3. Can access same files from any computer.
4. Sharing files is fast, easy and efficient. ( You would be amaze of how fast the file transfer’s rate )

Disadvantages:
1. Have to buy new hardware/PC.
2. Electricity bill would be slightly higher.

Why it is better than a normal window folder sharing?
1. The performance, local and network
2. Centralize
3. More than just folder sharing. iSCSI, webserver, uPnP etc.

Well that’s it. I’ve much more to learn!

If you already have a linux system as the web proxy server, you could also configure it up to act as the web filter. Or, if you did not have it yet, you may consider to make your old Pentium 200MHz system as the web filter.

What is the web filter and why you want it? A Web filter is a software that can filter some type of content a Web browser displays or block some web site it is trying to access. The filter checks the content of a Web page or a web address against a set of rules and replaces any unwanted content with an alternative Web page, usually an “Access Denied” page.

Systems administrator or parent is the person who usually responsible to control and to configure the type of content to be filtered. Web filters are used in schools, libraries, internet cafes, public kiosks and even homes to safeguard children from obscene content on the Internet.

Some favourites free web filters are SquirdGuard and DansGuardian. Both of them have to be used with Squid Web Proxy Cache server. But you have to use only one of them. Between the two web filter software, personally I think, Dansguardian is easier to configure, but SquidGuard is more powerful.

One of the place where you can learn on how to setup a web filter is Linux.com. They have a very complete guide on the subject.

Actually, I did not use the webcache server anymore because now I am using 1MB kbps streamyx, and I think it is quite fast.

The reason we use a web cache server probably because we are sharing the internet line with many computer in a local area network (LAN). With the web cache server, the internet speed seems to be a little bit faster esspecially when a client in one LAN request the same file which has been accessed earlier by other client.

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