Linux file server

Question

I have an old PIII pc laying around that runs very silently and I'd like to setup a file server for backup storage. As I don't really need it to be super reliable (I'm for now more interested in learning and having a bit of fun) I think that that computer should be enough.

It only has 384MB of ram memory, a 40GB hard disk and I'd like to be able to store files on a few 8GB usb drives that I can leave plugged.

As a full Ubuntu install runs slowly I would like to setup the system without graphical interface and manage it over the network connection. Is there a more appropriate distribution for this purpose? Or can I reconfigure Ubuntu to say, boot to graphical interface for setup but normally boot to just a terminal?

I also want to access the server using a browser and authenticate on it just as an on-line file storage system such as www.box.com. So I guess that I would need server software like Apache plus something like ssl and some file manager.

As the network has internet access should I consider any possible safety issue?

I'd also like to be able to power it up and down remotely because I don't plan to leave it on all the time. Does that require some special hardware feature?

I want software lists/suggestions so that I can study and try to build it.

Thanks

Answer 1

(That's a lot of questions in one. It would be better to post each as a separate question. But I'll try to briefly address each point.)

There's no need to move away from Ubuntu: it has everything you need, and if you already know Ubuntu you'll have less to learn that way.

To boot without a GUI, uninstall the gdm package (and kdm, xdm, wdm if you have them). Or edit /etc/init/gdm.conf (and /etc/init/kdm.conf, etc) and comment out the start on … directive. You can still log in on the console in text mode, and if you want a GUI you can run startx.

Since you don't have a lot of RAM, you may want to tone down the GUI even for those rare times you use it. The main approaches are disabling compiz, and using a more lightweight environment such as xfce.

You can do a lot of administration remotely, from a nearby beefier desktop PC. You can even run GUI applications that way: run ssh -X yourserver, and you can start X applications on the server: they'll display on your screen. You can edit remote files by mounting the disks over NFS or sshfs. Editing root-owned remote files is a little harder: you can do it by logging in as root over ssh (which is a security issue), or you can use Emacs which can chain ssh and sudo.

As a basic security measure, you should set up a simple firewall. Ubuntu's basic firewall UFW is enough. First block all incoming ports, then open the ones that you do want to expose as you need them. If a port is only needed for local administration, allow connections only from your desktop PC or local physical network. If you have a home router, block the same ports there as well. Apart from that, always install security updates, don't run PHP or other CGI scripts on an Internet-facing server if you don't know what you're doing, and you'll be ok.

You can power up your server over the network if it's plugged in and your Ethernet card supports some form of wake on LAN. Beware that this feature often has poor security, so make sure that someone on the Internet can't send these packets to your server (a NAT as usually done in home networks is enough to block these packets).

Answer 2

Depends what you're going for. A standard install of Debian (without GUI/"desktop" features), would be my choice.

Answer 3

I have not used it myself, but I keep hearing about FreeNAS.

Answer 4

It full blown Ubuntu is a bit anemic, and you still want a GUI as a fall-back, you should try Xubuntu

It's Ubuntu with XFCE instead of Gnome. XFCE is specifically designed for resource-limited applications.
However, since it's still the underlying Ubuntu, you get synaptic and all the ubuntu packages.

I run it on a little Intel Atom box as a SVN server, and it's very peppy.

Also, I think if you set up your ubuntu box to allow SSH and not log-in automatically, I think it won't start the full GNOME desktop until you log-in locally, or start a remote X session.

Answer 5

OpenFiler has the advantage of integrating with Active Directory, which FreeNAS does not do (last time I looked).