Tag Archives: linux

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And so it *kinda* ends. All essential daemons to safeguard the functioning of networking services are now moved to the new server. Which I re-installed with ClearOS. This works a lot faster and more efficient than Zentyal, I discovered. Uses about half the ram and whatnot. Despite some initial issues with the ClearOS website and download, it turned out to be quite enjoyable.

Both Mac Mini’s now *only* have Filesharing active. Not even Open Directory anymore. Mysql and Apache crashed on one of them. I’m not even going to bother figuring out why. Mountain Lion Kindly killed my entire Apache configuration after all. Without telling me. All virtual hosts, files. All gone. MySQL won’t start, or talk to me, so I don’t know what’s going on there. But it doesn’t matter anymore.

ClearOS has taken over. Handling Apache/MySQL/DNS/DHCP and VPN. Without blinking it’s eyes or going nuts over nothing. Yay! I know ClearOS from way back, before I used Apple hardware. It was called Clarkconnect back then. Very solid distribution. I hope ClearOS is as good.

So what will the Mac Mini’s do. Well, they both have their uses. One is now a mere media and file server. The other still runs the Minecraft server. At some point, when either one breaks down further I will reinstall both and swap the hardware for them. Since Minecraft isn’t multicore anyway it can just as well run on the dual core Mac and video encoding and media streaming then can use the full speed of quadcore. But that’s for later.

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Today my new hardware for a server arrived. This will replace in part a bunch of Mac OS Server tasks in order to create a better and faster network.

So far it’s faster and works better than Mac OS Server ever did. After some research and asking around on the Ubuntu Forum someone there pointed me in the direction of Zentyal Linux, a prebuilt server OS based on Ubuntu 10.04 and comes with a administration panel via the browser and allows for a bunch of services to be configured, added or disabled. Similar to how Apple handles things.

Aside from a bit clumsy dashboard it seems to work very well. The DNS server even resolves DHCP hostnames now which Mac OS Server never was capable off. Great!
It’s terribly fast too, which is great! Especially considering I use relatively weak hardware and little ram. But that’s only a good thing I guess.

I have set it up with DHCP, DNS, VPN and wanted to use LDAP too.

However I ran into an issue that Mac OS Server’s Open Directory apparently is not a standard version and  thus would not hook up with the Zentyal version of it. So there’s a bit of fragmentation going on in terms of user management but nothing too uncomfortable.

There are a bunch of other things active ofcourse. Like a webserver for the administration. I haven’t quite figured out how to configure my own sites but I’m considering moving my development stuff over to Zentyal too. Additionally there is a Firewall and Antivirus thing active. I’m nto sure what what the antivirus daemon does exactly since I use no Mail or file storage. But it kinda insisted on being active. Same for the firewall. I don’t really need it but when it was off it kept telling me I should enable it. I guess because i choose the “gateway” profile when installing it assumes the server works as an actual router or firewall. I’ll read up on that later.

The hardware itself is neat and nice too. It’s the prettiest, cutest mainboard I ever saw in this size :) Almost a shame that it had to go inside a casing. The case is really small too. Came with a built in power supply of 150watts, which is less than the average Mac Mini (180+ watts). I strapped in some old ram from my Macbook Pro and found a unused 320GB Western Digital disk. Way too large in capacity. But hey, better than buying one.

I use 2GB of space for the system :)

Because the mainboard is fanless and the case has 2 silent 80mm fans it runs virtually silent. I’m sitting maybe 1 meter away from it and I can’t hear it at all. Just like a Mac Mini.

Now let’s see if this is the actual answer to my problems and will improve things!

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So here i was again. Installed a new harddisk, SATAII, in my server and went on with installing Ubuntu, since that still is a bit the distro of choice for some reason. I keep coming back to it…

Anyway, installed the whole thing. Ran updates and all seemed fine. Were it not that i can not log in in the regular Gnome session. I have to use the failsafe one. Which obviously omits some packages.
Further investigation shows me that my videocard is problematic due to a bug in Xorg (the app that handles visual output and basically governs the desktop). Ultrabummer! The video card is onboard and i thought it would be well suited for server use… And it would be if Xorg would support the thing.
This very well explains why Fedora kept screwing up after updates… Since Xorg was updated too. *sigh*.

So i have 4 options at the moment:
1. Install the *actual* server version of Ubuntu which does not use a desktop and with that go back in time 20 years with terminal.

or

2. Install the server version of ubuntu and somehow make Gnome work with it on some basic level comparable with the failsafe mode from Ubuntu.

or

3. Find another working PCI / PCI-express video card and use that for my desktop installation.

or

4. Use Windows. Which in my idea is no real option since i want a proper and secure webserver (with a system of which i know how it works) that has SSH and more of those things. In my experience it does not run well (if at all) on Windows.

My goal was to install a small server with a desktop and not use terminal at all, or limit it to an absolute minimum if possible. I’m not too fond of terminal/shell since i find it limiting, chaotic and inefficient. However, it works well otherwise. I’m spoiled with mice, colors, admin apps and remote desktop.

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Geez, all night i’ve been trying to figure out what’s wrong. The liveCD won’t book properly. It logs me in, hangs and again requires me to login. It’s a loop.
When i install Ubuntu directly it seems fine, installs. And on first boot requires me to log in, hangs, and asks again for my login.

Fine, broken distro/download… reassuring, but fret not! I still had Ubuntu 7.04. So i installed that. It booted fine. 224 updates. Installed those with the intention to run “apt-get dist-upgrade” (or whatever upgrades the distro these days) right after it. All went fine until the kernel updates were done. I had to reboot for that, naturally, and Ubuntu wouldn’t boot because my harddrive had bad blocks. Running fsck failed because of all he badness on my disk.

Further examination of the disk in another computer told me there are NO bad blocks and linux lied to me… Anyway, putting the disk back in it’s own case i tried to boot again, it booted. Miraculously. But since all updates were now installed it would not let me log in… Turns out Fedora died on me because of bad blocks a few days ago… I am investigating things here.

Linux, again, turns out to be utter rubbish!

Earlier, when i was still using this thing for a PC (well over 8 months ago) i ran Ubuntu 7.04 just fine on it. And Fedora too. Well, if some updates in Ubuntu break everything. Fuck all! It’s another distribution for me. Fedora being the logical choice since i know that one also.

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I found this computer in the attic, i knew i had it. But kinda forgot about it…

AMD3500 64bit, 1.5GB ram, 160GB HDD… How can one forget about it. Well it’s easy when you use macs… Anyway, i always wanted to do something with a server and before i knew it i was doing the following:

*sigh*

Yea, Ubuntu… Can’t let go. This however will be a lazy-mans server. I’m installing the desktop version and won’t bother much with the shell if possible. I guess i got a bit lazy with OSX.

The goal… Bring up Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) and maybe some other things.
Intention… Revive Squidbot, dev server for WordPress and some other top secret plans including taking over the world and remote desktop.