Sheeva as a smal business/home server

[egrep]

I thought it might be worth starting a "server" thread. I am talking LAMP, with dns/dhcp, sendmail and maybe routing discussions. My take on this workhorse is a very green home/business server that can also serve as an internet gateway. What has anyone done in this area? I am building a server that will do everything needed for your own hosting including acting as your router.

Maybe your main router to the internet 'cause I just realized that wireless routers are almost cheaper than a 5 port switch. igroklinux.com has web, sendmail, slave zone dns, php based web site. Will work on 2nd nic and routing next. No need for mssql yet. This thing rocks

[plugit]

You know, it wasn't all that long ago that I was using a SPARCserver 20 for just this sort of application. I'm fairly certain that the SheevaPlug is far more appropriate for home use.

...and probably just as fast!

My goal for this week is this:

I have an 8 gig SD card showing up today, and I'd like to get the root filesystem on there. That'll give me plenty of room for the operating system + programs.

I'm going to mount a terabyte external drive via USB for data storage.

I'm going to set up rtorrent/wtorrent, and move all my stuff onto the data drive, so I don't need to power up a 620W power supply just for P2P.

I hope to be able to get SAMBA running, in order to share files via my local wireless LAN. I'm assuming this will require a kernel rebuild (IIRC, I need CIFS, which I didn't see in /proc/filesystems... forgive me, my Linux is rusty).

[egrep]

I have an 8 gig SD card showing up today, and I'd like to get the root filesystem on there. That'll give me plenty of room for the operating system + programs.

I have a 4 GB SD card mounted as /sdvol, but have not been brave enough to put the os there. What I thought of doing was move /var/log there and then try to find a way to get new packages installed there. Maybe copy over /usr/bin, /usr/sbin and maybe /usr/lib there, change fstab and create links in /. After a reboot, the system should be reading those from the SD card and the old directories (carefully renamed prior to reboot) can be cleaned out.

This should free up some space and give room for new packages to be installed on the SD card (one hopes). For external storage, I am getting a 3 pack of 4 GB HP usb sticks. I may put 2 of them on the server.

I hope to be able to get SAMBA running, in order to share files via my local wireless LAN. I'm assuming this will require a kernel rebuild (IIRC, I need CIFS, which I didn't see in /proc/filesystems... forgive me, my Linux is rusty).

You got a wireless device working via usb? I gave up in confusion but am open to suggestions. I was also going to go look for a normal usb ethernet device. I really do not need wireless, I will leave that to a router. Mine will be the gateway between the wireless router and the internet.

[plugit]

I have a 4 GB SD card mounted as /sdvol, but have not been brave enough to put the os there. What I thought of doing was move /var/log there and then try to find a way to get new packages installed there.

I will be trying tonight. Oh yes. Shouldn't be as brutal as last night's adventure (I hope!). I'm thinking:

Mount /dev/md1 as readonly on /mnt,
Format the SD card as ext3,
Copy the stuff using: cd dir1 && tar -cf - . | (cd dir2 && tar -xpvf -)

Reboot, tweak the u-Boot environment, and success! Maybe.

You got a wireless device working via usb? I gave up in confusion but am open to suggestions. I was also going to go look for a normal usb ethernet device. I really do not need wireless, I will leave that to a router. Mine will be the gateway between the wireless router and the internet.

Oh, no. I have the SheevaPlug plugged directly into my wireless router. There are limits to my insanity.

[elBradford]

There's good instructions in the wiki about moving the root to SD. Mine FLIES on the SD, I have a 4GB class 6 SDHC card, don't know if that makes much of a difference, but much faster than NAND. And btw, I didn't have to recompile to use SAMBA, works with included image.

[finndo]

This is my goal for the sheeva as well, I have been having issues with my SD card, everytime I plug it in the plug "locks up"? haven't done it while connected via serial, but any remote connections Ihave are dropped, and the plug stops excepting new connections.

I am hoping its the kernel, so I am updating that tonight, I hope. currently the plug has the default kernel 2.6.22.18

so I hope putting the new one from this site on there will help a bunch. I assume the information is here somewhere, but has anyone put ext4 on their sheeva?

[dattaway]

I'm using ext4.  You can mount ext2 and ext3 with ext4, but you have to specify it with the "-t ext4" switch as I don't have the others compiled...

I have my sheeva tethered to a UPS as an "uptime server."  I run a bunch of terminal windows through screen.  Everytime my laptop goes down from a dead battery or something, I just reattatch my windows and my desktop returns to where it was.

[uberpowergeek]

My Sheeva plus router is replacing two machines on my network for substantial power savings.  Here is what I'm doing with the Sheeva so far as a home server:

1. DNS - router points all DHCP'd clients to the sheeva for nice internal network names, no editing of hosts files, and no need to speak in IP#s to share local content when friends come over.
2. Samba - The sheeva has a terabyte USB drive attacted to it with pictures, music, and backup data.  Streaming data from it to other appliances is a snap.
3. openvpn server - router forwards a port to the plug allowing VPN into the internal network when away and access anything as if local.
4. openvpn client - always-on VPN to co-loc server where website hosting and other projects such as voice and game servers reside (that has substantial bandwidth, they say they have some OC192s coming into that datacenter  , so it's better than hosting at home).  Router is configured to forward traffic to that IP to the plug so any machine in the local network can access the co-loc'ed server without extra software.
5. automated backups - various desktops and laptops are configured to sync to the plug daily for data backup
6. Wake-on-LAN support for my internal LAN.  The Sheeva is always on but other computers may be off (in Suspend).  The power hungry computers are configured to suspend (S3) after time and power buttons put machines in suspend.  If VPNed in and need one of them on, the Sheeva can send the "magic packet" to wake them up, then remote desktop or  any other remote management tasks can be performed.
7. Bittorrent client - Power hungry desktop need not be on anymore to download whatever. Just let the plug take care of it.

Idle power before Sheeva: 170 Watts (two machines, a BSD router and a Celeron file server, other desktops, laptops in suspend)
Idle power after Sheeva: 34 Watts (the plug, USB HDD, wireless router on, desktop and laptops in suspend, can still access all data on LAN through plug)

Projected yearly power savings (CA rate at my tier) about $150.00 !!

So the Sheeva pays for itself in under a year for me, a no brainer. 

-uberpowergeek

[LrdShaper]

I'm slowly moving the services and apps I have on my XBOX and NSLU2 to the SheevaPlug. I have successfully moved:
1) Subversion
2) Cross-compilation envs for PSP, ReadyNAS Sparc devices and DD-WRT
3) Rtorrent
4) Cups-PDF for PDF printing over the network straight to a user's samba share
5) Squid as transparent proxy to provide local web cache chained to Privoxy for ad and banner filtering

Still on the list are:
1) Compiling linux drivers for Brother MFC-440CN so I can use the Scan feature and have it save the image to a samba share on the SheevaPlug
2) Tor + Privoxy for online anonymity
3) Email server
4) Nagios
5) RSSDler
6) Asterisk + PAP2T + SPA3102
7) SSH Server for accessing my entire home network from anywhere via tunnels (still thinking if this should stay on my NSLU2 for now)

As for media streaming, itunes server this is already being done by my ReadyNAS NV+ and it will stay there. Automated backups are also working well on the ReadyNAS (WOL the computer, mount the folder to backup, rsync the contents, shutdown the computer. It will do these for each computer at home)

After I've moved all the services, the XBOX will go to our bedroom after installing XBMC.

[jdonth]

LrdShaper,

Will you post instructions on installing Cups-PDF and Squid on the plug?

I'm sure others would be interested also.

Thanks,
~Joe

[LrdShaper]

LrdShaper,

Will you post instructions on installing Cups-PDF and Squid on the plug?

I'm sure others would be interested also.

Thanks,
~Joe

Sorry it took me ages. Juggling a lot of projects at work lately. I posted the link to the guide I put up in the Success Stories sub-forum.

Cheers!

[uncle john]

I'm slowly moving the services and apps I have on my XBOX and NSLU2 to the SheevaPlug. I have successfully moved:
...
5) Squid as transparent proxy to provide local web cache chained to Privoxy for ad and banner filtering
...

Please excuse me for asking a dumb question but I thought the thing only had one ethernet port and one USB port. How did you set it up to function in this way? Did you use a USB hub?

[fragfutter]

you can use a hub (depending on the attached devices, possibly one with it's own power supply).

But (if your question was hinting at this) for a proxy you only need one network interface.

[uncle john]

Oh. I thought you needed two network interfaces and a bridge configuration to set up a transparent proxy. Could you please point me to a HOWTO that will show me how to do it with one interface?

[fragfutter]

the transparent part has to be configured on your gateway. From there you redirect to the squid (nat it if necessary), the squid connects to the internet (and needs to be excluded from the redirect).