Posts made by Rob Dunn

@thanksaj

Yeah, all my experience has been with Windows DHCP, and you're right, configuring the DNS suffix and other options are easy as pie. On the pfSense/Linux side it's a bit...different...!

Ah, also...

I've not had to adjust this setting in a long time...

Added DNS suffix to my network adapter and to append that suffix to DNS lookups. Now I can ping via short and FQDN (I'm using workgroup at home).

@JaredBusch

Yeah! I was in that page (DNS Forwarder setup)...applied those options (they weren't checked)...then I noticed that even though I have a static IP set, DHCP was still allocating an IP to the interface!

I set a static IP reservation on pfSense, and now nslookup is working, but ping isn't, but I'm thinking this is a firewall issue at this point.

Thanks for the link!
Learning...

Since this box is not getting an IP from the DHCP server configured in pfSense, I assume that the responsibility of registering itself lies on the DNS client itself since I have a statically assigned IP. What's the easiest way to do this?

I was assuming this was the /etc/network/interfaces file, but I'm not sure if I'm looking in the right place.

@thanksaj

Try disabling Webroot while you perform the update (or any other active scanning apps if you have them)...doubt that would be it, but it's worth a try.

@Carnival-Boy

Pro versions of Windows 8 (not just Enterprise - and it sounds like for all versions of 10 so far) will allow for Bitlocker, so this might help.

You don't have any whitelisting rules (or something to protect against Cryptolocker) set do you? Dropbox will operate out of %appdata% - although I'm not sure at what capacity, but this is something you can check for. I know the auto-updater does...

@scottalanmiller

Agreed! This quad-core thing really propels it into a whole new category from "this is an interesting toy" to "I might be able to do something really quite useful with it." I realize I'm repeating what you said, but I actually have some ideas already forming for what I could do with that.

That new Quad Core unit looks pretty awesome. I may actually have to pick one of those up!

That reminds me - what backup utility are you guys using to do a complete backup of your Ubuntu systems?

I'd like something I can run while the system is booted into the OS (ala VSS backup for Windows). Also would like the ability to exclude files.

EDIT:

I found this list: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem

Anyone use these and what are your opinions?

For me, that was just what I had on media at the time and I've not performed release upgrade. I assume it would be just as safe!

@StrongBad said:

@Rob-Dunn said:

Neat! This is very nice! Also great so I don't have to keep looking up how to get a list of running services (I'll remember soon enough).

Are you using Ubuntu as your Linux OS?

Yep - for my home media server, running 14.04. It's definitely a learning process...

Neat! This is very nice! Also great so I don't have to keep looking up how to get a list of running services (I'll remember soon enough).

Can we get email notifications...hmmmm...?

To finish all this up, I reinstalled Crashplan and configured it via these instructions:
http://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/Latest/Configuring/Configuring_A_Headless_Client

Does anyone else use CrashPlan? I love the fact that they make it available for Linux (and easy to install!) to able to be run in this manner; i.e. run your desktop installation to manage the headless server.

Now I'm going to reconfigure my Windows desktop to point to my Linux box for localized backups!

Linux is awesome in some ways - it is definitely getting easier to handle over the years (in my opinion!).

@scottalanmiller

Oh, I didn't know that (re: serial ports)! Alas, this box doesn't have that either...it's a very specific configuration - what it does have, 4 bays that was my biggest draw.

EDIT: Buuuuut...would it support a usb -> serial dongle?

@scottalanmiller

The only thing you need to make sure of is get the right lens with the proper focal length. I had a couple from a cheap pair of binoculars that weren't quite right and the thing ended up being a bust

I'll probably just order a kit online (they're pretty cheap, if I remember right).

It seems very cool.

@Dashrender said:

What kind of slots do you have for cards? If you pay the postage I'll send you a video card, I have several just lying around.

I wish it was that easy! There's just no slots available for cards...it's very proprietary that way. Basically, there's a small header on the motherboard that can be plugged into and wired up to a svga adapter.

Here's the solution that people have come up with:

This unit is actually a donated (from one of my personal clients) MediaSmart 485: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859105420

It's one of those "boot em up, load the CD on your desktop PC to attach" kind of servers that runs WHS. I rebuilt it last year using Ubuntu server and RAID'd 3 x 1TB drives (yeah, I know, RAID 5) + 1 drive for OS. I do have everything backing up from the RAID volume to an external source locally + Crashplan to the Cloud (don't hate me Scott).

You saw the topic heading - this thing is headless in the truest sense. There's no video output - no SVGA, DisplayPort, HDMI, etc. so troubleshooting is a real bitch. You might ask how I built it in the first place? I have an HP dc5700 that I popped the OS drive into and installed/configured everything and then moved the drive back into the media server. The underlying architecture was similar enough I suppose, but you Linux guys can probably explain that better than I...

I rebooted the server the other day and it wouldn't completely fire up. It would ping, but I couldn't SSH to it, Webmin wasn't working, couldn't get to Plex, etc. I assumed that maybe there was a message waiting for me So, I popped the drive out, put it back in the HP and everything boots fine - complains that the media volume group couldn't be found, but this was expected. Since I'm not actually seeing exactly what was going on with the media server (drives are over there, in that box there...not this HP!) I couldn't troubleshoot...so, I decided to rebuild. I thought maybe the boot drive might have been going (it was an oldie, so I switched to a 3TB that I had on the bench).

Once rebuilt, I installed/configured openSSH, then popped the drive back in to the server, booted it up and then installed webmin.

Adding the volume that I had created previously was a cinch, but apparently due to some improper shutdown I had some corrupted files on the volume. I couldn't get to a particular folder that had all my kids movies...so, after some Googling the particular error (about inode not being found and some input/output errors while performing a copy) I backed up everything I could to another drive, unmounted the volume, and ran e2fsck on it and let it repair (like chkdsk for Windows). In retrospect, I wonder if the boot wasn't completing because it was waiting for an answer to repair the volume?

Once repaired, my files were in the lost+found folder, I think I only lost a few. I installed Samba via Webmin, moved the files back to their proper folders, installed Plex and pointed them at the files. Everything is working swimmingly now.

Lessons learned:

• If you run an OS you're not familiar with - video output is a really, really good idea
• Webmin is awesome
• I like Linux. It's powerful, but it's such a different beast than Windows it takes a mental gear-shift to work with it. You can't just "do things" with Linux. You have to be deliberate and be aware of the repercussions of anything that you do.

On a side note - does anyone know of a Linux-supported USB-driven display adapter? I know I can buy a kit that I can plug into the motherboard to get video, but I'd prefer something that wasn't so specific to this unit.