debian server

Goal is to set up a home server running Debain Jessie.

• Share files with afp and smb
• Run basic python scripts
• Run flask servers on various ports
• Run an apache web server (not really set up)
• Run owncloud (synch clients are still slow)
• Run transmission for torrent download

0) The hardware is as follows

• See my pcpartspicker inventory
• Processor: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard
• RAM: G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
• Case: Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini ITX Tower Case
• Power: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX

1) Download and install debian

• Download debian jessie
• Make a usb key
• Install debian

• Check your debian version

  cat /etc/debian_version 
  8.2
  

2) Configure debian jessie

Update your repositories

  apt-get update

ssh

  apt-get install openssh-server

• Follow this

Sudo

• Use apt-get to install sudo. This is better then switching to su.
• Follow this.

Add in a second hard drive

• partition

  cfdisk /dev/sdb
  

• format

  mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
  

• Once disk is partitioned and formatted, this is what it looks like

  cudmore@debian:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb
  Disk /dev/sdb: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disklabel type: gpt
  Disk identifier: 8B1D619B-4B38-44AE-AEE1-0180F07FC75F
    
  Device     Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
  /dev/sdb1   2048 3907029134 3907027087  1.8T Linux filesystem
  

• Mount the second harddrive in a folder /movies

  mkdir /movies # remember to set group and group rwx later
  mount -t ext4 /dev/sdb1 /movies
  

• blkid to get unique name for fstab entry

  cudmore@debian:~$ sudo blkid
  /dev/sda1: UUID="30EE-7B6B" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="1eae1e11-6902-45f9-9c27-55ab648972b3"
  /dev/sda2: UUID="2cf97347-1baf-4abf-a297-650ebf4dfdff" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="15ac40fa-5874-423b-9282-209a8b88a60a"
  /dev/sda3: UUID="16a7a205-220c-4583-a758-4fcaf3eb0417" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="fa435c81-ab1e-4192-97ba-e55c08ceb932"
  /dev/sdb1: UUID="f6b5096b-188b-4204-92aa-31e8c58e0eb6" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="61e5434f-7975-45a8-a8c4-6148fb56f9b4"
  

• Append the new disk to /etc/fstab

  cudmore@debian:~$ more /etc/fstab 
  # /etc/fstab: static file system information.
  #
  # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
  # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
  # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
  #
  # <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
  # / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
  UUID=2cf97347-1baf-4abf-a297-650ebf4dfdff /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
  # /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
  UUID=30EE-7B6B  /boot/efi       vfat    umask=0077      0       1
  # swap was on /dev/sda3 during installation
  UUID=16a7a205-220c-4583-a758-4fcaf3eb0417 none            swap    sw              0       0
  # 2tb drive for movies
  UUID=f6b5096b-188b-4204-92aa-31e8c58e0eb6 /movies ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
  

Users and groups

• Make a second user ‘user2’

  sudo adduser user2
  

• Make a group ‘movies’

  sudo addgroup movies
  

• Add myself (user1) and user2 to the ‘movies’ group

  sudo usermod -a -G movies user1
  sudo usermod -a -G movies user2
  

Make second harddrive rwx for group ‘movies’

• make sure the second hard drive has rwx permission for group ‘movies’

  # the first 'movies' is the name of the group, the second /movies is the folder
  sudo chgrp -R movies /movies
  sudo chmod -R g+rwx /movies
  

Apple-File-Protocol (afp)

• Follow debian jessie afp install guide
• I am using netatalk-3.1.7
• Modify /usr/local/etc/afp.conf

The key here is to specify the name of the mount point using ‘home name = $u_server’. Otherwise your mount point becomes ‘[[user]]’s home’ and programs like Microsoft Word and Fiji will probably not find the path with the apostrophe in the name.

$u is a variable that inserts the current username. It is defined in the afp.conf documentation.

[movie_server] is a mount point that will mount my second hard drive from folder /movies.

;
; Netatalk 3.x configuration file
;

[Global]
; Global server settings

[Homes]
; basedir regex = /xxxx
;user1 will mount as user1_server
home name = $u_server
basedir regex = /home

; [My AFP Volume]
; path = /path/to/volume

[movies_server]
path = /movies

Remote desktop with vnc

• This is not working. May be jessie bug?
• plagiarized guide

Install Anaconda (Python)

• Download and follow these instructions on website

Configure duckdns to keep your external/router ip up to date

• Follow this

Install samba/smb file sharing

• Follow something like this

• edit with ‘sudo pico /etc/samba/smb.conf’

  [movies_server]
  comment = movies on debian server
  read only = no
  locking = no
  path = /path_to_our_files
  guest ok = no
  

• Restart samba

  sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart
  

Run python scripts at boot

• This is very unclear to me

• Directly edit ‘sudo pico /etc/crontab’

  @reboot root /home/cudmore/anaconda2/bin/python /home/cudmore/Sites/temperatureserver/app.py >> /home/cudmore/Sites/temperatureserver/temperatureserver.log 2>&1
  

• I want this to redirect stdout to the .log file. It is redirecting when it starts up but is not redirecting my ‘print’ statements as it runs?

Transmission (torrent download)

  sudo apt-get install transmission
  sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon

• Follow very specific instructions here
• this might be more useful.

• Modify /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/settings.json

  "download-dir": "/movies/transmission_download",
  "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1,192.168.*.*",
  "rpc-authentication-required": false,
  

• Maybe add transmissions user to ‘movies’ group? (movies group was made above).

  sudo usermod -a -G movies transmission
  

• That didn’t work (maybe I needed a -R). Fuck all this security anyways.

  sudo chmod -R a+rwx /movies/transmission_download/
  

• Make sure to stop and then start daemon when editing the configuration file.

  sudo service transmission-daemon stop
  sudo nano /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/settings.json
  sudo service transmission-daemon start
  

• Access transmissions via web interface

  http://192.168.1.200:9091
  

• My downloads were getting user/group debian-transmission. This will add user cudmore to group debian-transmission

  sudo usermod -a -G debian-transmission cudmore 
  

Install particle cloud server

see other blog post