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Family server setup

Introduction:
I’ve had a home-built server sitting in my flat for a while now but have never got round to setting it up as much more than a personal networked storage device.
I was then hit by some very strange memory/motherboard problems which cropped up during my exams, so it’s taken me a while to get things up and running again.
Anyway, after a few days (I’m slow and learning) I have a pretty useful family backup server which, touch wood, is running very very well.

Requirements:

5 laptops (1 roaming around Europe, 2 at University and 2 at my parents’ house)

4 with Windows XP and 1 with Vista; 2 on a home network, 1 (w/ Vista) usually behind a corporate firewall and 2 on University networks with their rather restrictive firewalls

Invisible backup to the server from any location on a regular schedule

Ability to remotely administer each client or provide tech support (a common occurrence)

SSH tunnel to a Squid proxy to allow secure surfing on suspect WiFi networks by all computers

Some useful ‘local’ applications for backing up media from my own desktop

Solution:

The Server - Hardware
Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 AMD 770 motherboard w/ Athlon 64 3Ghz and 1Gb of RAM
2 x WD Caviar IDE 320Gb drives
2 x WD Caviar Black SATA 640GB drives
1 x Netgear Gigabit switch to speed up transfers from my desktop to the server
…and all the other hardware essentials.

The Server - Software
Ubuntu 8.10 LAMP server w/ various additions & modifications, including:
Webmin
Torrentflux
SAMBA
Hamachi
rsync
uShare

The Clients
Hamachi VPN installed on each, all connected to one network with an extremely strong password
SyncBack installed on each, with schedules set up, frequently for critical folders (essays, presentations etc) and less frequently for bulk folders (music, videos, photos)
LogMeIn Free installed on each and linked to my LogMeIn ITReach account

The Software:
User-specific SAMBA shares for each user/client, meaning each client only has access to their own backup folder, whilst I have access to all folders.
I also have a drop-box type SAMBA share in which anyone can save any kind of file, which is useful for sharing photos, lists etc when email won’t do.
As an aside, I found this quite tricky to set up and am happy to share my .conf file with anyone who needs it. Each share really just looks like this:

[User1-laptop]
comment = User 1’s Laptop Backup
path = /media/disk1/user1-laptop
browseable = yes
read only = no
valid users = user1 greg


I picked up a special offer on LogMeIn ITReach a few months ago and find it invaluable for synchronizing my network drive and my files on my home desktop, as well as remotely starting and stopping torrents, backups etc. LogMeIn Free is far more limited in terms of features but is fine for simple tech support purposes. Overall, I’ve been extremely impressed with LogMeIn, especially the security offered. For example, as well as an account login and password (plus the remote computer’s credentials) I am sent a one-time 8 digit key to my email (and therefore my Blackberry) each time I log in.

Installing Hamachi on the Ubuntu server is far from zero-config but a careful reading of the forums soon sorts out various problems with upx-ucl-beta and other unexpected steps. As above, I am happy to share my solutions but this page from the Hamachi Wiki should be all you need.

I have added uShare to serve up my videos to the XBox 360 via UPnP, plus HandBrake CLI so I can backup my (legally bought) DVDs straight to a chosen format on the server.
To round off the media backup tools, I added automated CD backups to MP3 using ABCDE.

Despite the impressive up-time of Google’s Gmail, I am happier having a local backup of my Gmail account. Following this tutorial I installed Getmail and now have a .mbox file on the server updated daily.

The Result:
Each computer backs up to the server on a staggered schedule with SyncBack, via Hamachi. I have a central repository for all family photos, all my music plus an accessible backup from which to restore files should anything happen.
I have made use of secure features on the dd-wrt firmware to allow me to use run an SSH tunnel to the server for when I’m stuck behind a restrictive firewall. Using Putty, I create a local SOCKS proxy to forward all web traffic through the server.

Please leave a comment if you’ve found this useful or would like any help with what I’ve done.

© 2008 Greg N Baker.