So, i think its High time I installed a home server/web host in my home. The task seems daunting. I have an old Pc in an antec server case sitting idly down in my work shed.it wont be a media powerhouse to spread media across town. i want to be able to put my music files, picture files, host my website locally, and get a better security proceure going in my house. NO "CLOUD" integration
can one of you Tech Guru's guide me to a good write-up OR help me get this machine set up? 1-What Os makes a good server Os, 2- as it is built now, will it work as a server. 3-good, inexpensive firewall (currently running No antivirus on any PC in the house)
Antec Titan server case-10 Drive Bays: External 4 x 5.25" (one with 5.25"-to-3.5" adapter); Internal 6 x 3.5" 650w power supply Intel core2 quad 4g ddr3 memory Asus P5N-D motherboard- believe it has onboard graphics 2-Nvidia GT7900 graphics cards 2-500G sata HDD's cd/dvd RW WinXP SP3
Last Edit: Nov 25, 2016 5:19:35 GMT -6 by dozerguy
all but one of my machines are laptops, so more wi-fi than hardwired.
When i remodeled basement i build an office. there are 3 cat5 cables running into that room. i have an older model belken wifi router and a splitterbox
Last Edit: Nov 26, 2016 3:38:45 GMT -6 by dozerguy
So, i think its High time I installed a home server/web host in my home. The task seems daunting. I have an old Pc in an antec server case sitting idly down in my work shed.it wont be a media powerhouse to spread media across town. i want to be able to put my music files, picture files, host my website locally, and get a better security proceure going in my house. NO "CLOUD" integration
can one of you Tech Guru's guide me to a good write-up OR help me get this machine set up? 1-What Os makes a good server Os, 2- as it is built now, will it work as a server. 3-good, inexpensive firewall (currently running No antivirus on any PC in the house)
Antec Titan server case-10 Drive Bays: External 4 x 5.25" (one with 5.25"-to-3.5" adapter); Internal 6 x 3.5" 650w power supply Intel core2 quad 4g ddr3 memory Asus P5N-D motherboard- believe it has onboard graphics 2-Nvidia GT7900 graphics cards 2-500G sata HDD's cd/dvd RW WinXP SP3
Will it work...oh my, yes! Huge overkill hardware wise though. You're not getting thousands of hits a day, right? You could literally run a webserver for a private website like yours on a little $25 Windows tablet that has an Atom processor, a gigabyte of RAM, and uses 5W of electricity. There's not much to it if all you're seeking to do is serve up some HTML and media files to run a basic website. What you need:
An ISP that doesn't have draconian ToS that prohibits things like servers.
An Internet connection with decent upload (as in, avoid asymmetrical DSL).
An Internet connection with a public facing IP address.
A reliable Internet connection.
A DNS host. You can use a free/inexpensive DDNS host, or link your paid, top-level domain name to the DDNS host as a nameserver so that it tracks your public IP. I am currently doing the former as it is simpler and I'm not currently serious enough about a personal website to be shelling out money a domain name.
A secure modem or router that can withstand hacking and attacks from the outside, and has a good interface for port forwarding and static IP address assignments on the local network. I am currently using a Tenda AC15 router on Tomato firmware. My ISP's modem is in bridge mode, so it is nothing more than a passthough device, and my router is directly facing the Internet.
PC with enough storage space for the files you wish to share.
Either solid state storage, or enough RAM that Windows can effectively cache most of the data that will be served.
Webserver software. Linux Apache and Microsoft IIS are among the most popular today. Personally, I'm using server software I wrote because I wanted something simple that was guaranteed to be secure, and I am not using advanced features where the server has to execute code to build pages (in other words, my site is pure HTML).
Windows file sharing properly set up and password protected so that you can safely and yet easily modify the files on the server.
Windows remote management features disabled just as an additional layer of security should your router somehow get breached.
I don't really have much of an opinion on operating system, besides Windows 10 having below average reliability due to continually rebooting for updates. I've used XP, 7 and am currently using 10. Probably more important would be your webserver software.
Now if you're seeking to use the PC as a firewall/router on your network, that's more complicated, and you'd likely end up running Linux. I know enough to be dangerous here, but haven't done this as I don't see the need. Really, in a home environment, "firewalls" are hugely overrated. By nature, a router will provide protection from the outside world as unless compromised, because devices inside the network only have outgoing access.
But if you're simply looking for something like Noel has set up (DNS filtering with wildcard support), that could be added to your webserver PC—and I'm sure he'd gladly walk you though it. Or you could do as I've done and have DNS filtering without wildcard support though your router. You'd need a router running advanced firmware like Tomato to do this though.
Last Edit: Nov 26, 2016 12:36:37 GMT -6 by Techie007
Microsoft, is Windows 10 the best you could do? Really? After promising to listen to our feedback, what a letdown!
im going to have to do some more research, some of that stuff you mentioned is greek to me as far as the spare pc i thought: up the drives to four 1-2TB drives on a raid10 array dump the video for onboared graphics. i have a smaller power supply around somewhere
linux would probably suit me well. (windows10 gave me a bad taste for microsoft products). there wont be much for hardware to deal with.
as far as the web-site....meh i have had my domain for 20 years now. maybe i get 20 or 30 hits a day. i keep it cause its my own piece of the WWW.
Your ISP's ToS are very straight forward and easily understood. Looks good to me.
I can certainly elaborate or explain further on any of the points I made earlier if it would help. I updated my earlier post to make the points numbered so it would be easier to refer to specific ones if needed. I have already done this and am quite familiar with the processes involved, and would be glad to share my knowledge. If you've seen my ProBoards avatar or have visited my OptOut10 page, you've accessed my home server already.
Feel free to use whatever hardware you've got laying around. The point I was trying to make is that you really don't need to spec the machine out just to run a little webserver (things like dual graphics cards and HDDs). The real caveat to keep in mind is electricity usage. If you're running an old clunker 24/7, a cheap tablet might pay for itself in electricity savings over a year. Some of those older PCs use >100W idle, and a rough rule of thumb is that it will cost you a dollar per watt to run a device 24/7 for a year (calculator here).
Last Edit: Nov 26, 2016 13:08:07 GMT -6 by Techie007
Microsoft, is Windows 10 the best you could do? Really? After promising to listen to our feedback, what a letdown!
Lots of coals in the fire right now as winter is my season to do things other than work 14-15 hrs a day. I will drag that PC up to the house this week and get started on getting it running. as i go, i will post my questions. I really want to move from our 3rd bedroom to my new office!
lists x64 and x86 for: - ape dot one - ape - win 7 - vista - XP - Server 2003
2K Linux ...
only winders server version with driver support is server 2003 x86 x64
if you don't want to have the PCIe graphics card installed you could get it all set it up with the existing graphic card then change it to "headless" and remove the graphics card, keyboard and rat then do everything after that via Remote connection
it's not a server board though so it might not support an actual headless config and might not even boot without a graphic card installed
Last Edit: Nov 27, 2016 9:44:16 GMT -6 by Locutus deBorg
I find the lack of configuration options disturbing !
I felt a great disturbance in the force.. as if millions of win 7 systems suddenly cried out in terror.
Techie007, do you get a lot of people worldwide trying to hack into your server? I know we've touched on this before. I really do understand why you wrote the software yourself.
One comment caught my eye:
>If you're running an old clunker 24/7, a cheap tablet might pay for itself in electricity savings over a year
Absolutely true! For a long time I ran an old workstation as a server. When capacitor leaks finally did it in I thought to myself, "dang, now I have to get a new system". It turned out I could get a near turnkey system from Dell in the form of a small PowerEdge T20 server system for a ridiculously low $200. I got some SSDs really cheap on eBay (3 x 120 GB Vertex 3 for $30 to $40 each) and built a RAID 5 array for drive C:, and I had other hardware already (e.g., an inexpensive Hannspree monitor, backup disk drive, etc.). Power usage went from well over 100 watts to 23 watts for the system (this is per the UPS' measurement for tower, monitor, internal and external drives - everything), and the PowerEdge makes essentially no noise. I should have upgraded it sooner!
My point, to reinforce Techie's, is that the most modern hardware is actually quite a bit more efficient than even fairly recent "old" gear. Also note that not only will it cost less by using less power, but any UPS you have will run it longer.
For what it's worth, again as Techie007 has said, setting up an always on server can offer some advantages. I just looked over my generated blacklists... As of right now I have 55,000+ server names and 21,000+ wildcarded names blacklisted, yet a lookup of a legitimate site (which forwards the DNS request to an OpenDNS server and routes back the response) still takes only a few milliseconds. Overall browsing is sped up because: 1. Ad sites are not contacted and ad content is not loaded. 2. The Dual DHCP DNS Server software caches, so if a site has been looked up recently, the name is resolved locally from the cache, which saves a few milliseconds per request. In practice this offsets the time to look things up in the blacklists.
My router hands out the address of my local server as the DNS server for DHCP setup, so everyone on the LAN gets the advantages automatically. We noticed a BIG improvement in browsing experience on our old iPad 2.
In my case my PowerEdge server is running Win 7 x64 Ultimate (a spare license I had). Uptime is important to me, and right now it has been running continuously without fault since a reboot mandated by an extended power failure during Hurricane Matthew (well, specifically after replacing the UPS with a bigger one a week afterward).
FYI, though a full Apache web server is included as part of the CollabNet SubVersion package I run, I don't do general web page serving from this machine. In my case the machine serves geographically separated developers using SubVersion to coordinate their work on code. As such I use a firewall to block general access, and specifically allow just my developers. None so far have had fast changing addresses, so this just adds another layer of protection. If I were to want to allow general access I'd have to open up the firewall and trust the layers of security in the server software itself.
Techie007, do you get a lot of people worldwide trying to hack into your server? I know we've touched on this before. I really do understand why you wrote the software yourself.
Depends what you mean by "lot" and "hack". No, I do not believe my server has been really targeted. Yes, it regularly receives random malicious hits, usually attempting various web-platform exploits. But that happens on any device facing the Internet whether it's running a server or not. Running a server just opens a window that lets you see all the drive-by attacks going on.
Here are some statistics for 11/27/2016 (yesterday):
277 total connections
170 successful requests resulting in 26.4 MB uploaded
45 idle or terminated connections
40 HTTP 404s (mostly things like various favicons and other random, web browser related requests)
22 malicious or malformed requests by 9 IP addresses
I wrote my own server because I really don't need anything fancy, along with all the security vulnerabilities and extensive configuration possibilities that comes along with a full featured HTTP server. It is just a simple webserver that supports the HTTP GET request and works from Windows 95 to Windows 10. Nobody can compromise it and corrupt my site or files because the code for those features doesn't even exist. Additionally, I noticed that malicious requests usually have certain attributes that makes them easy to identify, and yet most server software has no such protection built in and will literally let anybody probe for vulnerabilities or files unchecked. For example, I've paid for server space on a commercial server for a couple (unrelated) websites I'm administering. Checking its server log sometimes shows thousands of malicious requests a day and only a couple real visitors. These servers literally entertain the hackers for hours at a time without even thinking about it, as they probe for various files that would reveal what web platforms and versions are in use, what software and extensions are installed (like forums and other potentially vulnerable interactive features). Of course, what they're looking for is vulnerabilities that they know how to exploit. My server doesn't let this happen as it is waiting for a perfect request before it will even talk. If you don't say who you are or who you think you're accessing, it's an instant disconnect and ban. It's amazing how many attackers fail this test. It's also funny how many will make up information and try again a couple seconds later. Nope, already banned—too late for you! Probe for certain files that are known hacker targets or say you're a known scanner...banned. Hit too many 404s in a row or within a certain timeframe, probing for files? Banned. Access the server too much in a short timeframe? Banned. Attempt to connect to the server while banned? You've just increased your ban time. Yes, I had fun writing the code! So why do I run a homeserver if I've got access to a commercial server? It's convenient, it's geeky, storage is only limited by what's in my PC, and there's no data cap (thanks to my ISP). It's much easier for me to keep an eye on things with the server running on my desktop PC (an i7 that idles all the way down to 20W and is already on 24/7 for other reasons); I can update pages and software with ease...literally a copy & paste away. And, every once in a while I need to share large media files for work purposes. File sharing sites just don't cut it because there's upload+download time. It's so easy to simply move/copy the file to my W:\ drive and send a URL. They can download it at their convenience and I don't have to wait hours for an upload to complete first before I can write the email.
Last Edit: Nov 28, 2016 17:08:45 GMT -6 by Techie007
Microsoft, is Windows 10 the best you could do? Really? After promising to listen to our feedback, what a letdown!
a tremenous amount of information to soak up.Thanks Techie, Noel and locutus. very good stuff. think i am just going to look into buying a cheap server somewhere and add drives. I dont need this thing to slurp electricity like cheap wine.i have garage floor heat to pay for, house heat, workshop heat. my whole spread is electric...lol I will check back and let ya know how i turned out and am sure i will have more questions
Well, if you're trying to primarily heat things, rather than cool them (remember, I'm in Florida where it's either comfortable or hot, depending on the season), then maybe running an older computer could actually be good. That's where the energy goes - heat.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
Well, if you're trying to primarily heat things, rather than cool them (remember, I'm in Florida where it's either comfortable or hot, depending on the season), then maybe running an older computer could actually be good. That's where the energy goes - heat.
-Noel
no, thats not such a good idea. already have plenty of computers generating plenty of heat. they all set up as gaming systems. didnt even put heaters in my office, just an exhaust fan to suck heat away.
think i will just go with a cheapo server tower i can find on tiger or newegg. under $200 and leave that machine out in my shop for the time being. there is no internet out there
The flip side is it can be beneficial too. I live in a bi-level house where the thermostat on the wall for the upper level gets fooled by the winter daytime sun. The wall it's mounted on get heated up enough that it prevents the thermostat from doing it job properly. This results in the lower level feeling a little cooler than it should be. By having my computers setup and running in a spare room on the lower level, the temperature differential problem has been moderated enough to the point that it goes by almost unnoticed except on the coldest days. But then, we also have a gas fireplace downstairs that fixes that problem too!
Just something to look over. Depending on what hardware you already have on hand, this is a quite good deal for a powerful, well-built system with warranty, especially if you don't choose any upgrades from Dell.
Xeon E3-1225 quad core, 4 GB ECC RAM, 1 TB HDD (no OS) for $249.
If you already have disk(s) and can find a way to get a barebones config that might knock off a few more $$$.
I see they put Xeons in them now. Mine came with a plain Pentium 2 core. I also didn't get any disk drive at all, since I had SSDs I wanted to put in. So all in all it's arguably an even better deal than the system I got last year.
-Noel
Author of the "How to Configure the 'To Work' Options" series of Windows books. Not feeling enough love to do one for Windows 10.
The flip side is it can be beneficial too. I live in a bi-level house where the thermostat on the wall for the upper level gets fooled by the winter daytime sun. The wall it's mounted on get heated up enough that it prevents the thermostat from doing it job properly. This results in the lower level feeling a little cooler than it should be. By having my computers setup and running in a spare room on the lower level, the temperature differential problem has been moderated enough to the point that it goes by almost unnoticed except on the coldest days. But then, we also have a gas fireplace downstairs that fixes that problem too!
we bought this house in 2012 knowing that the concrete in basement was shot. the first improvement wat to replace the floor,. I have all the walls up and some are finished. when i put the walls up along the concrete blocks, i put 1" foam between walls and foundatiion walls, then R19 betwwen the studs. steady 68 all year long. i DID put electric baseboard heaters controlled by thermostat in the main area and the one bedroom down there. 100 sheets of sheetrock to do whole basement, did 34 a couple winters ago. so i have quite a ways to go to completion. I am rather worried that my office may run too warm for my computers once they are all down there. dont know what i will do in that case, there are no windows
Last Edit: Nov 30, 2016 11:59:37 GMT -6 by dozerguy
Post by Bayer A.User on Nov 30, 2016 12:17:30 GMT -6
One thought, Sharing files between Apple(iphone),Windows,Linux devices will require a compatible File transfer protocol and of course the Host/Server will have to be kept up to date. Example: older Samba(Linux) versions are considered "unsafe". Open SSH(secure shell) is a necessity if running Linux. On a Mac system you have a ready made secure (FTPS) option. If Dozer does any remote access to his server he'll need decent encryption. On a home wired only network like Rick mentioned,one could get away without the latest versions. more info
Just something to look over. Depending on what hardware you already have on hand, this is a quite good deal for a powerful, well-built system with warranty, especially if you don't choose any upgrades from Dell.
Xeon E3-1225 quad core, 4 GB ECC RAM, 1 TB HDD (no OS) for $249.
If you already have disk(s) and can find a way to get a barebones config that might knock off a few more $$$.
I see they put Xeons in them now. Mine came with a plain Pentium 2 core. I also didn't get any disk drive at all, since I had SSDs I wanted to put in. So all in all it's arguably an even better deal than the system I got last year.
-Noel
thats a damn good deal Noel. maybe calling dell later this afternoon.
I'd verify with the seller the actual Model name and have them send you a direct link to the exact model on the HPE site that looks like what you will be receiving
I find the lack of configuration options disturbing !
I felt a great disturbance in the force.. as if millions of win 7 systems suddenly cried out in terror.
Post by Locutus deBorg on Jan 6, 2017 16:50:57 GMT -6
only thing I could find listing RAID was for the PCI-e add-on card P410
> The P410 is ideal for RAID 0/1, 1+0, 5+0 and can be upgraded with the 512MB battery-backed write cache (BBWC) module and Smart Array Advanced via license key for RAID 6 &, 6 +0.
LOLWat! Purchase a license to access other RAID functions
P410 / P410i
i= integrated on MB
must also do JBOD as individual disks if they're selling it with one disk
edit: after checking around discovering the P410 / P410i only does a sort of fake JBOD by calling each individual disk a RAID0 then they can be exposed from the controller to OS as individual disks
Last Edit: Jan 6, 2017 17:39:17 GMT -6 by Locutus deBorg: "update"
I find the lack of configuration options disturbing !
I felt a great disturbance in the force.. as if millions of win 7 systems suddenly cried out in terror.
I think this is what i have decided on. I will mount it upright to the wall by my modem, routers and such. once i figgure out how to set it up, i will add more drives Whats an iLO3 advanced license?
> HPE iLO Advanced license was designed for enterprise business to manage any HPE ProLiant server(s). Above HPE iLO standard functionalities, HPE iLO Advanced license gives you premium remote functionality such as graphical remote console with multi-user collaboration, video record/playback, iLO Federation and many more advanced features to support your enterprise data center.
I find the lack of configuration options disturbing !
I felt a great disturbance in the force.. as if millions of win 7 systems suddenly cried out in terror.
<Rick> Good video. It's almost hard to believe that at one time Windows 98 was the resource hog, but even then, it still ran circles around what Windows 10 can do on today's modern hardware and look a heck of alot better doing it.
May 25, 2021 22:55:12 GMT -6
<Rick> As stated elsewhere, So much for the launch of Windows 11, "The Great Crash." Myself, I had a hard time getting into the site listed above, when I did get in, the video was partly done and then it crashed. There has been many other reports of crashing.
Jun 24, 2021 9:52:33 GMT -6
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<Rick> I see Microsoft has been very quick to pull down reports of site crashing regarding the Launch of Windows 11 on the Microsoft Insiders forum.
Jun 24, 2021 9:57:31 GMT -6
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<Rick> The rebroadcast is working okay.
Jun 24, 2021 11:00:25 GMT -6
<Rick> With reports of people being able to install the dev-edition of Windows 11 on machines not meeting spec, I thought I would give it a what-the-heck try. Lucky me, I'm caught in the downloading, doesn't meet spec, clearing, re-downloading loop on my machine!
Jul 2, 2021 7:08:46 GMT -6
<Rick> I've recently purchased a license for ArcaOS from www.arcanoae.com/ to play with. First impressions, it's still OS/2, but it now has a Linux twist to it.
Jul 2, 2021 7:32:53 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> laptop shit out and am stuck buying a new one. os win11 as fucked as win10 was?
Oct 2, 2021 12:56:10 GMT -6
<Rick> Let's see ..., my impression of Windows 11 is that it is a spruced up version of Windows 10 requiring a 64-bit processor plus a piece of security hardware that is less than 4 years old in order for it to run.
Oct 4, 2021 18:25:49 GMT -6
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<Rick> On the plus side, Microsoft is supposed to be supporting Windows 10 for some time to come for those of us still using systems with I7 or older processors.
Oct 4, 2021 18:44:35 GMT -6
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<dozrguy> i tried installing win10 om the 'shitout' pc this morning usung media creation. EPIC FAIL! went into an endless bootloop. win7 reinstalled just fine
Oct 21, 2021 11:23:38 GMT -6
<dozrguy> STILL so much bullshit and so little time for the kiddie ideas from the hill. My new laptop (MSI GE 11-UH461) would be an awesome "10" machine but because of Winblows I can only give it a "2"......wasted $3500
Oct 27, 2021 9:36:47 GMT -6
<Rick> Hello. Just checking in.
Mar 17, 2022 10:46:54 GMT -6
<isidroco> Each new w10 update adds >100000 useless files to \Windows\Servicing\LCU\Package_for_RollupFix... folders. Even in a SSD takes time to delete that stuff. In each version they manage to worsen stuff.
Mar 27, 2022 16:14:51 GMT -6
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<dozerguy> still traffic here?
Oct 9, 2022 17:32:44 GMT -6
<Rick> No, there does not seem to be very much traffic these days. I still check in from time to time.
Oct 9, 2022 20:08:58 GMT -6