Random Computer Stuff
Yay! I’m back in Berkeley. However, I already miss home again. I guess I’ll have to wait another 2-3 weeks before I come back. I really can’t wait to get back too, since I’m going to Europe for winter break! But first, I must survive these last few weeks (and tests) of the Fall semester…
I almost missed my flight on Tuesday. My dad’s notebook had a critical problem: the hard drive failed, and my dad did not have a backup. My dad came home from work, and I played around with the hard drive to get it working again. In the end, I discovered that if I shoke the hard drive a little bit and held the notebook sideways, the hard drive would work. Since I didn’t want to push my luck, I hurriedly plugged the notebook into my home network and mirrored most of my dad’s files to rand (my Debian GNU/Linux server). Although transferring files over the network was relatively fast (100 mbps and proftpd), it took a long time to get the whole process setup, and before I knew it, I was running out of time to get to Ontario Airport. Lucky though, I got to the airport with a some minutes to spare =)
Oh yeah, on afterthought, my method of mirroring files from my dad’s notebook was rather crude. I used Windows XP’s web folders to open an ftp session on rand and just copy-pasted the Program Files and Document and Settings folders. Had I found my Knoppix CD, I would have used dd to mirror the hard drive byte by byte (dd if=/dev/hda bs=10k | ssh $TARGET_IPADDRESS dd of=/dev/hda bs=10k). Of course, dd would have only worked if the disk geometries were identical (rarely the case). But, in that case, I could have tried Partimage (boo for experimental NTFS support)…
And now for some fun. With the topic of backup in the air, my dad is currently investigating backup methods for his company’s Windows 2000 storage server, since the backup utility included with Windows 2000 Server is hardly dependable. Since I’m an open source freak, I suggested swapping the entire backend to Linux, since the company doesn’t even use any Windows services (ie. the file server could be replaced transparently), but my dad’s boss is hesistant to try new things. Consequently, I have to prove the merits of Linux AND design a solution that works without disrupting their current setup. With these requirements in mind, I decided to setup a Debian test-server on their network and slowly migrate everything to it.
The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized how the server needs to act as a network appliance. Since nobody at the company knows how to maintain a Linux server, much less use Linux, I needed to design a simple management interface. As these and other necessities were realized, I abandoned the idea of building a custom server. Instead, I have come to the conclusion that either a new special-purpose distribution of Linux or package suite needs to be created. And here, I announce my commencement of the (yet to be named) “Drop-In Windows File Server” Linux project.
Mainly, I am looking to design a wrapper for Samba that will be easy enough for non-techies to install and setup. The file server will be able to exist in (most) Windows networks and will be accessible by (most) Windows clients. I will not be able to guarantee support for Active Directory and Windows 2003 networks, for reasons I will later post. My target audience is small-business networks that work in a primarily workgroup environment and that depend upon a single central file server.
I plan on writing some Webmin modules to facilitate management by those unfamiliar with Linux. I will also include ftp and NFS support for mixed (ie. networks with some computers not running Windows) environments.
Since remote access is a much desired feature (at least by my dad’s company), I’m investigating methods by which to provide file server access to those not directly connected to the LAN. However, security and usability are two of my greatest (and conflicting) concerns, so until I figure everything out, remote access will be vaporware.
I haven’t decided how authentification will be managed. Ideally, I would like to work with LDAP, but since my dad’s company works with a really simple network (peer-to-peer), I might make the Samba server simple and just give everyone equal access.
More details will be forthcoming. Development will begin when I have most of the details finalized. The project will be released under the GPL license (possibly LGPL). Although my desire is to have the project be a bunch of platform independent scripts, I just might end up making a mini-distro based upon Debian. Time will tell…