Home server

[Mark]

For the first time I now have the opportunity to have a desktop PC at home in a room where it's possible to leave it running all the time, so this opens up a few possibilities of things I can do.

It's running Windows Vista Business - As much as I'd like to rip that out and install CentOS Linux on it, it's my wife's work PC so that's not going to work!

Firstly, I assume there's no standard way to get a machine to swtich on at (say) 8am and off again at 10pm?

The most obvious thing to set up first is Remote Desktop, I guess that depends on my router setup mostly..

I'd also like to use it to do forum backups. Now in Linux I'd use cron and rsync, no idea if Windows has equivalents of these?

I assume there's quite a few more interesting things I could do :p

[Bezza]

Nice job on the NASCAR stuff, Mark ;)

[AndySpeed]

Isn't that quite energy inefficient to just leave a computer on all the time? I'd hope you turn it off when you're done with it. The lights too.

[Mark]

Isn't that quite energy inefficient to just leave a computer on all the time? I'd hope you turn it off when you're done with it. The lights too.

The point is that I'd be accessing it remotely, so I couldn't physically go there to switch it on!

[GridGirl]

The other half uses Log Me In to remote access our PC which is pretty much always switched on. He bought a couple of 2TB hard drives about a month or so ago for our NAS drive and was doing something to them remotely which meant all sorts of noises where coming from my study. I was wondering what on earth was going on until I walked in to find the mouse curser moving about and the Log Me In banner at the top of the screen. Panic over, the study wasn't on fire or going to explode so I just left him doing whatever he was doing. I find it easier and less boring to ask questions at those kind of times. :p

[veeten]

... and now, here's Daniel with the latest. Daniel....

[Mark]

He's running late it seems :hmph:

[slorydn1]

The one big thing to keep in mind with Windows is that it at the very least should be restarted every day or 2 or the computer seems to have a tendedncy towards locking up, etc. Our computers at work are on 24-7-365 being a 911 center, and we find that if we go beyond a couple of days without a restart the workstations get "buggy" and start to work slower and slower until they freeze up completely. I am not a programmer/IT guy so I have not a clue as to why this happens but it does. I have noted the inordinate number of the process "svchost.exe" running in the task manager when windows has been running 4 or 5 days straight versus when it is first booted up, but again, I have zero idea if that is in anyway linked, it was just something I noticed over time.

[Mark]

Sounds like a memory leak, computers can and should be able to run for months without restarting, mine usually have done.

She's just walked in with yet another machine! I might put Linux on that one... And I'm gonna need a KVM!

[martinbalmer]

The most obvious thing to set up first is Remote Desktop, I guess that depends on my router setup mostly..

Yes... typically you would connect to your router's Internet IP address from outside and your router would forward port 3389 traffic to a set private IP address on your network.

[martinbalmer]

Maybe a UPS could help with the timed switch on. Timed switch off is easy. Additionally a UPS would also offer a graceful shut-down if there is a power-cut, and boot back up again when power is restored. More money and kit though.

[Mark]

Maybe a UPS could help with the timed switch on. Timed switch off is easy. Additionally a UPS would also offer a graceful shut-down if there is a power-cut, and boot back up again when power is restored. More money and kit though.

I haven't had a poke around with the machines yet, but I imagine if I could set them up such that they boot when power is restored (most servers will do this, no idea about desktops!), then I can e.g. schedule a shutdown in the OS at 10pm, and then have the timer plug cut the power at 10.15pm. Then at 8am power is restored and the machine boots. Timer plugs are only a few quid each.

[555-04Q2]

Isn't that quite energy inefficient to just leave a computer on all the time? I'd hope you turn it off when you're done with it. The lights too.

No it's not. Computers use very very little power.

[Mark]

Just having a poke about with my router, again this is new as I've only ever used external IPs for everything.

Each machine gets a 192.168.0.x address with an external address which the router can send to dyndns.org, so far so good.

Am I right in thinking if I want to open up external services then each port can thus only go to one machine? So I can only have one box running SSH? Or if I did want a second it would have to be on a port other than 22? If I am running a Window AND Linux server I can't think of any particular port conflicts just now. As the Windows box would need to run remote desktop and the Linux SSH and that's about it for external stuff.

[martinbalmer]

I haven't had a poke around with the machines yet, but I imagine if I could set them up such that they boot when power is restored (most servers will do this, no idea about desktops!), then I can e.g. schedule a shutdown in the OS at 10pm, and then have the timer plug cut the power at 10.15pm. Then at 8am power is restored and the machine boots. Timer plugs are only a few quid each.

Timer-plugs are a good cheap option. Watch out for the length of time you give it to shut down though. With Windows it will be important to make sure it is going to forcefully (but safely) shut down at the set time otherwise it may take longer or not shut-down at all for some particular reason - such as installing updates - and the power could get cut mid-way. Or if someone is using it and cancels the shut-down.

I should think most desktops will auto-boot if required (otherwise a UPS won't do it either).

If your router is doing 1-1 nat mapping a unique public address to each private one then any port can be opened up as required for any machine. If though, as tends to be the case with most broadband, it is one public address serving many different private ones then I think this is usually done by port number. So only one machine can operate on a port. Not really done any of that myself.

I'm more use to having a block of public addresses coming in which get assigned to servers or nat routers accordingly.

[Mark]

Yep it's a single external address where ports can be mapped to internal addresses.

[markabilly]

The one big thing to keep in mind with Windows is that it at the very least should be restarted every day or 2 or the computer seems to have a tendedncy towards locking up, etc. Our computers at work are on 24-7-365 being a 911 center, and we find that if we go beyond a couple of days without a restart the workstations get "buggy" and start to work slower and slower until they freeze up completely. I am not a programmer/IT guy so I have not a clue as to why this happens but it does. I have noted the inordinate number of the process "svchost.exe" running in the task manager when windows has been running 4 or 5 days straight versus when it is first booted up, but again, I have zero idea if that is in anyway linked, it was just something I noticed over time.


That makes no sense; however, they do this at work with the latest and greatest whenever it starts acting up, and I do it home with windows 7. The IT guys claim it has something to do with tempoary memory caches and broken registries.

I just do it and say whatever..... :rolleyes:

[ioan]

Nowadays you can set the 'Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby' property for most network cards. This means you should not cut the power completely.
Automatically turning off and on a PC would depend on the hardware specs and BIOS version.

[BleAivano]

mark i have found some links, some of them might be a bit outdated but maybe still will provide some useful info:

http://www.computing.net/answers/windows-2003/remote-start/3795.html
http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software/wakeonlan/mini-howto/
http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f11/remote-starting-computer-186276/
http://www.ehow.com/how_7491476_diy-remote-start.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_7380326_remote-wake_up-computer.html
http://www.1800pocketpc.com/2010/06/08/wol-everywhere-windows-phone-app-to-remote-start-pc-over-lan-or-internet.html
http://www.google.se/search?as_q=how+to+remote+start+a+computer+with+wa ke+on+lan&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&hl=sv&lr=lang_en&cr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=y&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images&btnG=S%C3%B6k+p%C3%A5+Google

[Koz]

It's running Windows Vista Business - As much as I'd like to rip that out and install CentOS Linux on it, it's my wife's work PC so that's not going to work!

Why not run it in a virtual environment?
With a minimal install, without X it won't use up so much resources..

(Or best yet, if your wife can live with Linux + WINE = WIN)


Firstly, I assume there's no standard way to get a machine to swtich on at (say) 8am and off again at 10pm?

Shut downs you can do quite easily, and it's possibly to start machine remotely if your motherboard supports Wake On Lan, I am not sure how it works though.


The most obvious thing to set up first is Remote Desktop, I guess that depends on my router setup mostly..

VNC is an option, but not secure at all.



Am I right in thinking if I want to open up external services then each port can thus only go to one machine? So I can only have one box running SSH? Or if I did want a second it would have to be on a port other than 22?

Yes, yes and yes.

[Mark]

I did think about running a VM which would be easy enough but we have this separate machine which might as well be put to use.

[Daniel]

He's running late it seems :hmph:

Sorry! :p

What are you wanting to do with both PC's? Obviously Karen's will stay as Karen's and be a work machine, what about the other one?

There are a couple of options here. Logmeinfree will allow you remote access and shouldn't require reconfiguration of ports on the router.

As for waking the PC, the best option would be to use wake on LAN, this will require going into device manager and enabling it on the NIC and then going into the BIOS and enabling it there. I'm sure you could schedule a task on one machine to send out a magic packet on the network at a certain time, but that would involve that machine being on! You can also do wake on LAN from phones also, I woke my PC up once over 3g :)

Mark, the one thing I'd reccomend is giving Windows Home Server a go. It does backups and can also control remote desktop sessions as well. I'm currently using a WHS 2011 Vail Beta and it works nicely :)

[Mark]

Machine 1 will be for both of us and run Windows Vista Business - the OS cannot be reinstalled. Don't know what that will be used for apart from Karens work.

Machine 2 will be a Linux CentOS machine, not sure what the spec is but it's not powerful. This will do forum backups and what else I don't know yet.

Both machines will need to access files on each other, and Karens laptop access files on both.

[Daniel]

Why Linux centos? Just asking out of interest

[Daniel]

She's just walked in with yet another machine! I might put Linux on that one... And I'm gonna need a KVM!

On the subject of KVM's would it not just be easier to use remote access? I've got my WHS behind me and apart from when I was actually setting it up it doesn't have a monitor, keyboard or mouse connected, far easier just to RDP into it and with the way it's setup I've saved the login credentials and it's literally just a case of right clicking an icon and then left clicking and I'm logged in.

[Mark]

It depends on how much a KVM would be. But yes, since its only a server with no X then just SSH access would be sufficient.

[Mark]

Why Linux centos? Just asking out of interest

Why centos? Because it's a stable red hat distribution and free. Why linux? Because it's good as a server and I know how to use it in that context.

[Mark]

But I'm not yet sure what I will use the machines for, so some idea of options!

[Koz]

Why centos? Because it's a stable red hat distribution and free. Why linux? Because it's good as a server and I know how to use it in that context.

Red Hat, after making a nice near billion dollar in sales, is trying to take action against CentOS. They are making updates and patches more trivial to prevent CentOS from using them to stealing their market.

OpenSuSE (or SLES if you are that way inclined) + YaST (and SUSE Studio) is the way to go! :)