Home server

[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.....

[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/win...tart/3795.html
http://gsd.di.uminho.pt/jpo/software...an/mini-howto/
http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f11/re...mputer-186276/
http://www.ehow.com/how_7491476_diy-remote-start.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_7380326_remo...-computer.html
http://www.1800pocketpc.com/2010/06/...-internet.html
http://www.google.se/search?as_q=how...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.