Set Up a Home Server By Webmonkey Staff Setting up a home server running an open-source operating system is a popular an d useful activity.

Useful in what ways, you may ask. You could use it to run a w ebsite, collect and send e-mail messages, store your OpenID credentials or serve your music around the home. As you can guess, we have a great many tutorials on Webmonkey for getting the mo st out of that machine in your closet. But here are some guidelines for the hard ware side of it. . Contents Introduction Before You Start Alternatives What you ll need The computer Repurposing a used computer Architecture Memory Storage Cooling Network Buying a server The Connection The Router The Monitor and Keyboard Power Everything in Its Place The Operating System Suggested reading Suggested readings Introduction Before You Start Alternatives Setting up a home server can be a lot of fun and a great learning experience. Bu t, depending on what you want to use it for and how good your connection to the Internet is, a home server may not be the best alternative. If your aim is servi ng web pages reliably or otherwise delivering information outside your home to f riends or customers, it makes more sense to put the server into The Cloud in other words, in a commercial data center. This saves nyou the worry and hassle of kee ping it running or dealing with interruptions to your home s power, cable or DSL s ervice. Cloud Computing, or renting just as much of a server as you need on an hou rly or monthly basis, is becoming quite popular for web companies or growing bus inesses, but the rates are inexpensive enough that you should consider it as an alternative to a home server. There are many cloud computing companies, ranging from Amazon Web Services which requires that you learn their command line interf ace to initiate a new server, to ENKI which offers personal support for getting you up and running. This isn t the place to go into detail, but you can learn more by Googling Cloud Computing. What you ll need To build your own server, you need just a few components, some or all of which y ou may well have already: A computer A broadband network connection A network router, with Ethernet (CAT5) cable

A monitor and keyboard (just for the first few steps) A CD/DVD drive/burner will be handy if you plan to use the server for media. The computer A server doesn t have to be particularly powerful. eBay runs on mega-thousand-doll ar Sun computers, and Google uses thousands of machines to power its search. But for personal use, a server needs considerably less horsepower than your average desktop computer. While other computers busy themselves with complex tasks like despeckling photographs and calculating missile trajectories, your home server has a much simpler task: receiving requests for data and then sending that data as requested. Your server won t use much processing power, especially without a gr aphical interface to worry about. A machine with 64MB of RAM and a 300MHz proces sor can make a perfectly good server; with slightly more robust specs, it can ha ndle almost anything you ll throw at it. An old machine can be turned into a server with minimal effort. You may already have a perfect machine for the job sitting in your attic. Or a relative or a fri end might want to get rid of her older desktop; or you may well be able to pick up a suitable model cheap or free from a swap meet, a classified ad, or online e quivalents like freecycle.org and craigslist.org. Alternately, you can buy a new machine to use as your server. Each approach has its advantages. The reasons you might not want to use an old machine include: Old hardware can be unreliable. Sometimes replacing bad RAM or putting in a new heatsink will fix the problem, but sometimes a computer just crashes every few h ours, regardless of what operating system is installed. Time to donate or recycl e it. Space is an issue. If the old machine is in a big tower case and you are in a sm all apartment, you might want to get it a new case or you might want to buy a ne w server that s one tenth the size. You want it quiet. Computers get hot, so fans are installed to keep them cool. F ans are loud, even the ones marketed as whisper-quiet. You might not notice that s o much in an office setting, but when a server is left running 24 hours a day (a s they should be), it becomes rather irritating to live with in close quarters. If you re going to be sharing a living space with your server, you may want to inv est in a fanless machine. You don t have an old computer on hand, and you live in a place where finding chea p, used hardware is difficult or expensive. If any of the above apply, you can skip to the section titled Buying a server. Repurposing a used computer If you go the way of turning an older machine into a server, congratulations. If it s a particularly geriatric model, you might have a little work ahead of you to get it ready for its new assignment. Upgrading a couple of its parts will make it a powerhouse for years to come. You can find plenty of support, if you have q uestions about what connector goes where, on hardware-nerd sites like tomshardwa re.com and arstechnica.com. Or, if messing with wires and chips is too daunting, your local computer shop should do it for a minimal fee. Architecture What sort of computer you use i386, PowerPC, Gameboy matters surprisingly little . Linux and BSD, the preferable server operating systems, run on just about any architecture you care to install them on. The official list of chips on which De bian can run includes Intel x86, Motorola 680xx, Sun Sparc, Alpha, PowerPC, ARM, MIPS, HP PA, Intel 64-bit, and S/390 processors, with more in the testing phase

. That covers the vast majority of consumer computers ever made. Buy a notebook (the paper kind) and label it My Server. Write down all the model numbers and de tails of the hardware you set up. Memory RAM is cheap these days, and more is generally better. Storage The hard drive is the heart of the server. If everything else dies, you can pull out the hard drive and put it in another (comparable) machine, and pick up righ t where you left off. Depending on how many slots your computer is built with, y ou might want to have one hard drive or a few. Bigger is better. Hard drives continuously drop in price. Start fresh with a new one. If you re disp osing of an old drive and replacing it with a new one, don t forget to securely de lete any private information before you put it in the trash. The innards of a hard drive spin around thousands of times per second, so it s ver y likely that the hard drive will be the first component of your server to fail, though you can generally count on a new drive for a few good years at least. Pr oper backup procedures are crucial; for now, if you have room in your server and in your budget, you may want to slot in a second or even third hard drive. Keep ing secondary copies of data in another place even if that s just a second drive r ight next to the first one is the way to safeguard your data against hard drive failure. Cooling Since the server s going to be running all the time, you need to make sure it does n t overheat. The machine you have might already be fine in that department, or it might not. If it crashes unexpectedly, or exhibits weird, unpredictable behavio r, it may be getting too hot. There s software you can install to monitor the mach ine s temperature as it runs, and even set it up to e-mail you automatically if it s creeping into the danger zone on a hot day. You can splurge on a wide variety of methods to keep the CPU and power supply co ol, involving air, water, liquid nitrogen, and so on. You also may want to look into underclocking your processor. That makes it run slower (which is fine for a server, remember) but also cooler. If you re handy with solder, there are dozens of underclocking tutorials online for your particular chip type. Generally, thou gh, setting up good airflow through the box is sufficient for most home servers, with some quality fans sensibly arranged to pull air in at one end of the case, direct it over the hot components, and push it out the other. Larger fans tend to be quieter than smaller models, all else being equal. If you re living with the server, you will want quiet fans, the quietest you can get. Network The server s also going to need an Ethernet card (also known as a network interfac e card, or NIC), and one that works with your chosen operating system. You can t g o wrong with most cards (especially older models), but you ll definitely want to c heck the model number on linux-drivers.org or elsewhere on the web before buying a new one. Big brands like 3Com and D-Link are generally a good, reliable bet. Buying a server Alternately, you could buy a server. There are plenty of up-to-date guides on th e web. You can use a standard desktop computers, which contain powerful, expensi ve, and hot Intel and AMD-brand chips. That s fine, but brands like Shuttle or Bio star, built on the mini-ITX or nano-ITX specification are smaller, cheaper, and

cooler. These can fit in cigar boxes and run silently without fans, on low power . Complete systems using these chipsets can be bought from a variety of specialt y retailers, including idotpc.com and mini-itx.com. You shouldn t have to spend mo re than a couple of hundred dollars for a serviceable system. The Connection Apart from that, any sort of connection will do. nless you re planning to stream videos to dozens on already (probably you do) you can continue to r server connected to the router. A static IP is s-class connection. Super speed is not important (u of users). If you have a connecti use it as normal. Just keep you not necessary, nor is a busines

Your choice of providers will vary depending on your area. If you have a choice, pick a provider that offers good, reliable speeds and makes its customers happy . Ask around, or search the web for the phrase [provider] sucks if you want to hea r the worst. Some providers have very restrictive policies and prefer their user s not to do things like build servers; others, like the excellent sonic.net, are thrilled to have adventurous users. The choice between cable, DSL, fiber, satel lite, and so on is less important; after trying an assortment, you won t notice a significant difference unless you re streaming video or high-quality audio. The Router Get a reliable router. It can be wireless, if you want to connect other computer s to it wirelessly, but plan on using a real old-fashioned cable between it and the server. A router is a pretty standard commodity these days; some may have ex tra features, but it s the basics, not the extras, that count. Again, looking at w hat other shoppers have liked, on a site like newegg.com, can be an excellent gu ideline. The Monitor and Keyboard If you have an old spare desktop, you may have a spare monitor and keyboard to g o with it. Or you can use your current computer, if you re not using a laptop, and willing to switch back and forth while you get things set up. You ll only need th ese until you get your server up and running. A monitor and keyboard are very ha ndy to have tucked away somewhere for future debugging and upgrading of the serv er, though. Power If you live in an area prone to power surges, rolling brownouts, or the like, or even if you don t, some sort of intermediary between your machine and the AC sock et is a good idea. This can be as simple as a $10 surge suppressor (not just an extension cord) or an elaborate power conditioner with hours of battery backup. Everything in Its Place After your box is upgraded, you ll need to find a home for it. You ll want to keep a few practical considerations in mind. Don t place it next to a heater, or in a sunbeam. Don t place it by an open window. Dust is a server s enemy too, so don t keep it under the bed. Don t let people trip over the cords, or let pets chew on them. With proper attention to cooling, your server should be quite quiet, but some pe ople are sensitive to even the faintest hum. Especially if your server is not th e noiseless variety, you might want it in a less-trafficked area. The website Si lent PC Review has advice and hardware recommendations for avoiding the noise. Putting it in a little closet is good, as long as there s enough airflow that the thing won t overheat. Make sure to place it on a hard surface so as not to block t he air intakes, leave a few inches of space around it on all sides, and don t pile stuff on top of it. Theft is another concern: keeping a shiny server right by the front door might n ot be the best idea.

A lot of your placement concerns may be dictated by your internet connection, si nce the server needs to be within a cord s reach of that. If you use a wireless ro uter to share the connection with the rest of the house, that ought to be centra lly located, and the server plugged directly into it, wherever it is. It ll also need to be plugged into an electric outlet. If you re going to be doing stuff like ripping CDs with the server, you ll want it c onveniently placed for feeding discs in. The Operating System There are many, many options for an open source operating system. You can instal l Fedora, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Gentoo, and the list goes on and on. Another option is to install the open source home server from Amahi. This will d o alot of the heavy lifting to get you up and running, including installing and co nfiguring apache, MySQL, a Ruby on Rails deployment environment, file sharing, a VPN and a range of share web applications. You ll find alot of useful information on this topic at the Amahi website. Suggested reading What can you do with that server? Here are some projects: Install Apache Set up IMAP Mail Set up Dynamic DNS Set up a DNS name server Stop spam on your mail server