Setting up a Network Access Server (NAS)

[hellnoire]

To set up a music server, isn't as hard as you think. It doesn't require programming know-how, and it certainly doesn't need much in the way of hardware. If you've got a desktop lying around being unused, and has around a gig of ram and CPU power, and 20 gigs of hard drive, you have your server right there. My personal server clocks in at:

• 3.01 Ghz Single-core Processor
• 3 Gig DDR1 Ram
• 1 - 8.4 Gig IDE hard drive
• 1 - 320 Gig SATA hard drive
• 1 - 160 Gig hard drive

If you've got less then that, that's fine. I've had a lot of time and money to put into this PC, and since it used to be a gaming PC, it's specs are a lot higher then most computers will be. But your hard drive should be enough to hold a 5 gig OS, and however much music you're going to be running.

Now, keep in mind, there is an easy way, a more complex way, and then a way you might wish I had not have told you. However, nothing is impossible. The easiest solution to get a home music server up yourself, is by using something called VortexBox. Download the ISO, burn to a CD, then install to your server box, where it walks you though it, step by step. Once it's up, you can connect to it and stream your music all over like that!

The only problem with this however, is if you want to run a file server to complement it. It has a nice web interface, however, we'll be giving you a nice web interface to go with yours, not only to stream your music, but to provide you with a lot more powerful tools.

Currently, I've bounced back and forth between all the ideas possible for server OSes to help make set up easier. And my choice for this server build, as well as the one I'm using at the moment, is a little known port of Ubuntu, called Crunchbang Linux. This is because of it's light desktop manager (Openbox), it's ability to be modded to our purpose, and for the general ease of use, both in updating and using it as a desktop PC as well. The major downside though is that it is not meant to be a server, and because it's not well known, you won't get much luck trying to figure some of the little things out. For example, I can't change the desktop background with it on my server... Nitrogen is the program's name that does it, but it seriously isn't the most user friendly out there! If you'd like something a bit more user friendly and better supported, you're in luck too, because this tutorial will also cover how to set it up via Ubuntu Desktop.

(So if you'd like to say thanks, please, do! I'll accept gifts too! LOL)

After you've downloaded and installed your operating system of choice, you will still need to download the server programs I've listed. Choose ONE of the two (Sockso OR Gnump3d but NOT both.), and download it along with Webmin. Now for the fun part. Burn the ISO to a CD or a USB if your system supports booting from it. Once it's booted into your CD, make sure to follow my Linux for Beginners tutorial on how to install the OS. It will explain what you need to know. If you're using Crunchbang, right click (as all our menus are right click based) and down to Install, then Install Crunchbang. From there, the install screens are similar, though I'd recommend logging in automatically, save yourself a bit of hassle in the long run.

Once the said OS is installed, reboot, and load up your new OS. If all works as planned, you should be looking at a freshly installed Linux install! Congrats! But we're not done yet.

Copy your files over that I asked you to download either by flash drive or by CD by opening your file manager. In Crunchbang, that's a right click, followed by a left click on File Manager, in Ubuntu, you go to Places, then Home. From there, they both have a list of your mounted files on the side, and you can click to open your file. WARNING: If you use a flash drive, MAKE SURE YOU SAFELY REMOVE IT. Ubuntu and other Linux distros have this nasty habit that if you yanked the USB drive out without safely removing it, of thinking it was still in use, and refuse to mount it. Crunchbang has this same bug. It's a pain in the @$$, so get used to doing things this way.

Webmin's the program we're going to have to install first, so please, install it by double clicking and providing your password when provided. Now the next part is to install the server. If you choose Sockso, unzip the file to your desktop. If you chose Gnump3d, install it the same way you did with Webmin. Simple, eh?

Here's where it gets harder. Sockso, Webmin, Gnump3d won't automatically run because you're missing files, and in the case of Sockso, haven't made the file able to run yet. That's what we're going to do now. Go to Terminal (in Crunchbang, it under the right click menu, in the first part [do you see why I like it?], in Ubuntu, it's Programs>Accessories>Terminal) and type/copy and paste the following command:

sudo apt-get install JRE samba && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

This will install your Java Runtime Environment on your server, so you can run Sockso, Samba so you can run Gnump3d and Webmin, and update your computer. Once done, you might be asked to reboot, and if so, do so. (Crunchbang users, right click, Quit, Reboot.) Once it's back up, we've got a little more tweaking to do. On a separate PC in Firefox (my preferred browser but I know it works. IE does too, not sure about Opera or other browsers), type:

https://MYCOMPUTERSNAME:10000

where MYCOMPUTERSNAME is the name of your PC. If you're using Firefox, it should connect but warn you about a security certificate error. If it does, Allow yourself access to it. What you're doing here is connecting to your server, and the creators of Webmin made a security certificate demo just in case a corporation uses it. Since it's not that important for us, we can just skip it. Once that's clear, it will prompt you for your username and password. In our case, it's the same username and password you used to log into your OS.

Now on the page we should see the overall stats of our machine, it's specs, and on the side, some commands. What we're looking for here, is our File Manager, which is under the Other section of the side bar. Hitting File Manager, go to

/etc/gnump3d

then click on

gnump3d.config

and hit the EDIT button up at the top. Right now, we want to change the music location to where it's saved to, so you're looking for the code

root = /var/music

to which you should change to where your music is. Mine is sitting on a mounted internal hard drive, under Server_Data (name of the hard drive), so mine reads as

root = /media/Server_Data/Music

but yours might be different, so if it's on the desktop, it's

root = /home/USERNAME/Desktop/FOLDERIT'SIN

. Keep in mind that Linux IS case sensitive, so

S

and

s

will look different to Linux. While we're in the config, you can also change the port number

port = 8888

(make sure to change it to one you can access... I've set mine to 666, because I know Firefox doesn't throw an error on that port.) as well as it's theme (check under Preferences to see one you like, then change this line:

theme = SchwartzNGrau

. Then add GNUMP3D to the startup by going to System > Bootup and Shutdown. In there, hit

Create a new bootup and shutdown action.

and type the following:

NAME: GNUmp3D
Description: Whatever you'd like
Bootup Command: /etc/init.d/gnump3d start
Shutdown Command: /etc/init.d/gnump3d stop

and make sure the Start at Boot Time is set to on. Then hit create, and you're nearly done. Go back to the File Manager, and browser to your folder, then hit Sharing when your folder is selected, and hit the Share with Windows. And you're done. If you'd like to make it into a file manager, just make a new folder and set the sharing to the same! Very easy.

Sockso's a little more complex. Once you've installed the programs (JRE and Samba), you can run

linux.sh

. When it asks what you'd like to open with, choose to hit

Add

and type

sh

. Now that might not make sense to you, but to Linux, that tells the computer that you're opening the terminal to make this work. To make it run on boot, you have to open terminal and type

sudo gedit

then copy and paste this script:

#!/bin/sh
# run sockso at boot

case "$1" in
'start')
	/home/USERNAME/sockso-1.2/linux.sh start
	;;
'stop')
	;;
*)
	echo "Usage: $0 { start | stop }"
	;;
esac
exit 0

and Save As to /etc/init.d/sockso (make a new folder if you have to), then close gedit. Now that you're back into Terminal, type/ copy&paste:

chmod +x /etc/init.d/sockso

. From there, it should work on boot. And after that, the file server setup is the same. Webmin, Create New Folder, name it, then Share it. Not that hard at all.

Since Sockso actually has a GUI interface for adding music, I'm not going to go into detail with it, but it's basically a few clicks and is much easier once up to understand, unlike Gnump3D which is all config file based. Both do a great job and both do the job well. If you'd like my personal preference, I use Gnump3D with Crunchbang, mostly because I like messing around with config files (once you understand them, they can do just about anything.) unlike limited GUIs. But either way, you'll have a screaming server now to do most anything with! Keep it legal now!

[safeguy]

That's a lot to do. I don't have a spare PC but if or when I do, I will look up this post. In fact, hellnoire, do you mind if I copy this post in Word and keep it? Just in case, you know.

[hellnoire]

Not a problem, go right ahead. And if you think this is a lot, it doesn't take that much time. Took me about an hour and a half, most of the time spent trying to transfer data over without hitches, and that's the product of most of a server, that you have to troubleshoot everything if something goes wrong.

If anyone doesn't understand anything, then just ask. And I'll be posting an official PDF later on... just if you found it useful, all I ask is a thank you.

[Toys4Boys]

Hi hellnoire, long time lurker etc...., are you familiar w/ LinuxMCE http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/LinuxMCE? I'm no Linux wiz and am only intermediate in my windows skills but this looked very interesting. Of course there are tons of commercially available solutions including Logitech Duet and Sonos.

[kavinraja]

Nice tutorial hellnoire...
The steps are clear, so no problem in understanding...

Thank you for this nice tutorial...

And my suggestion is when you are making the tutorial in pdf please add a few screen shots, to make it more easy to understand...

[leofelix]

Finally!
Really interesting and well written.
I'm going to print this web page for future references and to read again,
thank you:-)

(So if you'd like to say thanks, please, do! I'll accept gifts too! LOL)

I'll send you some post cards from Italy, do accept them?:-)

[hellnoire]

I'll take anything for my hard work, Leofelix LOL, I figure I worked hard on it...

Kavin, most of the stuff you'll need to understand is only going to be helpful when you're actually doing it. The installer doesn't look different from how it looks in the Linux for Newbies post I did, and installing wise, it's not that hard. If you can give me a few ideas where you'd like the screenshots, I'll gladly supply them though. (Not trying to shoot you down, I'm just trying to think myself of how and which OS to do the screen shots with.)

Finally, to our newest member, I'm not familiar with it, but it certainly looks doable in terms of Linux coding. I would have to say that it has potential to be a powerful server, far more so then the one in this build. GUI is a tad ugly (must have a lot of coders GUI is ALWAYS secondary to looks when it coders) I also don't like that it's Kubuntu based, but it has a lot of options, and by the looks of it, highly configurable. Looks easy to install, to configure... I'd assume about mid-range. I could throw it on my demo PC and tell you what you think, if you'd like. Or I can also throw it on my virtual PC. Either way, it looks pretty good, better then my builds turn out to be.

[Toys4Boys]

Its all in the GUI Something else that may be interesting but unfortunately not free is Sage TV, they have a variety of offerings including a Media Center replacement that seems very reasonably priced. Check out [URL="http://www.geektonic.com/2008/11/sagetv-ultimate-guide.html"[/URL]

[kavinraja]

I just proposed to make screenshots in your tutorial which you are going to make in pdf, since every pdf tutorial that we see around web contains screenshots...

Just like you said, diving into a task will give more idea that merely reading about it...

I had planned to try your tutorial when my college has a holiday (your tutorial is easy to understand and have no problems here...

But if you go for pdf, may be screenshots will add the quality...

Just a suggestion lol...

[hellnoire]

But which parts should be screenshotted? I'm aware most of them have screenshots, but I need a general idea of what part to screenshot.