Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with server

best starting kit for a dual-lan linux gateway machine

axiom — Fri, 03 May 2013 10:32:32 -0800

I use a second computer set up with Ubuntu server as a gateway/firewall (NAT box) and email server. It has finally died. I'd like to replace it with a new machine. I checked on newegg a bit, but I'm not a hardware geek so I'd like to query the hivemind for their ideas. Specifics:

1) The new machine can be fairly bare-bones, I run it headless 99.9% of the time and it mostly just collects email and passes packets. This means I don't care very much about memory, CPU, or graphics processing.
2) Ideally a dual-LAN motherboard, but I'll buy a five dollar PCI card to add the second ethernet interface if I have to. Only one interface needs to be gigabit ethernet.
3) Ideally x86, but AMD is fine if the price is significantly lower.
4) Has a RAID controller (RAID 1 specifically, but I've never heard of one that didn't support that). I want to add a pair of drives (already have them) as backup storage, in RAID 1.
5) Price is the main factor subject to the above, but I'm willing to pay a teeny bit more for something that will last longer (i.e., something with better-quality components). Maximum ~$300, ideally less.

I've assembled systems from components before, so I can put anything together that needs be.

How can I stream live television to 50-100 computers?

Bathtub Bobsled — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:59:30 -0800

What is an inexpensive hardware and software configuration that would allow someone to stream a handful of channels of live TV to 50-100 computers, accessing these on demand? I've been contracted by an educational institution to do an upgrade to some of their network systems. Primary project is running GigE throughout several buildings. In a conversation with the customer, he was remarking that their cable provider wants to charge them $40k/month to set up cable feeds in all of the rooms (or maybe it was $40k to install... I may have misheard). This is utterly ridiculous, since he only wants 4-5 channels available, and it will be rarely used more than 50-100 times on a given week. The only exception is presidential inaugurations, shuttle launches, or other nationally televised events they will all watch at the same time (2 times a year at the most).

As I was driving home, I thought about my home setup using TVHeadend and RasBMC/XBMC. I have a PCIE TV tuner, and it can stream my HD cable to different rooms, and we can even DVR to an external USB 3.0 SSD without issue. My wife and I can be watching multiple channels, and I can PiP on my laptop. It works very smooth and it's not a remarkably robust or expensive system. I mean, one of the clients is a Rasberry Pi.

So, I thought, how hard would it be to setup a dual-Xeon with 4 tuner cards, and use a some sort of broadcasting stream (only broadcasting those 4-5 channels, and the 1 channel during big events) that allows them to open up a client like XBMC or the already installed WMC and watch the broadcast of whatever channel they want. For the scale he's looking for, I figure VLC, MythTV, or TVHeadend, and a well configured tower should be able to do the trick for less than $4000, right? Or am I overlooking something?

Also, there is no need for the ability to pause, rewind, or record anything. Just to pull up the channel and watch, the same as you would on a regular television.

Did my hosting provider respond appropriately?

QuantumMeruit — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:01:34 -0800

My blog made the front page of a major social media site this morning and the provider promptly locked my entire account for "abuse". It took 6 hours for my blog to come back online. Was that a typical response? My Wordpress blog is hosted by a fairly well-known (small-ish) hosting provider. The one time my blog experienced a huge spike in traffic and we exceeded our bandwidth, it was as simple as upgrading our hosting plan to a higher amount, and we had almost no downtime.

But this morning, when we were Slashdotted (or whatever you call it these days), our provider shut us down for "abuse" when the high volume of requests took up more load on our (shared) server than allocated/anticipated. (We had not come close to our bandwidth caps.) It took 2+ hours for the "abuse" team to get back to us with a response regarding our options, and more hours between the time I submitted a credit card payment for an upgrade to a cloud-based virtual dedicated software, and then time for their techs to help us through the migration process. All-in-all, a 6-hour process from the first report that we went down to when it was available again.

They were downright decent at the end there with providing assistance (and nameserver redirects while we worked things out); my kvetching at them via Twitter, their FB page and in comments to the post driving traffic to my blog may have had something to do with it.

I now realize that it was unreasonable for me to expect that the load spike would be expediently handled just like the last time. (This morning's spike was orders of magnitudes higher than my last spike.) And I also appreciate that I've been a small customer with almost nonexistent bandwidth and storage needs.

That said, was a 6-hour turnaround time reasonable? I was in "take my money, fix this" mode from my first contact with them, but they were unresponsive to my pleading to give me a timetable throughout the entire process.

Explain NAS and file servers to me like I'm five years old. And dim.

DirtyOldTown — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 01:00:00 -0800

I currently have a tangle of external drives hooked to my HTPC. Serving that stuff via UPnP is okay, but I'd like to move my files to a separate device that would then be able to make them available to a motley assortment of devices. Thing is, I'm woefully ignorant about networking and file sharing, having never so much as set up a shared Windows folder. I need help coming up with a game plan. Is an NAS device what I am looking for? Or would I be better off with a file server? I honestly don't know what precisely the former is (except that people keep suggesting it) and I have a vague concept of the latter, but not in any practical, knowing where to start kind of way.

And what the hell does Samba mean? What does sexy Latin dancing have to do with network file sharing?

What are the various options for a person who wants to put all of their files onto one networked device accessible throughout the house? Pros and cons? Caveats?

My HTPC is running Win7 with XBMC. I also have a Raspberry Pi running OpenELEC, a WD TV Live, and a smart tv that can play DLNA/UPNP stuff, with some limitations. There are a mess of other tablets, smart phones, netbooks, etc. in the house, too, but it's mostly the HTPC, the pi, and the WD TV that actually matter, with bonus points if I can include the smart tv. (Though I'd be willing to spring for another Pi for that one, if need be.)

How can I efficiently harvest Google's entire cache of my website?

croutonsupafreak — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:35:33 -0800

I stupidly let a web hosting account expire without backing up and transferring my site to my new server. I'm talking to the host to try to get access to my data (fingers crossed), but in case that does not work out: Is there a way to efficiently harvest Google's entire cache of a specific domain? Something else I should consider? I would like to act fast on this, and I don't have any programming/tech-fu skills.

What should I do: Ext. Hard Drives, Media Servers, NAS, etc.

aswego — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 06:34:00 -0800

Please talk to me like I'm stupid. I have a bunch of video files (~5TB...so far) hanging out on a bunch of external hard drives. Right now I just take turns plugging them into whichever laptop I'm going to use to watch the videos. I'd like something a little more convenient and easily accessible from multiple rooms in my small apartment, but I'm not awesome at setting up networky things (I've never successfully gotten two different laptops in my apartment to even "see" each other over the wireless router). What should I do? More specifics:

Current external hard drives owned (in case these could be repurposed somehow): A Seagate 4TB that needs a wall outlet to be used, a Seagate 3TB that needs a wall outlet to be used, and two 1TB WD drives that don't need wall outlets to be used (but are presumably very fragile).
I would probably be adding more video files to this collection on a daily basis.
Several different Windows laptops and VLC would be the primary potential viewing methods.
Don't own or care about Netflix/Roku/Video Game Systems.
Would avoid using iTunes to the extent possible (have an iPhone and iPad, but use them primarily for podcasts and ebooks).
Though the ability to possibly watch some of these video files on a television someday could be nice, it's not a priority as I don't currently have one.
Similarly, being able to get at the files from somewhere else (via FTP, maybe?) in an emergency seems like it'd be cool, but it's not really a priority.
Don't really care about backing up my laptops constantly...nothing too important on them.
The appeal of having redundant copies of the video files comes from experience with hard drives failing and the months/years it takes to accumulate all those files all over again, as well as the idea that it might be harder to accumulate them next time (basic digital hoarder mentality).

I checked out previous AskMefis, but a lot of the cheap NAS's recommended maxed out at something like an 8TB setup where two 4TB drivers were mirrored for backup purposes. I'm already well past the 4TB point, so I'm hoping for something with even more space. Also, I would probably need a lot of hand-holding setting one up. I can learn this stuff if someone explains it slowly and walks me through, but if somebody starts out by mentioning something like "Tomato" or "firmware," I'm probably lost already.

I also saw the recommendation of the ASUS RT-N16 wireless router, which at least seems like it'd get me partway there by just plugging my two largest external hard drives into it (is this correct?). My current router seems to work fine as far as upload/download speeds go, even though it's pretty old (>5 years), so maybe that money is better spent toward an NAS.

How Can I Remotely Restart a Program on a Windows 7 Computer?

Bugbread — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:10:51 -0800

Any ideas on how I could have one PC listen for a specially formatted packet/etc., and when it detects that packet/etc. shut down a program? I have a Windows 7 computer which I am using to serve media files to a media player connected to my television. I've tried many media server programs, and the one that works best for me is Twonky. However, about once a day (at different times of the day), Twonky stops responding. When that happens, I have to go to the other room and shut down the "Twonkyserver.exe" program. When I shut it down, it automatically restarts, and Twonky works fine.

However, 1) it's a bit of a pain in the butt to go to the other (non-heated) room to do this, and 2) when it happens and I'm not at home, my wife and kids can't watch anything.

I've tried using Windows 7 remote access to access the computer and manually restart the program, but it takes waaaaay too long to do almost every day.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to configure the main box to, say, listen to a specific port or something, and then from the living room PC, double-click on something (a batch file, etc.) which would send a command/specially formed packet/access a specially designated port/etc. to the main PC. The main PC, detecting this special traffic/packet/etc. would in turn run a batch file, etc. which just shuts down twonkyserver.exe (which would then automatically restart). So I (or my wife, or eventually my kids) would know "when the TV stops working, double-click this icon on the living room desktop, and wait 10 seconds". Any ideas?

Old PC as an HTPC and File + Game Server... Help Me Make It Happen!

Effigy2000 — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:01:26 -0800

I have an old computer I'm thinking of turning into a home theatre PC, as well as a dedicated FTP and multiplayer game server. Can it be done, and what do I need? Tech specs and more detailed questions inside. I have an old computer just laying around taking up space. I had considered selling it on eBay but it quickly became apparent I wouldn't get much for it. I figured out how to hook it up to my living room TV and started getting grand ideas about turning it into a HTPC and a dedicated server. But I'm new to most of this and the research I have done so far offers more questions I can't seem to find answers to. I would appreciate some advice.

Before we begin, the PC's tech specs are as follows;

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1.6GHz
RAM: 1GB
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9600 X1050
Sound Card: NVIDIA nForce 2 MCP-T (onboard the motherboard, an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe)
Hard Drive: 320GB 7200RPM

My questions are as follows.

SOUND: Because this PC doesn't have an HDMI port, I've hooked it up to my TV via the RGB port. Looks great in widescreen, but I'm not getting any sound. According to my research, the sound card is capable of real time Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding with hardware accelerated 3D audio.

This page of the motherboard manual shows us we have an S/PDIF out jack to play with. This seems my best bet of getting the best 5.1 sound. I've always understood S/PDIF to be a TOSLINK cable. But the jack doesn't seem to fit a TOSLINK cable. So my questions here are;

1) What kind of cable would I need to hook this up to the back of my 5.1 surround sound AV receiver?
2) Would I be better off using the various line out ports to connect it to the back of my TV? What kind of cables do i need for this?

Here's an actual pic of the back of the computer, if it helps.

HOME THEATRE: I know and love Plex. I know and like XBMC. My research suggests neither of these two clients will work with windows XP, which is the best OS this system can run. I know of some other alternatives, but some recommendations would be appreciated.

FILE SERVER: So my research to date suggests the best thing to do to operate my own file server is to sign up a free dynamic DNS service, modify some settings in my modem configuration, and then get a free program like FireFTP. Sounds easy enough. Too easy. Am I missing something, or is this setup going to be harder than it sounds?

GAME SERVER: This I know less about, and what research I've done confuses me.

I'd like to install a Minecraft server at the very least (which I know how to do) and probably some other games like DayZ and a FPS (haven't decided which yet). The games themselves would be played on the other computers in my network and possibly remotely by my friends.

Problem is, those two computers are Macs (an iMac and a Mac Mini). So my questions are;

1. Can Macs play on a game server hosted on a Windows XP machine?
2. Is the Windows XP machine even up to the task?
3. How do I let friends (or even strangers) remotely join my server?
4. I'm guessing there's no grand, unifying software that lets you run multiple servers for different games?

Thanks in advance for all your help!

Cool things to do with my virtual machine?

teraspawn — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:05:54 -0800

I've just signed up for a virtual server, and I'm looking for ideas of fun things to use it for. I'm intending to run a web server, an instance of OwnCloud and a PyScrabble server from it. Is there anything else I should consider?

I'm almost certainly messing up some terminology here...

heyforfour — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:20:11 -0800

I'm not a network technician but I play one ~~on tv~~ in grad school. How do I get the server connections I need, involving a virtual machine (VMWare Fusion) that needs to talk to an outside device? I use a cool experimental device that has a built-in server which transmits data back and forth. I currently access it from a Mac OS sytem, which works fine. I'm attempting to access it from a Win 7 virtual machine using VMWare Fusion, and running into problems.

My Win 7 virtual machine connects to the internet via an ethernet cable just fine, (I'm in NAT mode). However, when I plug my device into the laptop instead, I can ping it from the MAC OS host but not from the Win 7 machine. I would like it to talk to *both* the guest and host.

(For context, I have a two-part experiment; the vastly-superior standard implementation of part 1 runs only on Windows, ditto for part 2 runs only on Mac. The standard solution to this problem is two computers, but I work in a semi-mobile lab and don't have this option. yay.)

So far I've turned off all the Win 7's firewalls that I can find and fiddled with the different networking modes without success. Where do I start to diagnose what's going on? VMWare occasionally asks (for flash drives etc.) whether an item should connect to the host or guest - can I examine/alter these preferences once they've been set?

My probably-subpar googling seems to yield mostly attempts to connect to virtual servers, which is not what I want. Help me figure out how to figure this out!

Is there an easy way to setup a home media server?

zooropa — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:56:00 -0800

Advice needed: is this an easy setup for a home media server so anyone can watch movies and listen to music anywhere in the house? One-line summary:
Please help me put together a home media server so my wife and I can listen to music or watch movies from any room in the house.

Longer version:
My wife and I are expecting our first child at the end of February. I'd like to put together a home media server so either of us can listen to relaxing music or watch a relaxing movie from anywhere in the house.

Over the New Year holiday, my wife's parents came up to stay with us. They ended up giving us an old Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop. That's what made me think it's time to setup a home media server. It's got a 300GB hard drive, so there's plenty of space for our 20,000 music files and a bunch of movies. I'm not looking to have this replace our TV (we currently have DirecTV and sometimes watch movies via Amazon Prime Instant).

Here are some of the particulars:

With the baby coming, money is tight. That means no pre-packaged hardware like Sonos, Bose, et al.

No tablets are in our immediate future.

I would prefer to stay Windows-only (no Linux or Mac, please).

Wires drive my wife crazy. This has to be wireless.

Available equipment includes:

The Insprion 1525 laptop (I envision this as the server)

Two other laptops that we use as "home" laptops: photo album, word processor, browser, email, recipe book, etc. I envision these as clients.

A 250GB USB external hard drive from Maxtor (BlackArmor).

I just bought an iPhone 5 and my wife has an Android phone from HTC (I forget which). We'd like to use these as remotes and listening devices.

I actually got rid of all my old stereo equipment last year (amp, CD player, etc.). We have some very good Klipsch computer speakers that function as our TV's speakers. A friend is going to give us some old computer speakers for the baby's room.

I've never done this before, so I've done some searching around the Web for a solution. Here's how I'm thinking this will work:

1. Plug the Inspiron directly into the wireless router (the router has four available Ethernet ports and the Inspiron has one)

2. Install Plex on the Inspiron.

3. Use Plex to serve music and movies to my wife's Android, my iPhone, other laptops, etc.

4. All my music and movie files currently live on the external hard drive, so I will probably have to buy a NAS adapter and plug my portable external hard drive into it so all those files are available, too. I'm thinking this might do the trick.

Does this sound right? Any other advice or ideas? Pointers to any easy setups on the Web?

Again, I'm still learning as I go, so I'm not looking for an audiophile's dream setup. Something easy, relatively DIY, and cheap is the goal.

Help me delete a few hundred thousand files from a webserver

fake — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:15:14 -0800

Let's say I have 300,000 files on a webserver in a single directory. I want to download them to a local directory and then delete them. My FTP client of choice is choking on the task. What should I do?

Ffmpeg installation didn't create ffmpeg.so in php extensions...

Bacillus — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:38:03 -0800

Ffmpeg installation didn't create ffmpeg.so in php extensions... I've fully installed Ffmpeg on my Centos 6 server and it's working fine. I've added the ffmpeg.so extension to the php.ini file but the problem is the installation didn't create the file, or at least I think it should have. I really want Ffmpeg to come up in my phpinfo(). How do I generate the ffmpeg.so file so that it works?

Thank you

Why is Time Machine trying to backup so much?

pwb503 — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:46:31 -0800

Why is Time Machine trying to backup 35 GB of data every single day when I'm only using 300 GB of my 500 GB HD and I know I have not changed or added that much in the time since my last backup? I have a MBP running 10.6.8 that I am backing up and a Mac Mini running Mountain Lion (and Server) hooked up to a 2 TB external drive that acts as my NAS and Time Machine. The Mac Mini is connected to my wifi router via ethernet and acts as my home server. Using Mountain Lion Server, I've set it up as a Time Machine server as well.

Every time I come home and connect to the wifi network it does it's daily backup as expected, but it is so much bigger than expected. I was under the impression the backups were only supposed to copy new files or altered files, and there is no way I'm changing 10% of my drive each day at work...

Help a relative server n00b keep his Mac Mini safe.

nevercalm — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:00:19 -0800

I'm planning on getting a Mac Mini with Lion Server. I don't have much experience with security or setup. Point me to some basic articles, sites, or books, please. I'll also take any advice the hivemind might have as well. This is for a household with multiple Macs, iPods, iPhones and an iPad.

My interests are for backup, as a household media server and as a drive I can access from outside the home, as well as the small, energy efficient footprint that fits anywhere. I've done enough research to know that this pretty much fits the bill.

How do I keep it secure, yet still be able to access it anytime I like?

I have lifelong (since the first Macs, as a kid) experience with computers and am pretty savvy, and know enough to know that I could get myself in a lot of trouble.

Remoting into Server 2008 R2 w/o Win7 Professional

UrbanEye — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 15:27:34 -0800

How can I remote into Windows Server 2008 R2 from a PC with Win7 Home Premium? From what I've read, the built in remote desktop stuff only works with Professional and above. I need the capability for a class project, not for production, so security isn't a huge issue here.

Web Server Wording

Paquda — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 12:25:21 -0800

"Serving-out" a web-based GUI: more natural wording? I want to talk about an application that "serves-out" a web-based GUI to users who connect by pointing their web browsers at it. I'm drawing a blank on a more normal, English wording to use in place of "serve-out".

Adding laptops to a Windows 2008 domain

chairish — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 15:22:04 -0800

What is the best practice for setting up Windows laptops inside and outside of a domain? I have been asked to set up 40 Windows 7 Pro laptops for the faculty of an educational organisation. Previously they have been using Windows 7 home laptops without profiles or logging into XP desktops with roaming profiles. Their server is Windows 2008.

The laptops will be used inside the organisation (over very poor wireless connections)and at home. Presently they do not have remote access so I will not need to set up a VPN.

What is the best way to set up these laptops and can anyone point me to resources to help me do so. Think setting up Windows Laptops for Dummies here!

The current laptops all operate simply as 'guests' with mapped drive access.

Best way to share a printer?

nickhb — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:49:41 -0800

Best way to share a printer (and/or set up a print server) in a college dorm? So my brother is starting college this month. He and his roommate are sharing a printer. If they have to, they can just plug or unplug their computers from the printer whenever they need to print, but that seems tedious. Ideally I would like to help him set up a print server so that either of them can print to the printer at any time, whether or not the printer is plugged into one of the laptops, but I'm open to other suggestions.

The dorm has both wired and wireless internet, explained roughly here. I would also like it if their computers and the printer were somehow isolated from the rest of the network, to prevent everyone and their mother from printing to it.

Thoughts?

Is it necessary to have anti-virus on a Windows 2008 file server?

colecovizion — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:51:04 -0800

Is it necessary to have anti-virus on a Windows 2008 file server? My IT guy says it's not necessary to have any antivirus on our file server. He says it takes too many resources and that viruses are incapable of executing from clients.

This doesn't sound safe to me. My approach would be to install antivirus and disable real-time scanning. I would set a schedule for scans.

What is the best approach to ensure that we are protected?

Details: We have Kaspersky Business Space Security (which includes a license for a special Kaspersky File Server Version)

IIS with nested virtual directories

sbutler — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 00:58:56 -0800

I have a situation with aliases/virtual directories that would be easy for me to solve in Apache, but with IIS I'm jumping through some hoops. Am I on the right track, or is there a better way? I have some URL to directory mappings on a Windows server that all follow this pattern:

/foo/download -> e:\data\foo\download

/bar/download -> e:\data\bar\download

/baz/download -> e:\data\baz\download

...

Now, I can't just map the whole directory "e:\data\foo" into the web server space because "e:\data\foo" can contain files that shouldn't be served via the web server. Only stuff in "e:\data\foo\download" should be available from the web server. And for historical reasons, it has to be available at "/foo/download".

I'm most familiar with Apache on Unix, and in that case I'd probably just do (adjusting for windows paths):

Alias /foo/download e:/foo/download

Alias /bar/download e:/bar/download

Alias /baz/download e:/baz/download

...

But this project is on Windows 2008 Server R2 SP1 with IIS. It seems like virtual directories are the way to go, but I can't create a virtual directory with an "Alias" as "foo/download" (it won't let me type the "/" in there).

So my work around is that I create virtual directories in the style of "foo-download", "bar-download", "baz-download", etc and use a URL Rewrite like such:

^([^/]+)/download(.*)$ -> {R:1}-download{R:2}

Seems to work. But am I missing something? Is there a better way?

I'm at the end of my server-related rope

supercres — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 11:26:44 -0800

My lab has a Django database and MoinMoin wiki on a severely aging Mac (Leopard, 10.5) server. Please, people who keep up with this sort of software, tell me: what's my best course of action for modernizing it? More info and options inside. This server is, by far, the oldest computer in our lab. It's running Server 10.5.8, too old to just be migrated to a new machine. And even so, a simple migration probably wouldn't get our customized software: (1) a MoinMoin wiki that serves both as our public-facing website and knowledge repository for the lab, and (2) a Django/MySQL (I think) database that collects experimental participant and session data over the web from staff experimenters. (Not the experimental data itself, fortunately; just linked tables of participants, sessions, payments, experiments, post-processing tasks, etc. There are automatic things like money being added to participant's balance when a session is added, etc.) It also has Open Directory, used basically only for wiki access.

A year ago, we had a former lab member visiting for several months. He looked into moving everything intact to a new Mac server. He hit enough roadblocks that he eventually gave up; Apple removing MySQL was part of it, but I think there were other issues. Now I can't easily follow up with him to see what the issues are (he's extremely busy as a medical resident, and will be so for another six weeks).

I know that it looks like Apple's support for server customers is waning (or at least, that's what I hear). With that in mind, and above-mentioned issues, I see three options:

Ignore past failings and keep trying to move current systems to a new Mac server. Other than the apparent difficulty, a big issue is that Apple could break everything with the next Server OS update the way they did between 10.5.8 and now, making it necessary for us to go through this again. I would like the new system to be more resilient. The other big issue is that no one in the lab has the expertise to do it. I know some Python, but probably not enough to do this on my own. So we'd probably have to hire someone (hopefully a CS student, since we're at a major research university).
Get a new Mac server and ditch Django and MoinMoin. Set up a new database from scratch with more user-friendly software (Filemaker?) and import the old tables. Set up a new wiki (oh how I hate MoinMoin) and import existing pages as best we can. This is clearly the biggest time investment, but I feel like I could do it myself. The downsides are (a) new learning curve and possible bugs with database changeover, (b) time to set everything up from scratch, and (c) cost, especially if we need one of the more expensive versions of FileMaker.
Set up a Linux server and install Django and MoinMoin, hopefully intact. I know my way around a Unix system reasonably well, but my unfamiliarity with Django and MoinMoin means that I'd probably need outside (hired) help, especially since I'd need to set it up as a public-facing server. I don't know anything about, for example, creating new users, whereas on the Mac, I can just use Workgroup Manager. An advantage, though, is that we have existing unused Linux boxes more-or-less ready to set up as new servers.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that the current Django application is buggy, so some pages take ages to load? That's a point in my mind for nuke-and-rewrite, since fixing it would probably take someone already familiar with Django.

So my questions are:

Are any of these options obviously better or worse than the others?
If I were to set up a new relational database (option 2), are you familiar with any software that would fit the bill?
- If FileMaker is best, which version do I need to be able to do the following: create a relational database application with automatic record-creation rules (I'm not DB-familiar), create users (fewer than 50), who can work with database records with a web interface (though I guess installing FileMaker clients is possible too), and import our existing records?

Whew. This is what keeps me up at night. (Ok, not really.) If you'd like to see our current website or get more info about the database (can't show it to you because of privacy concerns), please let me know.

Thanks!

How to backup remote web server and email on servers?

Brandon Blatcher — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 10:40:40 -0800

Backing up a web server and the email on it to a local machine, how to do? If one is hosting a remote and a private webserver with two websites on it, along with email for various accounts, how does one back up all of the files on the webserver and said email accounts, to a local machine? No need for database backups, they're taken care of my the hosting company. But we're responsible for our files and email accounts.

Ideally, this would be automated and the email would retain the folder structure of the various accounts.

What sort of server & network setup would work for a small design business?

This_Will_Be_Good — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:06:10 -0800

What networking or server (NAS?) equipment do I need to set up a small design business that will use a lot of fairly large CAD, Rhino, PSD, AI, and other design-type files? I am in the process of setting up a small design studio. It will most likely be me, and just a handful of employees at the most. However, I will need a few different machines in various locations both for me and my coworkers, but also connected to machines in various odd places hooked up to fabrication equipment. So, I am trying to figure out if I need to set up a small NAS system as a centralized location for all these files. I just read about NAS systems, so assume I know very little.

I currently have a Macbook Pro laptop, and I run XP on a bootcamp partition with a bunch of older software (I am afraid to upgrade because if it doesn't work I couldn't afford to buy some of that stuff again). So, I imagine I will need the system to work for Macs and PCs, running a variety of operating systems, and due to the spread out nature of the machine, it will likely need to work wirelessly. So, here is what I was thinking -- I want to know if this set-up makes sense, and if anyone can give me any ideas/guidance:

- SERVER: Something like a 2-Disk Synology NAS. I just learned about these. I guess the other computers could connect to this over a local network or wifi? I would get two 1TB WD 3.5" drives for this. I would probably also buy a third, so I could swap one off-site regularly. Would the other computers be able to work on files directly off of this? Would a service like Dropbox be a better idea than buying a NAS?

- BACKUP: CrashPlan Pro. I would then back the data on the NAS up with some service like CrashPlan. I guess if I am doing the off-site backup, this may be overkill, but it might be convenient and more fool-proof then relying on regular swapping out of drives.

- NETWORK: Can this all work over wifi? Do desktops these days come with wireless networking capabilities, or would they need some sort of additional wireless component (dongles, cards, etc)?

- COMP 1: My current Macbook Pro laptop. This will just stay the same for now, as I already have it.

- COMPS 2-3: Some sort of new, cheap desktop PCs with Windows 7 that will be able to handle CAD Programs like AutoCAD, 3DSMax. These may also be tied into some fabrication equipment, which rarely uses software (like Mastercam) for the Mac. What is the cheapest processor/setup nowadays that could handle software like that? Would one of those barebones/mini PCs work instead if I am going to store a lot of things on the NAS?

- COMP 4: Eventually maybe a Mac Mini or an Air, if I wanted to get an additional affordable Mac. Are there cheap displays from other companies, that I could use with all of these different computers?

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I guess that is a lot to ask, so the most important question is what would people recommend for the file server/NAS question, answers to the other topics would be super helpful too as I am dazing over staring at desktop specs on NewEgg.

Ze batteries, zey do nussing!

dozo — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:15:58 -0800

Why are my UPSs not pulling power from the generator? We have a 1500VA battery backup powering 2 servers and a 1250VA powering our network and phone system. The 1500 will power the servers for 5 minutes (before initiating shutdown) and the 1250 will run the network and phones for 35 minutes, both reporting almost no load. We have a 15kw generator with a 60 amp breaker connected to the server circuit that kicks on when the power goes out, taking about 45 seconds to start. Our problem is that the UPSs don't go back onto line power when the generator comes on.

We've tested the voltage - from the wall it's a steady 120v, when the generator kicks on it fluctuates from 120-130v. We've used several UPSs (including a brand new one purchased for testing) but none will use the power of the generator, they just run down to nothing. The light in the server closet (generator powered) works with no problem, as well as several other things connected to it. Our electrician has tested all, says everything should be running fine and is baffled as well.

So, hive mind, I'm wondering - what the hell is going on? The electrician theorizes that the UPS is more sensitive to fluctuations, doesn't see the generator power as a good source of power and won't use it. Does anyone have any other insight?