Server 14.04 for backups, file share in mixed OS environment

[andrew283]

I suspect this is far simpler than I am finding it, which makes me feel a bit foolish really, but here goes.

My home network was comprised of an ISP-provided modem / router (Hitron), 2 linux-based Minix media boxes connected via wifi, an android tablet, an iPad, numerous phones of all flavours (BB10, iOS, android), a (current) Macbook, 3 Win 7 machines, an XP desktop box and a 1 TB LACIE Neil Poulton NAS. The NAS held all the media (iTunes, movies), outlook backups and acted as my file server depending on which Windows machine I was on. All the Windows machines used the NAS as their iTunes storage (great until you hit the road).

The first NAS was replaced under warranty a few years ago, but we lost all the data. The replacement unit died the other day. I tore the unit down, plugged the drive into a SATA/USB adapter, installed Ubuntu in a VM and pulled up the drive. The disk is perfectly fine - can access all the files without issue. But I don't need a USB drive, I need something on the network. I don't want another LACIE.

I re-deployed an old Dell Inspiron 530 box, added memory (5 gb), installed a new WD NAS 1 TB drive and installed Ubuntu Server 14.04 with a full-disk LVM partition. The install included basic server, openSSH and SAMBA options. I installed Unity desktop because I'm a command line newb, but have found I'm quite happy to use Putty from Windows, I just don't know any commands.

I shut the server down, installed the old LACIE drive in a 2nd slot, fired it all back up, and the primary storage partition appeared as a drive in Unity. However, when I try to open any of the folders, it tells me I'm not the owner and all the folders disappear. Not handy. Using the terminal, I changed permission -R 777 which now gets me access, but I suspect it's not quite what I'm after from a security standpoint.

What I'd like:

• A network drive for each individual, that they can access from their respective device, that can be mapped as another drive on the Windows and MAC machines
• A common network drive so we can share files between us.
  
  • It would be amazing if these were available over the internet but the security aspect terrifies me.
  
  
• Backup space for each computer
• A shared iTunes repository (because once they have their claws in you, you can't get out)
• Movies / Television media are currently stored in 2 different folders depending on whether they're appropriate for kids or not. Access for the Minix boxes is only controlled through XBMC by mapping the folders to the different user accounts. I'd like that control moved to the server.

I tried to follow a couple of different online tutorials, but several used webmin, which I understand is no longer supported, or they included email servers and LAMP stacks which gave me no end of grief trying to configure (starting with a lack of domain name), or both.

I'm still struggling to get my head around the difference in layout between Ubuntu/Unix and Windows. What I had previously was a C drive with just the OS, a D drive with everything else, a folder in the NAS that was mapped to my machine as a Z drive, which was really only a subfolder of the folder holding all of the iTunes and other media folders. I don't know how to put all this together.

If I create a user for each person that needs a network drive space, that seems fairly straight forward, but who or how or where does the shared network space get created?
How do I incorporate the old NAS drive into the new environment without erasing everything on it?
Where do I begin?

[yancek]

However, when I try to open any of the folders, it tells me I'm not the owner and all the folders disappear

An ordinary user is the owner with permissions only to his/her /home/user folder. Some minor exceptions. You need to either access the partition as root using sudo or change the permissions.

Using the terminal, I changed permission -R 777 which now gets me access

Additionally, that will give any user who has access, permission to completely modify/delete anything and everything on that partition. So what is the filesystem type on the drive/partition you are referring to? If this is a Linux filesystem, you can create a group and add your users to the group and give the group permissions you want. If it is a windows filesystem, Linux permissions don't work so you will have to use something like umask.

[andrew283]

It's a Linux filesystem thankfully - that's one of the things that prompted this venture was the (theoretical) ease of saving the data.

I'm just reading man adduser but I'm foggy on groups. How do I connect the group permissions to that folder (/dev/sdb2)?

edit to add: if I'm using the Unity gui, how do I sudo?

[bab1]

It's a Linux filesystem thankfully - that's one of the things that prompted this venture was the (theoretical) ease of saving the data.

I'm just reading man adduser but I'm foggy on groups. How do I connect the group permissions to that folder (/dev/sdb2)?

edit to add: if I'm using the Unity gui, how do I sudo?

Do not use the GUI to invoke sudo. Learn to use the terminal to set up the data store. Most of what you want to achieve is fairly simple to do, but not very intuitive if you've never done it before.

You will need to

• Add users + configure groups
• Create the file system for the data (/srv/share)
• Install and configure Samba for the network

The only problem will be the iTunes share. There can be problems if users can delete other users music.

Samba can easily handle all the users private data with one simple [homes] share. The Public share can created with several variations.

Do you expect each user to backup their data or are you going to manage that?

I have a single server that serves both NFS exports and Samba shares (/srv/nas) along with partition that I use to backup all the NAS data along with each of the client machines (srv/backup). It has been running with no problems for that last 6 years.

Are you willing to do this using the terminal (CLI)?

[andrew283]

100%! Absolutely. I'd be happy to remove the Unity GUI all together.

[bab1]

100%! Absolutely. I'd be happy to remove the Unity GUI all together.

There is no reason to remove the GUI. You are just better off creating and managing the data with the terminal.

Have you added the users yet? All you need to do to add a Ubuntu user is this

sudo adduser <user_name>

...where <user_name> is the login name you want to assign to that person. Be prepared to the add the users first and last name and provide a password for that person.

We can add the users to the user groups you need next. First you need to think about haw many user groups you will need (kids, parents, admin. etc).

[andrew283]

Users added.

I think the groups you listed reflect how I was imagining them. So let's go with exactly that - admin, parents, kids

[bab1]

Users added.

I think the groups you listed reflect how I was imagining them. So let's go with exactly that - admin, parents, kids

I can see the parents and kids groups, but not the admin group. With Linux there is only one administrator. That would be the root user (uid=0). The administrative accounts for Ubuntu are all in the group sudo. Using sudo (Switch User and DO) allows the sudo user to become root and execute the command.

In your case I imagine that you installed Ubuntu so you are the only sudo user at the present time. You can check that with this command

getent group sudo

That gives you the 3 groups (sudo kids parents). Have you created the users? Post the output of this command

getent passwd | grep 100

[andrew283]

andrew@media-srv:~$ getent passwd | grep 100
libuuid:x:100:101::/var/lib/libuuid:
andrew:x:1000:1000:andrew,,,:/home/andrew:/bin/bash
wife:x:1001:1001:,,,:/home/wife:/bin/bash
kid1:x:1002:1002:,,,:/home/kid1:/bin/bash
kid2:x:1003:1003:,,,:/home/kid2:/bin/bash
kid3:x:1004:1004:,,,:/home/kid3:/bin/bash

I didn't answer your question about backups earlier. Ideally they'd be scheduled to happen on their own and the server would look after that, but I'm not sure how that works. My wife is an Apple user because of it's simplicity - pick it up and it operates intuitively, she won't (generally) break anything and she doesn't need to tech savvy. As long as you stay within the confines of Apple, it tends to work flawlessly so this is her choice. We tried getting her into Android but it lacked the same ability and made her very frustrated. Happy wife, happy life. Which is to say, if the server can automatically back up her Mac without her doing anything, that's perfect.

[bab1]

andrew@media-srv:~$ getent passwd | grep 100
libuuid:x:100:101::/var/lib/libuuid:
andrew:x:1000:1000:andrew,,,:/home/andrew:/bin/bash
wife:x:1001:1001:,,,:/home/wife:/bin/bash
kid1:x:1002:1002:,,,:/home/kid1:/bin/bash
kid2:x:1003:1003:,,,:/home/kid2:/bin/bash
kid3:x:1004:1004:,,,:/home/kid3:/bin/bash

I didn't answer your question about backups earlier. Ideally they'd be scheduled to happen on their own and the server would look after that, but I'm not sure how that works. My wife is an Apple user because of it's simplicity - pick it up and it operates intuitively, she won't (generally) break anything and she doesn't need to tech savvy. As long as you stay within the confines of Apple, it tends to work flawlessly so this is her choice. We tried getting her into Android but it lacked the same ability and made her very frustrated. Happy wife, happy life. Which is to say, if the server can automatically back up her Mac without her doing anything, that's perfect.

So lets add a group for the kids with this command

sudo addgroup --gid 200 kids

...and then one for the parents

sudo addgroup --gid 201 parents

See if you can see them with

getent group