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Server Setup

In late 2012 I decided it was time to retire the old Dell desktop (the original phalanx) that had been limping along as my fileserver and build a proper fileserver. The new phalanx was born. Here are some of the important design/configuration decisions that I made:

  • boot drive is a small SSD that is separate from the storage array which allows OS to be upgraded independently of file storage
  • software RAID 5 (device mapper raid) using 6 X 3TBB HDDs (12 TB raw, ~11.1 TB useable)

Although phalanx's primary purpose is as an internal fileserver, it runs 24/7 and has plenty of spare cycles to also act as a webserver. Below are some of the things it is currently running.

Update History

5/27/2022

  • Wipe and install Ubuntu 22.04

7/8/2019

1/9/2019

  • Added 10G Ethernet interface.

1/4/2019

  • Replaced mobo/proc/RAM with parts salvaged from work. Proc i7-4790 (Haswell); RAM 32GB DDR3L.

6/2/2018

  • Upgraded boot drive to 500 GB SSD. Also installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.*

1/16/2017

  • Upgraded server added 2 x 3 TB additional HDDs (via PCIe SATA expansion card), new power supply, and new (slightly used) case. After adding the new disks to the RAID and growing the file system, total usable storage on the array is now 11.18 TB. Parts List:
    • 2 - Seagate 3TB BarraCuda SATA (ST3000DM008) 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive ($89.99 each)
    • IO Crest SI-PEX40062 4 Port SATA III PCIe 2.0 X2 Controller Card ($37.99)
    • SeaSonic G Series 550-Watt 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply SSR-550RM ($69.99)
    • Corsair case (scavenged for free)
  • Instructions for adding disks, growing the array, and then growing the file system are below.

11/18/2016

  • Updated (wipe and reinstall) to Ubuntu Server 16.04.1 LTS

9/2015

8/2014

  • Both of the my original 3TB HDDs started acting funny and died within a week of each other after about 1.8 years of continuous use. Fortunately I reacted immediately and I was able to back up all of my data onto other disks. Although I regularly back up all of my critical data I decided that I really don't want to have to deal with losing any of my data. I promptly purchased another HDD and a HW RAID card (an LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-8i) and set out to build a RAID 5 array. I quickly ran into problems with the RAID card. I was only able to get the computer to boot with it installed once. During that boot I upgraded the card's firmware with the hope that it would fix all my issues, but it did not and I was never able to fully boot with the card installed again. After a little googling I discovered someone in my same position who claimed to have called LSI tech support and was told that LSI cards are "not compatible with newer motherboards". The guy didn't elaborate as to what that meant but I assume it means LSI cards don't work in UEFI motherboards. I was disappointed but I started reading about software raid (device mapper raid) and decided that it should work perfectly for my little fileserver. I also decided that btrfs is not really ready for prime time and I should use some other file system.

OS Configuration

Current (May 2022) OS information:
Ubuntu Version: Ubuntu 22.04 Server LTS
Kernel Version: 5.15.0-XX

DNS

Current hostname is: https://phalanx.homelinuxserver.org

To configure automatic DNS updates, make sure to install ddclient:

$ sudo apt-get install ddclient

Then follow instructions to log into account and select correct hostname.

Network Interfaces

Interface MAC Reserved IP Notes
enp4s0 d0:50:99:51:75:a4 192.168.8.6 primary interface gigabit
enp5s0 d0:50:99:51:75:a5 -- secondary gigabit (unused)
enp1s0f0 0c:c4:7a:1f:00:ae 10.250.1.2 10G fiber interface
enp1s0f1 0c:c4:7a:1f:00:af -- secondary 10G fiber (unused)
ipmi bc:5f:f4:fe:6b:cb 192.168.208.1 IPMI interface

Storage Configuration

The software RAID5 array is block device /dev/md0 which is mounted at /storage; total usable storage is about 5.5TB 11.1TB with the current drive configuration

The primary mechanism for accessing the storage on phalanx is via NFS v4. I have found that performance is excellent (much better than samba!) and NFS is supported fairly well on both Mac OS and Linux, which are the main client OSes I use. The only annoyance I discovered is that uids on all systems MUST match. This is no big deal on Linux, but I had to manually change my uid on Mac OS, which was not as easy as it should have been.

Storage setup

NOTE: After installing Ubuntu 16.04.1 I was pleasantly surprised to discover that none of the steps below were necessary. The software RAID had already been found and assembled for me. The stuff below is for reference.

  • Install mdadm:
    $ sudo aptitude install mdadm xfsprogs
  • For each drive (sdb, sdc, sdd):
    # parted -a optimal /dev/sdb
GNU Parted 2.3
Using /dev/sdb
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) mklabel gpt
Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/sdd will be destroyed and all data on
this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue?
Yes/No? y
(parted) mkpart primary 0% 100%
(parted) align-check opt 1
1 aligned
(parted) quit
Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab.
  • Create the array using mdadm:
    # mdadm --create --verbose /dev/md0 --level=5 --raid-devices=3 /dev/sd[b-d]1
  • The above step takes quiet a while, about 6 hours in my case. To watch progress:
    $ watch cat /proc/mdstat
  • Once this is done you can create the XFS file system on the new /dev/md0 block device:
    $ sudo mkfs -t xfs -d su=512k -d sw=2 /dev/md0
  • To make sure the array reappears after reboot:
    # mdadm --examine --scan >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf  # NOTE: this syntax is deprecated and no longer works!
# mdadm --detail --scan >> /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
# update-initramfs -u
  • If any issues arise you can stop a software RAID and reassemble it using:
    $ sudo mdadm --stop /dev/md127
$ mdadm --assemble /dev/md0 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1
  • To view array status:
    dsorber@phalanx:~$ sudo mdadm --detail /dev/md0
/dev/md0:
        Version : 1.2
  Creation Time : Fri Aug 22 17:05:41 2014
     Raid Level : raid5
     Array Size : 11720534016 (11177.57 GiB 12001.83 GB)
  Used Dev Size : 2930133504 (2794.39 GiB 3000.46 GB)
   Raid Devices : 5
  Total Devices : 5
    Persistence : Superblock is persistent

    Update Time : Fri Jan 20 16:45:45 2017
          State : clean 
 Active Devices : 5
Working Devices : 5
 Failed Devices : 0
  Spare Devices : 0

         Layout : left-symmetric
     Chunk Size : 512K

           Name : phalanx:0  (local to host phalanx)
           UUID : 54bfb945:47ec32da:d2ccc4db:9d3615fa
         Events : 4001

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0       8       17        0      active sync   /dev/sdb1
       1       8       33        1      active sync   /dev/sdc1
       3       8       49        2      active sync   /dev/sdd1
       5       8       81        3      active sync   /dev/sdf1
       4       8       65        4      active sync   /dev/sde1
  • /etc/fstab
    # /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=66e8057c-1b75-40ba-8ceb-480b6e4405ab /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1

/dev/md0        /storage        xfs     rw,nobarrier,noatime,nodiratime 0       0
/storage        /export/storage    none    bind    0    0

Firewall Configuration

Port Description
22 ssh
80 http
111 SUN rpc
443 https
2049 NFS
3142 apt-cacher-ng
4045 lockd
17641 NFS connect
61993 bt

It was a bit annoying to get NFS working when the firewall was enabled but I found some good instructions and got them to work. The issue was that some of the important rpc/NFS daemons use random ports when they boot up.

  • Edit /etc/default/nfs-kernel-server comment out this line:
    RPCMOUNTDOPTS=--manage-gids

    add this line
    RPCMOUNTDOPTS="--port 17641"
  • Edit/create /etc/modprobe.d/options.conf:
    options lockd nlm_udpport=4045 nlm_tcpport=4045
  • Edit /etc/modules and add lockd on its own line:
    ...
lockd
  • Now create the firewall rules (only allow incoming access for the local network), for each port in the table above:
    $ sudo ufw allow from 192.168.8.0/24 to any port <PORT>
  • Add external allow rules (i.e. up these ports to the outside world) for ssh, https, and bt :
    $ sudo ufw allow <PORT>
  • Start ufw:
    $ sudo ufw enable

    Overview of added rules:
    sudo ufw allow proto tcp to 0.0.0.0/0 port 22
sudo ufw allow proto tcp to 0.0.0.0/0 port 443
sudo ufw allow proto tcp to 0.0.0.0/0 port 61993

sudo ufw allow from 192.168.4.0/24 to any port 111
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.4.0/24 to any port 2049
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.4.0/24 to any port 4045
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.4.0/24 to any port 17641

sudo ufw allow from 192.168.8.0/24 to any port 111
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.8.0/24 to any port 2049
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.8.0/24 to any port 4045
sudo ufw allow from 192.168.8.0/24 to any port 17641

sudo ufw allow from 10.250.1.0/24 to any port 111
sudo ufw allow from 10.250.1.0/24 to any port 2049
sudo ufw allow from 10.250.1.0/24 to any port 4045
sudo ufw allow from 10.250.1.0/24 to any port 17641

NFS setup:

  • Install NFS (note be sure to configure the firewall first):
    $ sudo apt install nfs-kernel-server
  • Edit /etc/exports:
    /storage    192.168.8.0/24(rw,nohide,insecure,no_subtree_check,async)
/storage    192.168.4.0/24(rw,nohide,insecure,no_subtree_check,async)

/storage    10.250.1.0/24(rw,nohide,insecure,no_subtree_check,async)
  • Restart NFS:
    $ sudo systemctl restart nfs-kernel-server
  • Export filesystems:
    $ sudo exportfs

Apache

I didn't originally document my Apache setup, but when wiping to install 14.04 I remedied this. The Apache configs (see repo), are the really important part here. Below is a section on each application that's running on/from Apache. I am using https with a permanent redirect from port 80 along with a self-signed certificate. Most of the sections below are password protected using mod_auth_digest. The appropriate digest file is created and managed with the htdigest tool. NOTE: make sure the password digest file (e.g. /home/dsorber/web_users) is owned by www-data:www-data and permissions are set to 600.

  • Install apache2 itself:
    $ sudo apt install apache2
  • Enable apache modules:
    $ sudo a2enmod ssl proxy proxy_http auth_digest
  • Copy backed up apache configs to their location:
    $ sudo cp apache_configs/* /etc/apache2/sites-available/
  • Setup SSL cert:
    cd /etc/apache2
sudo mkdir ssl
sudo cp phalanx.{crt,key} /etc/apache2/ssl
  • Turn on main site (also disable default apache2 site):
    $ sudo a2ensite main

Transmission

I use Transmission to download Linux .isos and give back to the community by sharing them using my own bandwidth. Transmission with its webui runs as a separate daemon so apache is configured to act as reverse proxy.

Transmission has its own configuration file: settings.json.

  • Install transmission daemon:
    $ sudo apt install transmission-daemon
  • Copy over configuration:
    $ sudo systemctl stop transmission-daemon.service
$ sudo cp settings.json /etc/transmission-daemon
$ sudo systemctl start transmission-daemon.service
  • Make sure the user digest file is in place (NOTE: be sure to change use directory permissions to 755 or Apache will not be able to read the web_users file):
    $ cd /home/dsorber
$ cp web_users .
$ cd /home
$ sudo chmod 755 dsorber
  • Enable site:
    $ sudo a2ensite transmission

Redmine + Git

Unfortunately Trac completely stagnated and never completed moving to Python 3. Therefore I switched to Redmine + Git which (at least as of now) is still maintained. Note the following uses PostgresQL for the backend database (which is also used for nextcloud).

  1. Install prereqs:
     $ sudo apt install apache2 pbzip2 zip unzip postgresql libpq-dev build-essential ruby ruby-dev
  2. Download Redmine:
    $ cd /srv/
$ sudo wget https://www.redmine.org/releases/redmine-5.0.1.tar.gz
$ sudo tar xf redmine-5.0.1.tar.gz
$ sudo mv redmine-5.0.1 redmine
$ sudo chown -R root:root redmine
  3. Setup postgres database for Redmine:
    $ sudo -u postgres psql postgres
> CREATE ROLE redmine LOGIN ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'password_goes_here' NOINHERIT VALID UNTIL 'infinity';
> CREATE DATABASE redmine WITH ENCODING='UTF8' OWNER=redmine;
Ctrl+D
  4. Create database config
    $ cd /srv/redmine/config
$ sudo cp database.yml.example database.yml
    • Edit database.yml:
      production:
  adapter: postgresql
  database: redmine
  host: localhost
  username: redmine
  password: "PASSWORD_GOES_HERE" 

# PostgreSQL configuration example
#production:
#  adapter: postgresql
#  database: redmine
#  host: localhost
#  username: postgres
#  password: "postgres" 

# SQLite3 configuration example
#production:
#  adapter: sqlite3
#  database: db/redmine.sqlite3

# SQL Server configuration example
#production:
#  adapter: sqlserver
#  database: redmine
#  host: localhost
#  username: jenkins
#  password: jenkins
  5. Install bundle and dependencies:
    $ sudo gem install bundler
$ cd /srv/redmine
$ sudo bundle config set --local without 'development test'
$ sudo bundle install
  6. Configure Redmine database:
    $ sudo rake generate_secret_token
$ sudo RAILS_ENV=production rake db:migrate
$ sudo RAILS_ENV=production rake redmine:load_default_data
  7. Configure permissions:
    $ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data files log tmp public/plugin_assets
$ sudo chmod -R 755 files log tmp public/plugin_assets
  8. Setup webserver:
    $ sudo chown www-data:www-data /srv/redmine/config/environment.rb
$ sudo ln -s /srv/redmine/public /var/www/redmine
  9. Install Passenger:
    $ sudo apt install libcurl4-openssl-dev libssl-dev apache2-dev libapr1-dev libaprutil1-dev zlib1g-dev
    • Create file Gemfile.local:
      gem 'passenger'
    • Continue with install:
      $ sudo bundle install
$ sudo passenger-install-apache2-module (follow instructions)
$ sudo vim /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.load
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LoadModule passenger_module /var/lib/gems/3.0.0/gems/passenger-6.0.14/buildout/apache2/mod_passenger.so
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$ sudo vim /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.conf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  <IfModule mod_passenger.c>
     PassengerRoot /var/lib/gems/3.0.0/gems/passenger-6.0.14
     PassengerDefaultRuby /usr/bin/ruby3.0
   </IfModule>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$ sudo a2enmod passenger
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
  10. Setup Apache config. Note the Redmine section is now included in main.conf and should be commented out until this step is reached.
  11. Install theme(s):
    $ cd /srv/redmine/public/themes
$ git clone https://github.com/koppen/redmine-pepper-theme.git
$ git clone https://github.com/makotokw/redmine-theme-gitmike

Redmine Backup

There are two items that need to be backed up, the database and any attached files:

  • Backup:
    $ /usr/bin/pg_dump -U redmine -h localhost -Fc --file=redmine.sqlc redmine

$ cd /srv/redmine/
$ tar cjf redmine_files.tar.bz2 files
  • Restore:
    $ pg_restore -U redmine -h localhost -d redmine redmine.sqlc

$ tar xf redmine_files.tar.bz2
$ sudo cp -r files/ /srv/redmine/files

Git Integration

  1. Install prereqs:
    $ sudo apt install libapache2-mod-perl2 libdbi-perl libdbd-pg-perl
  2. Configure:
    $ sudo ln -s /srv/redmine/extra/svn/Redmine.pm /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.34/Apache2/Redmine.pm
$ sudo a2enmod perl dav dav_fs
  3. Setup git repo. Note if using an existing repo then just copy it into path: /srv/git
    $ sudo mkdir -p /srv/git
$ cd /srv
$ sudo chown -R dsorber:dsorber git
(optional used to test below)
$ cd git 
$ mkdir test; cd test
 $ git init --bare
  4. Setup grack:
    $ cd /var/www
$ sudo git clone https://github.com/grackorg/grack.git
$ sudo vim grack/config.ru
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
require 'grack/app'
require 'grack/git_adapter'

config = {
  :root => '/srv/git',
  :allow_push => true,
  :allow_pull => true,
  :git_adapter_factory => ->{ Grack::GitAdapter.new }
}

run Grack::App.new(config)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data grack
$ cd /var/www/grack
$ sudo mkdir public
$ sudo mkdir tmp
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data .
$ sudo bundle install
  5. Configure apache. Note a separate Apache config git.conf exists for this step. Copy it into place and enable:
    $ sudo a2ensite git 
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2

Nextcloud

Nextcloud is a self-hosted "cloud". It allows easy file viewing and sharing as well as CardDav and CalDav servers:

  1. Install prereqs:
    $ sudo apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-php php-gd php-pgsql php-curl php-mbstring php-intl php-gmp php-bcmath php-xml php-imagick php-zip
  2. Download and move into place:
    $ wget https://download.nextcloud.com/server/releases/latest.tar.bz2
$ tar xf latest.tar.bz2
$ sudo mv nextcloud /var/www/nextcloud
$ cd /var/www
$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data nextcloud
  3. Config database (use postgresql; same as redmine):
    $ sudo -u postgres psql postgres
> CREATE ROLE nextcloud LOGIN ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'password_goes_here' NOINHERIT VALID UNTIL 'infinity';
> CREATE DATABASE nextcloud WITH ENCODING='UTF8' OWNER=nextcloud;
Ctrl+D
  4. Setup Apache config. Note the Redmine section is now included in main.conf and should be commented out until this step is reached.
    $ sudo a2enmod rewrite headers env dir mime
$ sudo vim /etc/apache2/envvars
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
## Uncomment the following line to use the system default locale instead:

. /etc/default/local here
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
  5. Complete configuration by navigating to https://phalanx.homelinuxserver.org/nextcloud in a web browser and following the instructions.

Other configuration

  • To setup local storage: go to Apps > Disabled Apps > External Storage (click Enable)
  • To setup pretty URLS: * https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/13/admin_manual/installation/source_installation.html#pretty-urls
    • Edit /var/www/nextcloud/config/config.php:
        'htaccess.RewriteBase' => '/nextcloud',
  'default_phone_region' => 'US',
  'maintenance_window_start' => 1,
    • Edit /etc/php/8.3/apache2/php.ini change line to:
      memory_limit = 1024M
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=64
opcache.revalidate_freq=60
    • Add missing indices:
      $ cd /var/www/nextcloud
$ sudo -u www-data php occ db:add-missing-indice
    • Restart apache:
      $ sudo systemctl restart apache2

Misc

  • Setup the display script: * Edit ~/.profile and add ./repo/software/misc/display.py
  • Setup checker script: * 
    $ sudo su
# crontab -e

    add this line:
    0 * * * *       /home/dsorber/repo/software/misc/checker.py
  • Install apt-cacher-ng:
    $ sudo apt install apt-cacher-ng
    * Edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/02proxy add: Acquire::http::Proxy "http://192.168.8.6:3142";

Sources

Updated by almost 2 years ago · 7 revisions