New User to make a home server.

D

danaeckel

Greetings all,
I have decided to jump on the home server band wagon, and I have decided to use FreeBSD for this project. I have some experiance with an OS like this since I have used Fedora as a desktop OS for a number of years. However I am new to the home server field and looking for some general input.
I plan to set this up in a number of phases and here is the rout I plan to take

Phase #1- Firewall and Proxy
Phase #2- NAS/Media serving, and print server
Phase #3- Backup/Syncing syncing home folders to the server, and weekly backup to the USB HDD.
Phase #3- e-mail
Phase #4- VPN Tunnel

The hardware I plan to use is Athlon XP 2700 CPU, 3GB of ram, 200GB DMA 133 HDD w 8MB Cache, and 1TB USB HDD. So far my home network contains the following, WII, PS3, 2 MacBooks with 10.7 and Boot Camp into Win7, Desktop with Win 7, and two android phones, and a couple of printers.

All I am asking for is advice on how you would set something like this up, or just what software you could advise me to get. Thank you for any help you could provide me for this project. I would also like to know if it makes sense to run all these services on a single unit, or if they should be in Virtual machines. I mainly worry about if the Firewall should be on a seperate box.

Dana
 
2c, how I'd do it:

Phase1: ipfw (built-in) - squid if you need HTTP proxy
Phase2: samba, netatalk (so you can set up time machine on the macs)
Phase3: sendmail/postfix plus imapd
Phase4: tunnel from internet into home, or tunnel from home to somewhere else?

Putting the firewall on a different box would be a good idea, but if you don't have the hardware available that's a bit difficult.

You'll need a minimum of 2 NICs in the box for it to be a proper firewall (one to face the internet, one to face your LAN) - if your stuff isn't 100% needing to be ultra secure (i.e., its just home stuff and the firewall is mostly to keep malware off your home machines) a single machine can do it if you have an appropriate rule-set on the internet facing side.

If you're going to be using it for work though, and have stuff you don't want anyone to steal, a dedicated machine is a must-have.
 
Yeah it is home based. The main idea of this project is to learn about stuff like rule set for FW and stuff like that. I do have a 10/100 card that will bring the internet in, and a 1G on motherboard port for the network side. The VPN I was thinking along the lines of Open SSL, and that will connect the laptops when I am out and about.

Thank you for your advice!
Dana
 
Well, I should say I am proud of myself. I have FreeBSD 9.0 up and running. X11 is installed, got through that mouse detection problem ok, and on top of that is XFCE, and posting this post with Opera. All light weight. Now to get server services installed!
 
Well done, but did you put X11 on your server? You didn't mention this in your needs and I am a little curious about the purpose.
 
Well, I didn't list it, but needs are mainly for graphics on the internet, and the fact I have spent most of my life in a GUI world.
 
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