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I always like having the latest versions of software, with the release of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) on October 29th I wanted to perform an update on my home server to test the new features.  Additional information regarding Ubuntu Server can be found at www.ubunutu.com and a list of new features in version 9.10 can be located here.

As with any update you should always backup your important information and make sure that your existing software has all updates.  My information is stored on the server and an external hard drive so I am already backed up.  The next thing I needed to do is open a command prompt on my desktop that is connected to the server.  This can be done from a Linux Desktop, but my normal choice is to use Putty from my Vista Desktop, see my post on Creating a Home Server with Ubuntu Server if you need more information regarding this.

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I often see PC articles talking about the importance of backing up your information and hard drive.  I have accumulated quite a bit of information and made sure to store important information in more than once location with the addition of an external hard drive.  About a year ago, I began using the Windows backup system on my Vista PC, but I didn’t know how I would remember all of the programs that I have added over the years if I lost my hard drive.

I have seen articles about creating a backup image of the hard drive to accomplish this, but many of the programs were expensive and not worth it considering that most of my software is freeware, the only cost if I had to reinstall would be the time and effort in locating all of the programs.

Recently I cam across an article in PC World that included reference to Macrium Reflect Free editon.  They offer a paid version, but the only features missing from the free version are file backup and password protection.  I will continue using the Windows file backup on a regular basis and I am not concerned with the password protection on my home network.

Now that I have my network set up with Ubuntu Server, it is easy create the backup and save it directly to the server for storage outside my PC without having to burn DVD’s.

The entire process was easy and only took the PC about an hour and a half to save the image.  I was able to download the sofware easily by going to the page on PC World. Once installed, you will see a list of the available partitions.

1. Click Backup –> Create Image from the menu and a wizard will open to help with the setup.
2. Select the Partition that you wish to backup.
3. Choose a location, I located the folder on my network but you can also choose a folder on the hard drive or a DVD.
4. There are additional options for adjusting the compression and other properties, I left the default options.
5. Click finish and let the program do its job.

You can continue to work on the PC, but it may cause your other programs to run a little slow, I left it alone for most of the time but did check some e-mails during the process.  After the process was complete, I chose to schedule monthly backups.  You can choose more frequent options but I felt that one month intervals would be frequent enough for my needs.

One other thing that you will want to do is create a rescue CD in the event that your PC will not boot at all.  There was a pop up informing me of this, but you can also choose Other Tasks on the left side of the page and follow the wizard to create the rescue CD.

I am fortunate to have never experienced an total loss of a hard drive, but I am much more comfortable now knowing that if I do I can get all of my programs and information back.  Overall the process was quite painless and I would have done it sooner if I knew how easy it was.

Now that I had my network set up and added uShare to be able to stream to my xbox 360, I needed to add some more storage.  I had a Western Digital MyBook Essential connected to my Vista PC that I thought would be more useful as part of the network.

I started by plugging the USB into the server and plugging in the electric cord.  Since the server does not automount I started by installing usbmount to install.

sudo apt-get install usbmount

Next I wanted to find out the location of the device so I opened up a terminal using Putty in Vista.  By typing dmesg at the command line you can verify that the device was plugged in.  You will want to look for the device name, mine was “sdf1” as shown on the line with “sdf:sdf1”.

From my previous posts, you know that I am not a command line expert so I will do the rest of the setup using Webmin which I explained how to install in my previous post (click here to see the full post where I explained how to install Webmin.)

The first thing to do is mount the hard drive.  After you login to Webmin go to:

System –> Disk and Network Filesystems

1. Select the type of filesystem from the dropdown list (I am using NTFS), and select add mount.
2. Click the options for “Mounted As” and decide where you want to mount the drive.  I chose “mnt” since I was already using media for my internal hard drive.
3. Make sure the options for Save and mount at boot and mount now are selected.
4. Click the box next to other device and locate your device, it should be under dev and then look for the name you located using the command line, mine was sdf1.
5. Make sure that the mount options below are the way that you want them.
6. Click create.

You should now see the external drive listed in your Disk and Network Filesystems list.

If you are using Vista PC’s on your network like I am, the next step is to set up Samba file sharing so the Windows PC’s can see it.  Still in Webmin, go to:

Servers –> Samba Windows Filesharing

1. At the top, select Create a new fileshare.
2. Select the name that you want for the folder, I chose WD External to be able to identify it.
3. I changed permissions to 777 to allow read/write access.
4. Click Create.
5. If you don’t want to have to login to access the drive, click on the newly created drive.
6. Select Security and Access Control
7. Change Guest Access to yes, and change any other options if you wish.
8. Click Save.

At this point all Windows PC’s on the network should be able to see the new folder and you will have access to the additional storage.

In my last post I installed Ubuntu Server and set up file sharing using Webmin and Samba so that my Windows computers could see the folders.  In this post I will discuss how to install Ushare to the server so that the files will be shared with the xbox 360.

It took me a few days and some trial and error to find a program that I was happy with.  The first thing that I tried was TwonkyMedia.  The install was fairly easy and I liked the program, but it is only a 30 day trial, then I would have to pay $39.95.  One of the reasons I am using Linux is to be able to use free open source software so I needed to find a better long term solution.

I was putting off looking when I got a twitter update about an article for “How to turn a spare Linux machine into a media server.” This solution used MediaTomb and was easier to install than TwonkyMedia, just a quick apt-get install MediaTomb and I was able to use the web browser to add files.  The problem with this is that my Xbox 360 would not see it.  After a few google searches I discovered that MediaTomb works for PS3 but not for Xbox 360.

A few more google searches and I came across uShare which ended up meeting my needs.  The first thing I did was open up Putty from my Vista machine to log into my server and get the command prompt.

First we need to install Ushare

sudo apt-get install ushare

Next you need to edit the configure file and set it to work with the xbox 360.

sudo pico /etc/ushare.conf

The file is pretty self explanatory, the main thing you need to do is enable xbox sharing.  You can also enable web sharing which will allow you to add share files later, since all of my shares are in the /media folder I added that here.

Here is an example of my config file:

# uShare UPnP Friendly Name (default is ‘uShare’).
USHARE_NAME=uShare

# Interface to listen to (default is eth0).
# Ex : USHARE_IFACE=eth1
USHARE_IFACE=eth0

# Port to listen to (default is random from IANA Dynamic Ports range)
# Ex : USHARE_PORT=49200
USHARE_PORT=49200

# Port to listen for Telnet connections
# Ex : USHARE_TELNET_PORT=1337
USHARE_TELNET_PORT=1337

# Directories to be shared (space or CSV list).
# Ex: USHARE_DIR=/dir1,/dir2
USHARE_DIR=/media

# Use to override what happens when iconv fails to parse a file name.
# The default uShare behaviour is to not add the entry in the media list
# This option overrides that behaviour and adds the non-iconv’ed string into
# the media list, with the assumption that the renderer will be able to
# handle it. Devices like Noxon 2 have no problem with strings being passed
# as is. (Umlauts for all!)
#
# Options are TRUE/YES/1 for override and anything else for default behaviour
USHARE_OVERRIDE_ICONV_ERR=yes

# Enable Web interface (yes/no)
ENABLE_WEB=yes

# Enable Telnet control interface (yes/no)
ENABLE_TELNET=no

# Use XboX 360 compatibility mode (yes/no)
ENABLE_XBOX=yes

# Use DLNA profile (yes/no)
# This is needed for PlayStation3 to work (among other devices)
ENABLE_DLNA=yes

One you’ve made the changes, you can use Ctrl –X and say yes to save the file.

Now you need to start uShare:

sudo /etc/init.d/ushare start

You should see an output similar to this:

* Starting uShare UPnP A/V & DLNA Media Server: ushare

You need to edit one more file for the xbox to see uShare.

sudo pico /etc/init.d/ushare

Find the following lines:

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --oknodo \
--make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE \
--exec $DAEMON -- $USHARE_OPTIONS

And add the -–xbox as seen below:

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --oknodo \
--make-pidfile --pidfile $PIDFILE \
--exec $DAEMON -- $USHARE_OPTIONS –xbox

Now restart uShare:

sudo /etc/init.d/ushare stop
sudo /etc/init.d/ushare start

Now you can go to the web interface to add additional share folders and refresh the shares, go to:

http://yourserveripaddress:49153/web/ushare.html

Add any shares that you want to add and click the “Refresh Shares” button.

Now you can start up the xbox and go to the Video, Music, or Photos section and you should see uShare or whatever you named you USHARE_Name

I just moved a few files into the folders from my Vista machine to make sure that it works.  I am planning on cleaning up my music files on multiple computers and folders and will then drag and drop them into the share folders on the network so they will all be in one place.