Why?
Quickly turn an older machine into a modern Fedora Core 12 file server compatible with linux and windows clients. Less software installed means less setup, less maintenance, less updates, and less chance of human error somewhere along the way. The theory here is, the system starts out relatively secure and (if kept up-to-date) should remains so over time.

Side Note:
There are definitely many other ways to go about setting up a Samba server, much of which depends on your networking environment and overall requirements / constraints. This article is meant more as a guide – my notes which describe the method i happen to use – so that if i have to, i can do it all again.

Assumptions:
- Comfortable with install and use of Fedora Core Linux OS (command line)
- Basic understanding of networking concepts (setting up a static IP)
- Some experience with editing the smb.conf file

Features:
- No GUI / Desktop Environment
- Low RAM usage: boots up @ ~80MB with smbd and nmbd running
- SELinux and iptables firewall enabled / configured for use with Samba
- Samba Security level = User

System Resources:
CPU: AMD @ 700MHz
RAM: 192MB

Steps Involved:

1. Download and burn the Fedora-12-i386-DVD.iso file to dvd
2. Boot from the disc and go through install process (with less that 200MB RAM it defaults to text mode install – you can also force a text mode install at the boot: prompt by typing: linux text)
3. Once install is completed and system is rebooted, login as root
4. Check that networking is up
   - type:

   ifconfig

   (see if you have an IP address)
   - type:

   dhclient eth0

   (to use dhcp for now)

5. Bring the system up to date
   - type:

   yum check-update

   (to check for updates first)
   - type:

   yum update

   (say “yes” to install the updates)

- type:

yum list installed

(to see a list of all installed packages)

6. Check to see what package “groups” got installed by default
   - type:

   yum grouplist > grouplist.txt

   - type:

   cat grouplist.txt | more

7. Remove any unwanted package groups
   - type:

   yum groupremove "Mail Server"

8. Add the Samba package group
   - type:

   yum groupinstall "Windows File Server"

9. Configure Samba by editing /etc/samba/smb.conf
   - Note, for Vista support (in the Global section) add:

   client NTLMv2 auth = yes

   - Note, to hide unreadable files like /lost+found/ (in the Global section) add:

   hide unreadable = yes

   - type:

   testparm

   (confirm output has no errors in it)

10. Deal with SELinux security policies (see default smb.conf file for details)
    - type:

    setsebool -P samba_domain_controller on

    - type:

    setsebool -P samba_enable_home_dirs on

    - type:

    chcon -t samba_share_t /path-to-mounted-directories

    (remember to mount any/all directories first)
    - type:

    ls -ldZ /path-to-mounted-directories

    (to confirm it worked)
    - Note, for existing shares, to make sure this affects all files and folders recursively add:

    chcon -R -t samba_share_t /path-to-existing-mounted-directories

    - Note: to completely disable SELinux protection for smbd daemon (not recommended) type:

    setsebool -P smbd_disable_trans 1

    - Note: you can temporarily disable SELinux by putting it into permissive mode – type:

    getenforce

    to find out whether SELinux is in permissive [0], enforcing [1], or disabled [2] mode.
    - Note: to put SELinux into permissive mode (for testing purposes but not recommended) type:

    setenforce 0

11. Add samba users
    - type:

    useradd john

    - type:

    smbpasswd -a john

12. Configure the firewall to accept samba connections
    - type:

    system-config-firewall-tui

    (add an asterix next to the line: “Samba”)

13. Configure the network to use static IP/netmask/gateway/DNS info
    - type:

    system-config-network-tui

    - select: [Edit a Device Params] and remove the asterix from the line: “Use DHCP”. then, and add static info

14. Configure the network to use a static Hostname and DNS address (note: DNS settings may not be required)
    - type:

    system-config-network-tui

    - select: [Edit DNS configuration] then, and add static hostname and dns info

15. Get the network, smb, and nmb to start automatically next time you reboot
    - type:

    chkconfig --level 3 network on

    - type:

    chkconfig --level 3 smb on

    - type:

    chkconfig --level 3 nmb on

    - type:

    chkconfig --list network

    (or smb, or nmb to confirm it worked. you can also leave out the servicename to see a list of all services)

Reboot.
Use another computer to check that everything went well.

Optionally:
1. Install NTFS support.
- type:

yum install ntfs-3g

2. Once it’s done downloading/installing, figure out which device it is (for me it was /dev/sde1) and mount it.
- type:

mount -t ntfs /dev/[your-usb-device] /media/

3. Deal with selinux and ntfs support
- type:

setsebool -P samba_share_fusefs 1

Well, they noticed my review, and i’m not sure if it was just a coincidence, but the next time i logged into their system – there were even more new features available to me.

For one thing, it looks like the number of protocols that Mon.itor.us can test has almost doubled.

You can now monitor the following 11 internet protocols:

http, ping, https, ftp, pop, smtp, dns, tcp, udp, imap, and sip (for VoIP).

I just wish they would add a way to monitor mysql servers. Not exactly sure how that would be done, but for now i suppose i can just try monitoring the URL (http) of the phpMyAdmin page for my database server. If that page doesn’t respond – but the URL for the webserver does – it’s like my database server is down.

The other thing i noticed was the addition of 3 new icons on the “Test” module that make it easier to switch between real-time table, bar chart, and line chart views. [ more screenshots ]

Now, if only Mon.itor.us would remember the view i was on the last time i logged in – i’d be set. See, the problem is, once i actually went ahead and setup a bunch of servers to monitor, i also decided to take the time to manually switch each “Test” module from table view to line view. i prefer the line view but then if i leave the Mon.itor.us site, the next time i come back and log in, all my views have been reset to table view again. Very frustrating. I wish it would just stay on line view.

Fortunately, the “Snapshot” module is always a quick way to see the status of all your servers – so that can definitely save you some time. But, in my opinion, the best way to see how your servers have been performing throughout the day, is to use the line view. i’m not exactly sure how hard it would be to impliment this kind of memory feature, but i think it might be worth considering. At the very least, offer a global “default” view in my settings, where i can choose between table, bar, or line view as my preference.

Another fix they seemed to have implimented solves the problem of “constant page refreshes” – something else that i had mentioned in my earlier review of Mon.itor.us – which was a real problem for me if you’re using Firefox and have a billion tabs open with one tab that just won stop refreshing. Now i can leave the tab open all day with no apparent performance issues.

The last thing i’d like to see from Mon.itor.us would be a way to make the google gadget (or rather the javascript used to put this gadget on any webpage) publicly viewable. That is, once i put the code on my website, i noticed that i had to be logged in to see the “Snapshot”. Meaning, nobody else could see the little green “online” lights but me. It would be a lot more useful to me to be able to show my clients (or anyone) that all my servers are online. It’s not exactly sensitive information (anyone could just ping the server to see if it’s online) and making this widget “publicly viewable” would likely make it more attractive to other webmasters, since it becomes a useful tool to share with all viewers, not just 1 person (yourself).

Anyway, i really like this service and i’m sure they’ll find a ton of ways to refine and expand it’s capabilities. I did happen to notice that there is a “Click to Start” button on the top-righthand side of the homepage, that if you click on it, remembers you from the last time you were logged in. This was something that i must have missed when i wrote my original review because i kept having to log in over and over again (every time i came back to the site). i’m going to go back and update that section on my ealier post as soon as i get a chance. i’ll definitely be using this service regularly from now on.

Both of these services still have their quirks, but such is the case with most things in life (and on the web) that are free. Still, i have been using them both for a few days now and together they have already proved to be quite useful. Here’s why..

I’ll start with Montastic, since it’s key feature is simplicity and ease of use.

1. after signup, you just need to click on the link that says: “Add a Web Server to Monitor”
2. then enter a URL to begin monitoring that web server (it takes a few seconds to start working)
3. a green “computer icon” means your server is online (red means offline)
4. optionally, set a “name” for this URL to make it easier for you to identify

that’s it. everything has a nice, clean ajaxy feel. the site is fast and relatively easy to navigate.
you can also get some extra details, like “last monitored” and “status change” by clicking on the “info” link next to the icon for the server you’re monitoring.

both of these services have an email notification system. but, so far, my experience has been that only this one (montastic) actually works. a recent server outage (not this site) proved that for me today. Both of these services also offer alerts in the form of feeds that seemed to work fine.

3 features that make this service unique:

1. they offer a yahoo widget that reports the status of your servers in real-time, right on your desktop
2. the offer a netvibes module which is slick as a brick (it’s not too pretty by it works great)
3. they offer: “the green page” (you’re totally going to have to see this page for yourself to understand)

On to Mon.itor.us – which is a slightly more complex service, allowing for a flood of potential awesomeness and quite a few annoyances as well. Basically, my biggest problem with this service so far is: “It’s Flaky”. By that, i mean, it’s plagued with all the same bugs and buggers that PageFlakes has, even burdoned by the same ajax desktop interface – it seems. Without going into too much detail (ie: constant page refreshes and a login that will never remember you), this would be another example of one of the reasons that i have been a strong supporter of Netvibes for so long.

That being said, Mon.itor.us has a lot of already working features that come packed in with it’s service.

From their site (and because i’m sometimes lazy), here are the ones that stood out the most for me:

• Site performance archive
• Inline site previews
• Personalized pages and tabbed views
• Drag and drop interactive interface
• Todo tasks with notification and ability to add notes
• Support these protocols for testing: http, https, ftp, smtp, pop3, and ping.
• Daily/weekly/monthly uptime reports and statistics

And in case that wasn’t enough for you.. here’s a few more things that i noticed mon.itor.us can do that wasn’t already mentioned in the previous list. These are the real clinchers for me.

6 more features that make this service unique:

1. there’s a cool Google Gadget for this service out there somewhere
2. you can tag each URL / server you are monitoring and then organize / view them by groups
3. you can switch between real-time table, bar chart, and line chart views.
4. view stats for each protocol, snapshots of all your servers
5. view from three seperate geographical locations (US, DE, AT)
6. there’s some javascript code that goes along with the google gadget that will let you put your “snapshot” on virtually any web page

All in all, i would say that it’s a little harder to setup each URL with mon.itor.us, when compared to montastic. But once you get all your servers setup for monitoring, there’s a lot more you can do with them too.

Still, as i mentioned earlier, i was quite pleased with both of these services and will continue to test each one more thoroughly in the coming months.