First Time Setup

[Peter847]

Need a little advice from the experts!

First let me explain the background. My WHS system just died so it's time to build a proper server. I already run an asterisk system on CentOS so I'm not really a newbie but neither am I an experienced user. I'm using an Acer Nettop machine with an extra hard disk. The installation went according to the instructions except I turned of the DHCP server and am letting my router assign the addresses for the time being.

My first issue is that my Windows machines could not "see" the shares. If I typed in the path I could access them but could not navigate to them. I reset eth0 to DHCP and set my router to assign the same IP address as used in static IP setup and also pointed the DNS requests to my router. This seems to have cured the issue but will I have screwed up something else?

Secondly I tried to install Webmin but Firefox just hung at "Installing Application". A manual install through a CLI told me it was already installed & a reboot allowed me to access it through a remote browser. But it still does not show up as "installed" in the apps list or as running in the servers list. What have I done wrong?

[bigfoot65]

There are tradeoffs or capabilities lost when you do not let the HDA manage DHCP.

https://www.amahi.org/faq#is-dhcp-server-required

Check the log when having app issues. It is located in /var/log and called amahi-app-installer.log.

Also check /var/hda/web-apps. If you see a webmin folder and it is not listed as installed in the dashboard, then remove it. Then you can try to reinstall.

Hope that helps.

[Peter847]

Many thanks for the advice, I'll re-install from scratch and leave DHCP enabled. I did delete the webmin folder in /var/hda/web-apps but the browser still hung when I tried to install webmin again, I'll try again after I've rebuilt the whole system.

If I am taking the plunge and switching off DHCP in my router that leads me to another question. My long term aim was to put my current router (AT&T Uverse) into bridge mode and use a Linksys box running DD-WRT between it and LAN. Is it feasible to use the Amahi box as a router - the key features I need are routing, firewall, QoS, and VPN termination?

[spline]

Hi Peter,

what do you need the server for?
Just for setting up Samba as an share for some stuff?
Sorry for saying this in this forum, but think about setting up a "normal" Linux box, install greyhole by hand and you're done.
No struggle with DNS and DHCP and YOU are the one who controls the system.

[Peter847]

Thanks for the advice . . . I may do that! I was running WHS but the hardware died and I wanted a quick replacement. I have other machines that use the shares for media streaming, backups, ftp etc and wanted a quick replacement. I may have to go for WHS 2011 just to get up and running quickly (sorry!) and then experiment with Linux/Amahi to get the right configuration of services.