Apparently someone really doesn't want me to have a server! [Archive]

LeperousDust

03-07-2008, 00:00

After so much arsing around, i've cobbled together (yet another) working computer from two. I HATE changing motherboards with a passion. Especially when it involves taking everything else out :(

Franken-computer works fine, except battery has died in the mobo so i have to keep power flowing, not really a problem per se (BIOS default settings work anyway).

But when it comes to Windows Home Server (don't ask i've been down this road with DRZ, i'd love ubuntu, but its not doing what i need it to do on a few counts). The damned thing is blue screening after the loading bar of the ****ing boot installer! I'm burning off another copy as we speak, and downloading another off usenet (that'll be about 2 hours wait then on my connection ;D) to rule those out. Though i'd ask here at the same time though :). Any ideas/fixes? I'll go write down the error code if thats any help shortly (i was just annoyed and cba before...). Also for clarity i've only plugged the one hard drive i need in for the moment, so its pretty much a bare PC...

*Stomps feet* I just want a working print, media, backup server :angry:

Mark

03-07-2008, 00:07

Well, fixing the battery is usually no big deal. Couple of ££ will usually sort it (it's usually just a CR2032 or similar).

If the mobo is old enough for a dead battery, I'd scour it for things like blown capacitors or anything else that just doesn't look 'right'. Other than that, fetch that Ubuntu live CD you discarded and see if it boots. If not - could be mobo, PSU, RAM or CPU. Could give Memtest86 a go (also on the Ubuntu CD).

LeperousDust

03-07-2008, 00:21

I know the battery is easy, but i can't be bothered and i won't unplug the power now its in place, and the defaults work (although all the serial ports and onboard sound isn't disabled like i like it :))

AFAIK the mobo is fine (P4C800E) although i haven't checked it over too much (and theres too much in the way too see now. Never thought about trying the Live CD, i'll burn another off now :) Nice idea.

LeperousDust

03-07-2008, 01:28

Oh FFS, Well sorted the problems out, possibly memory, i was mixing 4 different brands at different speeds. Looks like i'm back to 512 for now, and i may have to splash out on some matched stuff cheap (bummer).

Major problem though, i have two 40Gb drives (one for root and one for a mirror of root when i was running ubuntu). Then four 400Gb drives for storage. WHS server decides it needs at least 65GB free space to install itself, surely thats a little steep. I'd rather not load it onto my 400Gb drives, but its looking like i've got no other way atm... Annoying really!

LeperousDust

03-07-2008, 02:58

Ok, so now it seems the DVD drive isn't recognised by the BIOS anymore, great. That and one of the hard drives is going dicky, but it has that many layers between it (hot swap caddy to IDE to SATA converter) i don't actually know whats wrong with that yet hoping its the converter. This is why i ****ing hate computers. Geez give me my laptop anyday, apart from it breaking (well kinda) recently it just bloody well works.

I have computer bits strewn everywhere as usual, and yet still frig all works, and i'll have to start taking things apart again tomorrow when i've just devoted best part of a day to this already! Jesus, not a happy bunny and i'm off to bed...

/Rant. ;D

LeperousDust

03-07-2008, 15:19

Something is playing up, I have a DVD drive which works master or slave, but the DVD writer i was using will only play nice as slave (which isn't a problem but puzzling). A previous drive went mad in that machine (wouldn't always close and accept a CD) so I'm starting to think the controller has gone mental. Good news is the hard drive that was playing up is thankfully fine and so is the caddy its just the converter, i don't really need it, SATA was space saving but not necessary.

This has been epic for no reason what-so-ever. But Windows Home Server is finally going on, whether it likes it or not (seems more likely from whats went on).

Mark

03-07-2008, 22:19

If you're getting drive failures you might be sufering some heat-related issues. With that many drives a little careful planning is needed to keep temperatures around the drives at realistic levels.

Also, the IDE/SATA converter might not be faulty - some BIOS versions just don't like them.

LeperousDust

03-07-2008, 23:28

The drives in question where in special hot swap caddies, each caddy had two fans, the case itself has four 120mm fans, and that's not including the piddly ones in the PSU too. Air supply is fine :D

The Converter that's playing up used to work but its a cheap Chinese copy i suspect since i ebayed it cheap...

Anyways, its botched together atm, one 400gb drive in a caddy connected by IDE Primary Master with the dodgy DVD writer as IDE Secondary Slave.

Had to install WHS twice since i screwed up the first time but i'm not sure if it was to do with (falsely :p) activating the updating, or the fast the automated installer didn't run and i didn't manually change a few settings (which i have done this time). I just haven't "hackactivated" it yet so we'll see.

Everything to do with the install now though is running smooth, i've not set backups yet but i'm interested in using it when i've got all my other drives up and running properly. Copying music over to the music share now getting a lowly 2MB/s which doesn't say much for the throughput of our wireless :D 8 Hours to go on the ~70GB copy.

I am wondering now though since i want to tinker and i can see this is essentially windows server 2003 neutered is how much still works, i'm thinking i may set up an FTP from it for my own personal use when i'm away from my flat back home (it would actually be amazing).

Also thinking of moving my downloads soley to the box, so can i still install uTorrent and Alt.Binz on there, as long as i open the firewall up etc...? Because i just use the webGUI and a shared folder for depositing NZB's and torrents for them to autoscan (seems a good idea).

I'm checking out possibilties now on google and differences between WHS and Server 2003 :)

Daz

04-07-2008, 09:53

It should have IIS for FTP, though there'll be better, easier to setup third party ones out there.

What it probably wont have (haven't checked but I'd be surprised) is Routing and Remote Access - for VPN's, which would have been a much better option if you want to get in remotely.

Other than that, it can still run win32 executables and still have largely the same kernel as Windows XP, so when it comes to third party apps you shouldn't really have any troubles.

LeperousDust

04-07-2008, 11:26

Well it doesn't have VPN AFAIK haven't looked around, but it does have some funky web access thing from Microsoft (although im not sure how clever it is using their pirated software and their free internet stuff from them at the same time just yet :D Seem pretty cheeky mind).
Found this (http://mswhs.com/2007/07/02/how-to-install-utorrent-on-windows-home-server/) on setting uTorrent up, so it seems you have to manually register a few things, not too sure why that is really, not sure how uTorrent normally works. I'm assuming WHS doesn't let much have access to anything hence the DIY approach?

When you say better FTP where they not all born equally? I only really want to be able to FTP a folder or two with a few permissions per file etc... IIS will do that right?

Daz

04-07-2008, 11:41

Yep, but it's not as simple as a third party product will likely be.

My main problem is it relies on Windows authentication - ie, the user accounts on the box. I dont like the idea of something being able to brute force Windows users accounts through an arbitrary service like FTP. Worse is that to work via FTP those accounts need 'Log on Locally' as a permission.

Bad medicine.

Burble

04-07-2008, 11:51

The FTP service in IIS is to be avoided. Personally I think IIS as a whole is a steaming pile of crap but that's another story.

There are plenty of decent third party FTP servers available if you insist on using FTP but you can also setup an SCP server to secure things a little bit. Then use WinSCP (or similar) to access the box.

LeperousDust

04-07-2008, 16:42

What third party FTP would you suggest, open to offers :)

Also what the fudge is SCP, never heard of it, but sounds like it could be to do with remotely admining my box (which would be nice :)). What would you suggest in that case? Oh i've just looked it up, Secure Copy i presume, sounds interesting, but probably not what i need really :)

Burble

04-07-2008, 17:13

ArGoSoft FTP Server (http://www.argosoft.com/RootPages/FtpServerNET/Default.aspx) is the one that I've used most.

SCP = Secure Copy Protocol, basically file transfer over SSH. If you're considering FTP then SCP is what you really need, think of it as FTP with encryption.

You'll either need to pay for or 'obtain' a license for any decent FTP server but OpenSSH (which you need for SCP) is free. For me it's an absolute no brainer - SCP all the way.

LeperousDust

06-07-2008, 09:27

Whats the differences between SCP SFTP FTP over SSL and god knows what else there is out there! :D? I'm having a play around with difference software to see which i like, but this is confusing me.

LeperousDust

06-07-2008, 16:17

Right got my FTP set up nicely it seems, using FTPS as opposed to SFTP, so slightly more overhead but for what I'm doing it doesn't matter :)

Next question, why do i need IIS hogging port 80? Will disabling break loads of other things i depend upon? Because personally I'd rather run Apache (i know this is why i should be using ubuntu :D but ubuntus server storage is still not as elegant/easy as WHS). I've got WAMP installed and stopped the IIS service and started Apache and everything is fine, so I'm assuming i can go without, I'll just lose out on Microsoft's special web gateway thingy (which i don't really care about too much) and probably media connect which is also irrelevant so far.

Or is there a way i can make them play nice together?

Burble

06-07-2008, 16:22

FTPS, SFTP and so on are pretty much variations on the theme. They are all slightly different but do the same thing ultimately. There are fors and againsts for all of them. My personal preference is SCP but if you've got FPTS up and running then jobs a goodun :)

As long as you're not using the inbuilt HTTP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP4 or NNTP stuff then you can disable IIS. Apache urinates all over IIS in my opinion. The only reason I have IIS loaded on two of my VM's (my email platform is a bunch of VM's on an ESX server) is that I'm running Exchange 2003 which relies on IIS for SMTP, NNTP, POP3 and IMAP4.

LeperousDust

06-07-2008, 16:36

Can't image why i will be using any of those services, it also disables media connect, but i can do without that too. Yay for WAMP! :) This is all coming together quite well for possibly the first time ever (tempting fate).

Now I've got Apache up and running i need to do a lot of playing because i want to be able to setup web access that requires used login and displays different root folders depending on who's logged on. I haven't even looked in to what i need to do here as of yet, but i assume its going to be a little technical from here on. Great... ;D :p

Burble

06-07-2008, 16:41

If you can have is to that different people go to a different URL, ie http://server/alex & http://server/anotherperson then it's a doddle. Have a look at .htaccess files. You can either have that as a file on the filesystem or have it in the Apache config.

LeperousDust

06-07-2008, 16:57

I see, makes sense, i still need some kind of password though on a per user basis. Theres probably something i can install that does this though, just need to find it :)

Burble

06-07-2008, 17:33

I should have explained the htacces stuff a bit better. You have a single file on the filesystem that contains usernames and associated (MD5'd) passwords. In either the Apache config or .htaccess files (if you went for the file route you'd have a .htaccess at the root of the structure that you wanted to be the 'home' directory for each user) you say what users are allowed to access that directory.

So you'd have a password on a per user basis as you wanted.

LeperousDust

06-07-2008, 18:07

Hmmmm i'm using WAMP Server 2.0, I've installed it but within that time i don't seem to be able to access their site, and i kinda need the documentation because I've no idea where all the key config files are kept, everything is running on default stuff atm so I've kept it offline. Can't even find .htaccess atm!

Daz

06-07-2008, 18:16

.htaccess wont exist, you create it in whatever directories you need it. You'll probably be looking for httpd.conf or apache2.conf :)

LeperousDust

06-07-2008, 18:47

Oh :o i see :o I'll have a play now :)

Burble

06-07-2008, 19:08

Yep, either shove a .htaccess file into the root of each 'home' directory or shove the htaccess straight into the Apache config.

Normally I'd say only use .htaccess files when you don't have access to the Apache config (ie, you're a not privileged user on a box).

LeperousDust

06-07-2008, 19:26

Right as usual this is starting to get way over my head and some documentation (well n00b tutorial), my phpmyadmin is telling me this Your configuration file contains settings (root with no password) that correspond to the default MySQL privileged account. Your MySQL server is running with this default, is open to intrusion, and you really should fix this security hole.

but i dont know what config file i need to look at!

Also burble when you say apache config file over htaccess how come and which apache config file, is that wampserver.conf in my case?

Burble

06-07-2008, 19:50

It's been ages since I've used PHPMyAdmin but I think the config file is called config.inc.php. What the warning is saying is that the root user in MySQL doesn't have a password so anyone on the box could login as root. You can fix that by doing:
mysqladmin -u root password newpassword

I've never used WAMP (I always do web serving from Linux boxes and I compile Apache, PHP & MySQL from scratch) but I would assume that there is still an apache2.conf file there.

The potential issue you have using the .htaccess files is that you can use those files to change the Apache config. Not a problem if you're the only person using the box but if it's a shared box then you could have other people putting config stuff in and causing you problems. There is also a slight performance hit since Apache will check every directory for a .htaccess file even if you don't use them. Now if you're not serving much then it isn't a problem.

Personally I'd shove all the authentication stuff into the main Apache config file (within <Directory> sections) and then set the AllowOverride directive in the main config file to 'none' so that any .htaccess files are ignored.

I always look at these sort of things with my work brain so have to seriously consider security and performance but if you're only serving stuff internally and you're the only user on the box then you could go with the .htaccess files instead and notice no differences.

LeperousDust

06-07-2008, 20:33

I will be serving stuff outside as well so security can't be ignored. I think i just need to do a LOT of reading :D :p Cheers Burble though :)

Burble

06-07-2008, 20:35

No probs :)

LeperousDust

06-07-2008, 22:24

Just out of interest is the wesite www.en.wampserver.com working for anyone? Since i downloaded the installer i keep timing out, i've flushed my DNS and tried Fx and IE to no avail, not quite sure what they're playing at...

Burble

06-07-2008, 22:28

Nope, it's dead Jim.

Mark

06-07-2008, 22:36

Looks like the web server is down/crashed. The server itself is alive. Might be some maintenance going on, perhaps.

LeperousDust

07-07-2008, 21:40

:( Well next problem, so i've got 7 hard drives and not enough standard on board controllers to cope (obviously). I've got a rocketraid 1540 and an on board promise RAID controller on the motherboard (Asus P4C800e). Which give me an extra 6 sata ports. After installing the driver (no the array software) for the 1540 windows is happy to see the card itself but refuses to play nice with the hard drives. Is this a windows server thing? I don't want to use the card as anything RAIDy at all, i just want it to interface with hard drives so windows can add them to its storage pool. Similar problem with the promise controller except i even found "official Win2003" drivers for this, but it "fails to start" according to device manager and i get a "some services cannot be started" error as well as a "windows recovered from a serious error". So something is not right here, but all i want to be able to do is "talk" to these drives, nothing fancy!

Mark

07-07-2008, 22:04

Device/IRQ conflict perhaps?

Or just hard disk overload. :p

Daz

07-07-2008, 22:23

Not familiar with the controller, but it might need some configging before it presents the disks - if that's the case you'd be looking for a JBOD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels#Concatenation_.28JBOD_or_SPAN .29) option :)

It's common thing with proper hardware RAID controllers anyway - they need to be told what to do with the disks, they wont assume that everything needs presenting (because that's not their common purpose).

Burble

07-07-2008, 22:35

I think Alex is wanted the controller to present the discs, rather than an array, to the OS, in which case I don't think a RAID controller is the way to go.

Daz

07-07-2008, 22:46

Would JBOD not do that then? Never used it myself, always assumed that was what it's for :D

LeperousDust

07-07-2008, 22:51

Yeah thats the idea Burble, Daz i haven't looked into it, but JBOD is still an array isn't it? I want to see 'x' hard drives instead of one logical one that is made up of 'x' physicals ones. I understand using a RAID controller probably isn't by the book. But its just a software RAID card, so essentially its a slightly more fancy I/O but thats it. In ubuntu the drives are detected and thats that. I'm thinking this might be a weird WHS thing, since i've read in a few places it really doesn't like nor want RAID (for obvious reasons to stop n00bs adding RAID to the storage pool).

Bloody problem after problem i tell thee!

Daz

07-07-2008, 22:53

If the Linux kernel is seeing the disks and Windows isn't then it's definitely something in the controller config - either they're configured in an array already (unlikely by the sounds of it), or if you cant see anything, then they need to be for the driver to show something to Windows.

Softraid cant fool the *nix kernel. Not unless you tell it to anyway.

Burble

07-07-2008, 22:54

JBOD = Just a Bunch of Discs. Basically take all the discs and present the sum of the volumes of them to the OS as a single volume. Fault tolerant is isn't!

I dunno if it's a WHS thing, I've never used it but I'd be looking to use a PCI SATA controller rather than a RAID controller since effectively you're wanting to RAID controller to do a job it wasn't designed for. I know software RAID controllers are just SATA controllers with software RAID, but the software is going to be there getting in the way.

Daz

07-07-2008, 22:58

JBOD = Just a Bunch of Discs. Basically take all the discs and present the sum of the volumes of them to the OS as a single volume.
See I didnt think it did that, I thought it just surfaced each disk in turn. And indeed, from the wiki:
JBOD stands for Just a Bunch of Disks. The controller treats each drive as a stand-alone disk, therefore each drive is an independent logical drive.

Wouldn't be the first bit of duff info on Wikipedia though!

LeperousDust

07-07-2008, 23:23

Oh, so it says that. Hmmm. well i'll look into it then, but this might mean installing the bloody RAID software for something thats essentially not friggin RAID :D Great. This is stupid, but they i'm working on a budget of free i supose i can't have everything.

Burble in a perfect world i'd be buying what i need but i'm clubbing old PC's together in the hope of getting a decent working one (again). :)

I think for now i'll give in, plug in the 5 biggest ones i can and when i get close to running out of room cross that hurdle (by probably buying a sensible card which i'll check is supported first :D). I may play around tomorrow but this is getting to be a farse when i would just like it to work :p

Mark

07-07-2008, 23:45

Burble is correct, and so is Wikipedia. JBOD = two disks in, two disks out. Basically it disables all the softRAID crap. Surprising how many people think JBOD concatenates the drives (including misinformed hardware manufacturers). The correct term for what you're thinking of is a Concatenated or Spanned array. :)

It should work, but I also agree you'd be better getting a SATA controller to do the job. Highpoint controllers are best avoided. The end.

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 01:20

Ok so the strangeness continues. Went to arse around installing their ruddy software after i'd shuffled drives around, and it turns out (wait for this) the high point card won't play nice with highpoint PATA to SATA converters ;D;D;D. Although i know they worked fine in Ubuntu, strange. So the native SATA drives are on the rocketraid working flawlessly, and the PATA converted ones are split onboard SATA and native PATA. That all sounds pretty confusing, and yeah it is, especially when you look at windows and wonder which one of the 4 seagates each one is after they been put through loads of different controller and converters :D Like fish in a barrel trying to work out which one isn't playing fair. I wish i could label them...

So i'm finally done it seems until the next thing goes wrong. I've got 2TB of pretty failure safe storage (yes its not the same as backups, and no **** off :p) to play with now (for everyone though so it shant last long). I've got my apache server working how i want but its proving more hassle for me right now serving my files online, i've stopped it for the time being pushed back to IIS and using the built in websharing thingywhatsit with windows for now, its pretty good really. And i've got an FTP as backup if i really need it.

Next on the list is getting uTorrent working how i wish (working in generally will be a good start though). Then giving everyone access to the webGUI this will stop raping of the connection and means i can be careful with our STMing. Torrent will be banned between STM hours from other IP's with layer7 filtering from the router.

Same goes for installing and policing Alt.Binz or Newsleecher (whichever has or has a better webGUI i haven't checked yet). Then i think i'm getting close to being sorted! Wow never thought i'd see the day. Already eyeing up more storage though, i've got room for another 3 hard drives 4 at a push, before i start replacing smaller with larger breathen, i'd say thats as future proof as my free project (thats taken probably over a year realistically and ended up with me back at windows) goes...

Cheer for the help and just genereally listening to me moan :) I'm sure i'm be back though trying to get uTorrent and a Usenet client playing fair.

Bedtiiiime.

Mark

08-07-2008, 01:27

Don't wish to be smug and say I told you so, but I told you so. :p

It's common knowledge that the converters (all of them, though in truth they're probably all rebadged Highpoint) don't play nice under certain conditions. You just found one.

Bedtime for me as well.

Chuckles

08-07-2008, 01:31

See I didnt think it did that, I thought it just surfaced each disk in turn.

Yeah I'm sure that's correct as well. I've set up a load of PowerVault 220S before and they just present to disks. It's the RAID controller you do all the config on.

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 01:53

I didn't need any JBODing anyway, when things played nice they were seen as just drives :) Unless it JBOD's as default? Unsure, anyway i don't care since it works :p

BTW if someone gets a chance tell me if my ftp works from outside for definate and point out any glaring security holes possibly?
IP: 80.195.254.32
Port 990
FTP over SSL(FTPS)
Username:boatdrinks
Password: welcomeaboard
The certificate thing is quite annoying, not sure how i'd fix that i'm assuming its because i've SSLed the connection though :)

Mark

08-07-2008, 01:54

starscream, vague post tbh. :p

Your post could mean either the right answer or the wrong one. :)

As for the FTPS, no dice. I poked it a few different ways and nothing worked.

Daz

08-07-2008, 10:08

It's not configured quite right Alex. I get a connection started (the cert errors because it's out of date, you need to generate a new one, or replace it as per your server's documentation), but it sends back a private IP for the client to talk to, which obviously I cant:

Status: Connecting to 80.195.254.32:990...
Status: Connection established, initializing TLS...
Status: Verifying certificate...
Status: TLS/SSL connection established, waiting for welcome message...
Response: 220 Welcome to WinFtp Server.
Command: USER boatdrinks
Response: 331 Password required for boatdrinks
Command: PASS *************
Response: 230 Logged on
Command: SYST
Response: 215 UNIX Type: L8
Command: FEAT
Response: 211-Extension supported
Response: CLNT
Response: AUTH SSL
Response: PBSZ
Response: PROT
Response: SIZE
Response: SITE PSWD;MSG
Response: 211 End
Command: PBSZ 0
Response: 200 Command ok. PBSZ=0.
Command: PROT P
Response: 200 Encrypting Data Channel.
Status: Connected
Status: Retrieving directory listing...
Command: PWD
Response: 257 "/" is current directory.
Command: TYPE I
Response: 200 Type set to I
Command: PASV
Response: 227 Entering Passive Mode (192,168,1,100,4,9)
Status: Server sent passive reply with unroutable address. Using server address instead.
Command: LIST
Error: Connection timed out
Error: Failed to retrieve directory listing

Incidentally I'd never even heard of FTPS until this. I initially thought you meant SFTP, and pointed a client there but got nothing, so looked it up. Learn something new every day!

Mark

08-07-2008, 10:15

So it still sends the password plaintext? Some security that is then. :shocked:

Daz

08-07-2008, 10:20

I hope it's presented like that for my benefit only!

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 10:36

Cool cool, i'll play, afaik its not plaintext, i've broken my ftp somehow. The setip is a bit weird though, it works as a normal app until i restart then its just a service and i cant confgure it becuase once the app is opened they clash with each other both trying to open separate FTP's. I'll have to look into this.. :)

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 10:49

w00t! Apparently, one of my hard drives has failed! ;D Well that wasn't long, but it can't be the hard drive, i just don't trust *any* of the controllers anymore, the hard drives are old (3-4 years) but their working life has been literally nothing.

I temped fate :(

//Edit:Oh it gets better, i restart it appears again and two others go missing (both on the same controller). Think I'll have to invest in some controller cards because as it stands on board and PCI are giving me grief.

Burble

08-07-2008, 11:02

So it still sends the password plaintext? Some security that is then. :shocked:

Plain text but the channel is already secured with SSL/TLS.

FTPS starts an unencrypted FTP session first and then secures it during the handshaking.

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 11:09

From what i've read everything within FTPS is secured which is a little over the top and wastes resources a little. Whereas SFTP is SSHed for authorisation only.

Anyway my FTP is a bug in the software (after all the different stuff i've tried!). Once running as a service it doesn't actually work properly, and you have to kill the service to open the app (nice going dev's) they openly admit its their fault and its been there since 2.2 (its not 2.3! not quite sure why they didnt look into it!). So as it stands theyve told me to add the exe to Run in local machine, but this still means i can't faff around in my remote desktop. Anyway thats probably the least of my worries :)

Mark

08-07-2008, 11:37

I seem to recall you've had the whole random disks appearing/disappearing thing before. Wasn't that the reason you ended up trying Ubuntu?

You're not going to like this, but it may be the mobo. I have a P4P800 and even with just the two onboard SATA ports used I have problems. Whenever I do a big file transfer on the SATA disks it kills my networking throughput. :/

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 12:03

Noooooooooo i've just changed the ****ing mobo :( Don't say that, it took forever removing everything to change it! :angry:

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 12:04

I just quoted myself which was smart.

I had the disapearing act before on one hard drive with ubuntu but it was the cheap ass converter from china that was playing around and it always has within windows too, everything else played nice (in ubuntu).

Big hmmmmm

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 15:34

Waheyage, this roller coaster of a server just took a turn for the better. I've been fiddling for hours now. I think i've managed to diagnose all the problems. :D (i've said this before a lot though i know).

It seems its down to
One power connector i was splitting off is possibly a little iffy.
SATA connectors are inherently **** whoever designed them should be shot.
PATA to SATA converters are temperamental with certain things (my rocketraid card).
The PATA connectors on the converters are actually a lot looser than "normal" PATA cables.
Probably something else i haven't found yet.

Anyway an accumulation of those problems was flagging up all sorts of different problems as different stages, i now think i've sorted them out, apart from the fact that the two hard drives that went missing to windows are now back i'm not sure if (after my jigging) i plugged them back in in the same ports, and they're identical drives so that could send the strange windows software raid loopy. Time will tell...

FTP is back up if someone could check that, and i think i've got uTorrent working as well as quick and dirty websites (photos albums etc...) if needed from my server. Things are on the up again chaps!

Mark

08-07-2008, 18:01

SATA connectors are inherently **** whoever designed them should be shot.
They know. Most recent connectors/cables lock into place to help prevent that. :)

Glad you're winning the war.

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 18:29

They know. Most recent connectors/cables lock into place to help prevent that. :)

Glad you're winning the war.

How did that ever get past QC in the first place? I mean they might as well be disposable connectors! I've seen some newwer ones (on WD drives not sure if its just for those alone though) that have an extra bit that should have always been part of the spec...

I'm also not winning the war, i've just narrowed it down to one drive, that works, occasionally, how can i check if its dieing? I'm almost certain it can't be. It has to be a controller problem, if were looking at ages the drive is never and much much much less used (if at all, some of these 4 haven't been touched) than the controller, i'm really at a loss.

Problems with this drive could be, power cable, serial cable, controller, converter, or the drive itself, not really sure how issolate these issues with what i have. At least i know something to do with this one is useless...

Its does seem like its always after the server has been left on for about 30 mins and had a bit of use, for isntance WHS keeps "balancing" data, or i'm thrashing them.

Mark

08-07-2008, 18:42

SpeedFan will read the SMART sensors, or download the manufacturer tools.

In either case it may have to be taken out of the RAID first.

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 19:22

These aren't on the RAID controller they're on a "normal" controller onboard. =/

Right i swapped cables again, and went for a little while then both disappeared this time istead of one. Both drives can't be failing ;)

Sooooo then, what PCI IDE controller make/models should i be looking at? Cheap as possible remember :) I really do give in this time! I want my storage and i can't be arsed playing stuipid games anymore.

Mark

08-07-2008, 19:31

Tried a new cable? :)

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 19:49

3 :D Well not new, but i have two spare and i've been swapping them about loads, its only these two (well it was one, now two i think) that are arsing around. I'm currently ruling out cables :p

Although as previously mentioned the SATA cables are **** of the highest order.

LeperousDust

08-07-2008, 23:21

Right well the last few hours thrashing and playing has prove the other two disks fine. It has to be the controller. Which is what i originally thought anyway. The power connector wasn't the best, but i didn't think it would be causing these problems when I'm not moving it.

Centralized my downloads:
SABnzbd is fantastic where headless usenet clients are concerned.
uTorrent is a given.
They're now drag & drop a torrent or nzb into a folder and come back later to find an unpacked pared result in another :D Both configurable over a webGUI.

FTPS has me sorted out now, although i have to manually start the program every time i reboot the machine not elegant, i'm just waiting for them to update their software, or when i can be arsed trawling through more software i can acquire that does the same thing but more competently.

Backups i haven't tried yet, can see why they should be a problem connected and the console are working fine.

Orb is my streaming media server, so we've now got all our films and tv shows and music (if we need it which we don't) on the tv through the wii's Opera browser on the fly trans-coded to pretty decent (for SD) quality flash. Although this is taxing my servers lack of ram (512mb :p as opposed to the 1.5Gb i had it didn't like about 70 posts ago, so maybe memory is on the cards too).

And web access for everything appropriately protected (i hope).

Very pleased apart from the two hard drives not playing game, but they should be up and running whenever i find myself some sort of decent and compatible IDE controler (no more playing around with converters, worst idea i ever had). Maybe a few more hard drives when needed just under 2Tb should do i reckon for now though :) 2Tb makes the geek inside of me happy :D

LeperousDust

09-07-2008, 14:56

W00t its held up overnight, the downloading is working better than i could have imagined (although I'm already looking at a new headless Usenet client - ninan).

I wouldn't mind a "static" IP, i know this is easy because people do it all the time, but how do i go about doing this for free, i don't really care what i have to type in (address or ip wise) i just want it to be consistent so i can bookmark things for external monitoring. Don't i play around with Dydns or something?

//Lost

Mark

09-07-2008, 15:47

You can't get a static IP on VM (at least not on the residential side).

You can of course use dyndns.org to put a name to your dynamic IP. You'll need either a router that supports it or the software they supply.

LeperousDust

09-07-2008, 15:56

Coolio my router support it because ive seen it in its settings :D Thats essentially what i want to do :) Going to play around at dydns, although i had a look and its confused the hell out of me last time...

Daz

09-07-2008, 16:08

I use a combination of dyndns and another alias on dwuk so I can find my way home. BT dont do static either :)

LeperousDust

09-07-2008, 16:24

Actually that was really simple, and instantaenous to update, im impressed! :D

Wow this is really coming together, i'm happy happy happy!

LeperousDust

10-07-2008, 14:08

Hmmmmm :D Get ready!

Now i've set it where its meant to be headless, it turned itself off overnight, and once just before. But turns back on fine and is ready to work again, so not sure whats happening there, could be some sort of overheating but i severely doubt this (i'm way over the top on fans and precautions).

I set up event logging and was emailed these (which mean nothing to me).

Source: TermServDevices
TimeGenerated: 10/07/2008 11:52:31
InstanceId: 1111
Catagory: (0)
CatagoryNumber: 0
EntryType: Error
Message: Driver Microsoft Office Document Image Writer Driver required for printer Microsoft Office Document Image Writer is unknown. Contact the administrator to install the driver before you log in again.
----

Source: TermServDevices
TimeGenerated: 10/07/2008 11:52:32
InstanceId: 1111
Catagory: (0)
CatagoryNumber: 0
EntryType: Error
Message: Driver Microsoft XPS Document Writer required for printer Microsoft XPS Document Writer is unknown. Contact the administrator to install the driver before you log in again.
----

Source: BROWSER
TimeGenerated: 10/07/2008 11:52:52
InstanceId: 3221233504
Catagory: (0)
CatagoryNumber: 0
EntryType: Error
Message: The browser service has failed to retrieve the backup list too many times on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{1E1CF066-79D9-4017-B98C-AC3D5CC4E75D}.
The backup browser is stopping.
----

Source: SBCore
TimeGenerated: 10/07/2008 12:30:37
InstanceId: 3221226485
Catagory: (0)
CatagoryNumber: 0
EntryType: Error
Message: The description for Event ID '-1073740811' in Source 'SBCore' cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display the message, or you may not have permission to access them. The following information is part of the event:'0'
----

Source: SBCore
TimeGenerated: 10/07/2008 12:30:37
InstanceId: 3221226486
Catagory: (0)
CatagoryNumber: 0
EntryType: Error
Message: The description for Event ID '-1073740810' in Source 'SBCore' cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display the message, or you may not have permission to access them. The following information is part of the event:'60'
----

Source: Windows Search Service
TimeGenerated: 10/07/2008 11:50:15
InstanceId: 3221228574
Catagory: Gatherer
CatagoryNumber: 3
EntryType: Error
Occurances during aggregation period: 1
Message: The per-user filter pool for session 0 could not be added <1245,0>.

Details:
The operation being requested was not performed because the user has not logged on to the network. The specified service does not exist. (0x800704dd)

----

Source: HomeServer
TimeGenerated: 10/07/2008 11:51:49
InstanceId: 3489595664
Catagory: Backup
CatagoryNumber: 1
EntryType: Error
Occurances during aggregation period: 10
Message: Unexpected error 0x6 from CreateFile on D:\folders\{00008086-058D-4C89-AB57-A7F909A47AB4}\Commit.dat: The handle is invalid.
----

SBcore is a prolific offender had that before. The backup service can't start on the server either (home server connecter thing keeps telling me). Whats broken now? That didn't last particulary long :p :D

Daz

10-07-2008, 14:25

Turned itself off as in blue screened? If so fetch me the crash dumps (Windows\Minidump) and I'll tell you what threw the wobbly.

SBCore is an SBS service iirc, so it should have the info for legitimate event ID's. It isn't happy about something, though I wouldn't be too worried about it. I know event 1001 is the dodgy one, 'this system has been shut down because it doesn't comply with the eula' or something like that.

The rest are all rubbish really. A 'handle is invalid' error on the end is interest, but just points to disk/file system oddness, and that's gonna be difficult to tie down in your current setup!

LeperousDust

10-07-2008, 15:48

I can only assume it blue screened yeah, running headless now. I think some of those weird disk things are due to the windows disk abstraction layer thing jigging stuff about.

My backup service won't start annoying, and when i manually try to start it, it turns itself off immediately. I'll root around for crash dumps later for dissection, i know you're good at that Daz :). Although right now i'm getting ready for T in the Park :D Better things to do i'm afraid! ;D

Hmm whilst writing this it just went down again, bah i'll grab the crash log now (assuming it BSOD'ed).

LeperousDust

10-07-2008, 16:02

Threw it on dropio: http://drop.io/minidump

I probably should be able to host my own files now from a public folder i set up, but havean't really looked into that yet, would be helpful i guess...

Daz

10-07-2008, 17:01

Textbook dodgy hardware I'm afraid. Normally RAM but in your system who knows!

Looking at another one would be useful if it happens again :)

LeperousDust

10-07-2008, 20:11

Looking at that minidump though, that didn't happen today, it was last modified on the 7th =/ So maybe it wasn't a bluescreen? Or does the minidump not set file attributes?

My RAM was cauing me issues though, as well as everything else i guess as you so rightly point out :p

Burble

10-07-2008, 20:23

If you're not getting minidumps then it has to be hardware. The datestamp should always be updated when a minidump is created.

LeperousDust

10-07-2008, 21:03

Righty, this really is a strange problem now then, because i can't imagine what would be going so wrong hardware wise to just completely dump the system without even bluescreening =/ Is their a way you can tell if a shutdown command has been issued anywhere? The bloody things turned itself off again... Could it be windows updates (although they restart automatically really don't they)?

Arg! :angry:

Burble

10-07-2008, 21:05

It's entirely possible for something to be broken enough for Windows to not have a chance to BSOD. Buggered RAM and motherboards (sorry) are common causes for it.

I've actually got a shiny new server in the office in Milan that does what your seems to be doing and it's supposed to be having a new motherboard, CPU, RAID controller and RAM installed in the next hour or so.

LeperousDust

10-07-2008, 21:09

Crap, well i have yet another spare motherboard on standby, i guess i'll give it a try when i can be arsed. RAM is cheap too and it does need more. Although thinking about it, i have other ram to try first, so i'll swap that out and see what happens. Unbelievable though...

Mark

10-07-2008, 22:10

The P4P/P4C boards are getting on a bit now (5+ years IIRC). I'm surprised mine hasn't given up yet. Probably tempting fate by saying this (though I've been planning to replace it with a quad-core system for at least the last year).

My previous P4 board in this system did exactly what you're getting. That was thanks to cooked capacitors.

If you're running headless, watch out for the dreaded 2AM Windows Update reboots too.

LeperousDust

04-08-2008, 00:47

WOOT! I think everything seems to be working now, apart from the fact my controller card hasn't arrived just yet. That's just a plug and play thing though surely.

Whats funny is how much I'm tempting fate by posting this, but i might as well do it now hey?

I do need more RAM though it doesn't enjoy just having 512mb really, but it'll do. Still needs a new battery but i don't plan to unplug it at all, and BIOS defaults work anyway :p.

I just need to write some little robocopy scripts to make sure some stuff is backup up separately, because no matter how much i trust the WHS drive extender, its pretty proprietary, and when it does go tits up getting data back could be "interesting".

Happy happy, at last. I've got a spare identical mobo incase something goes wrong, and a spare idential CPU and possibly some spare RAM to tide me over, come fate DO YOUR BEST!

//Bang.