Home Server Notes Revision as of Saturday, 7 January 2023 at 08:20 UTC

Migrated from FreeBSD v11 to Ubuntu Server 22.04. These are some notes from my migration.

Hardware

Read the Community Hardware Guide to pick my components this time. Cheap shit causes headaches and I expect this build to last me a while.

Ran smartctl short, conveyance, and long test with an ArchLinux ISO. Two more resources on drive testing. Ran about 10 rounds of memtest86 on the memory.

Backups

Made sure to do this to two external, encrypted drives. All datasets and snapshots.

Image

Got it from here. Verified via:

echo "10f19c5b2b8d6db711582e0e27f5116296c34fe4b313ba45f9b201a5007056cb *ubuntu-22.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso" | shasum -a 256 --check

Formatted FAT with GUID Partition Table in Disk Utility on macOS. Then used BalenaEtcher (brew install --cask balenaetcher) to transfer the image.

Post Install

Basic Stuff

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

sudo apt install \
    zfsutils-linux \
    docker-ce \
    docker-ce-cli \
    containerd.io \
    docker-compose-plugin \
    yadm \
    ntp \
    awscli \
    silversearcher-ag \
    ncdu \
    tree

# This is annoying
sudo apt remove command-not-found

# Install SSHD and change the default port
sudo apt install openssh-server

# Will install the NTP service and enable it as well.
apt install ntp

Disable Swap

The installer created an 8GB swapfile for some reason…

# Check if enabled
sudo swapon --show

# Disable if so
sudo swapoff -a

# Now edit /etc/fstab to remove swap

Firewall

Used ufw that shipped with Ubuntu. It does the trick.

Login Logo


  ____  _____            _   _  _____ ______  _____ ______ _______      ________ _____
 / __ \|  __ \     /\   | \ | |/ ____|  ____|/ ____|  ____|  __ \ \    / /  ____|  __ \
| |  | | |__) |   /  \  |  \| | |  __| |__  | (___ | |__  | |__) \ \  / /| |__  | |__) |
| |  | |  _  /   / /\ \ | . ` | | |_ |  __|  \___ \|  __| |  _  / \ \/ / |  __| |  _  /
| |__| | | \ \  / ____ \| |\  | |__| | |____ ____) | |____| | \ \  \  /  | |____| | \ \
 \____/|_|  \_\/_/    \_\_| \_|\_____|______|_____/|______|_|  \_\  \/   |______|_|  \_\

Updated this in /etc/update-motd.d

Set hostname

Screwed this up during installation.

hostnamectl set-hostname newNameHere

# Now edit this
vim /etc/hosts

Netplan

System would hang on this for a while:

[** ] A start job is running for Wait for Network to be Configured (XX / no limit)

This is because of something called netplan. Saw the config in /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml, noted that I was not using eno2 (using ip a) and added optional: true as shown.

# This is the network config written by 'subiquity'
network:
  ethernets:
    eno1:
      dhcp4: true
    eno2:
      dhcp4: true
      optional: true
  version: 2

This fixed the issue. I don’t know what netplan is. I see YAML and smell ‘Enterpriseâ„¢’…

Importing the Zpools

# Look for zpools
sudo zfs import

# Import a zpool named 'tank'
sudo zfs import tank -f

# To see where things are mounted. In Ubuntu's case, it will be at /tank
sudo zfs get mountpoint

# See the list of upgrades to the zpools
sudo zpool upgrade

# Perform the upgrades to ALL zpools (YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS AND WHAT
# YOU'RE DOING HERE.)
sudo zpool upgrade -a

# See when a snapshot is created. You can get other properties this way as well.
sudo zfs get creation -t snapshot tank/dataset

Removing Encryption on Backup Drive

TODO: Finish this section.

# Get the ID of the drives. It will look like
#
#      gptid/66e2c3c2-2786-11ea-bc58-ac1f6b83246e.eli
#
zpool status

# Assume that my pool is called `backup`
zpool offline backup gptid/66e2c3c2-2786-11ea-bc58-ac1f6b83246e.eli

Groups

For the tank

sudo groupadd wheel
sudo usermod -aG wheel nikhil
sudo usermod -aG wheel root
sudo chown -R :wheel /tank

ACLs were trouble, however. I had to do this to prevent “Operation not permitted” errors when I was trying to setgid with chmod. This post helped me.

zfs set aclmode=passthrough tank/dataset

# Then this was OK
chmod g+s /tank/dataset

Cron Jobs

Prefixed all of them with custom__ to distinguish them from things that came with the system or were installed via packages.

Used this favorite as a preamble to any new jobs

# +---------------- minute (0 - 59)
# |  +------------- hour (0 - 23)
# |  |  +---------- day of month (1 - 31)
# |  |  |  +------- month (1 - 12)
# |  |  |  |  +---- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0)
# |  |  |  |  |

Docker

# Get the keys
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg

# Set up the Docker repo
echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null

# Update apt
sudo apt update

Got all my images via the amazing LinuxServer.io project.

Note that there used to be a docker-compose command (a standalone Python script) but they made it a plugin to the docker command. Woo. So you omit the hyphen and rock and roll.

You will need a UID and GID that the containers run as. On a base Ubuntu Server system, these are 1000 and 1000 which map to the non-root user the installer had you create.

Created separate configurations for each of the services.

# Start the container in the background (-d)
docker compose -f /path/to/service.yml -p service up -d

# Stop the container
docker compose -f /path/to/service.yml down

# Restart the container
docker compose -f /path/to/service.yml restart

# Tail logs
docker logs --follow <Container ID>

# Check if a container is set to start at boot
docker inspect <container_id> | restart -A 5

Review this for the differences between always, unless-stopped, etc.

Networking was a bit iffy. I want the containers to appear as if they were on the LAN. macvlan networks appeared to be the answer. There are two modes: Bridge and 802.1q Trunk Bridge. I tried the former.

# Create a simple bridge. The 802.1q stuff is a complicated PITA for your use-case...
docker network create -d macvlan \
  --subnet=192.168.1.0/24 \
  --gateway=192.168.1.1 \
  -o parent=eno1 \
  my-macvlan

# Make sure it exists
docker network ls

# Inspect it
docker network inspect <Network ID>

And now you add the bridge on the host so it knows how to route traffic.

# ip link add $INTERFACE_NAME link $PARENTDEV type macvlan mode bridge
ip link add mac0 link eno1 type macvlan mode bridge

# Assign an IP to this interface
ip addr add 192.168.1.100/32 dev mac0

# Bring up the interface
ip link set mac0 up

# Tell docker to use the interface to communicate
ip route add 192.168.1.0/24 dev mac0

These should persist across reboots. People configure stuff in /etc/network/interface but I didn’t need to do that (which mystifies me…)

Some containers didn’t have the ip command. Install via apt install iproute2.

Constrained on router to assign same IP based on MAC. Docker appears to assign 02:42:0a as the OUI. So be it.

This is how you specify an external default network in Docker Compose.

Desktop Environment

Meant for this to be headless but I am a lazy person. Used my lovely XFCE4 and TigerVNC.

sudo apt install xfce4 tigervnc-standalone-server

# Set the password for the current (NON-ROOT) user
vncpasswd

# Upon connection via VNC, start XFCE4
cat <<EOF > ~/.vnc/xstartup
#!/bin/sh
unset SESSION_MANAGER
unset DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
exec startxfce4

EOF
chmod u+x ~/.vnc/xstartup

# Create your own preferences for startup
cat <<EOF > ~/.vnc/config
geometry=1280x960
depth=32

EOF

# Now create a service for the VNC Server. As root:
cat <<EOF > /etc/systemd/system/vncserver@.service
[Unit]
Description=Remote desktop service (VNC)
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=nikhil
Group=wheel
WorkingDirectory=/home/nikhil
PAMName=login

ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i > /dev/null 2>&1 || :'
ExecStart=/usr/bin/vncserver :%i -alwaysshared -fg
ExecStop=/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :%i
PIDFile=/home/%u/.vnc/%H%i.pid

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

EOF

# Tell systemd about it and bring it up at reboot. This is a single instance btw.
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable vncserver@1
sudo systemctl start vncserver@1

# Now on the client, create an SSH tunnel
ssh -p 3227 -L 5901:127.0.0.1:5901 -N -f -l nikhil 192.168.1.10

Note that you will have to adjust the bit depth/quality on your viewer. This is not something TigerVNC controls.

Samba

This was an excellent guide! Also see this.

Setting up Samba shares was rather easy in /etc/samba/smb.conf.

Sanoid

Nice little Perl script to automate ZFS snapshotting. apt install sanoid installs a cron script in /etc/cron.d/sanoid. Configuation in /etc/sanoid/sanoid.conf was as simple as this.

[tank]
  use_template = base
  recursive = yes

# --- Templates ---

[template_base]
  frequently = 0
  hourly = 0
  daily = 30
  monthly = 12
  yearly = 1
  autosnap = yes
  autoprune = yes

See the options for more info on each. Note that the defaults are /usr/share/sanoid/sanoid.defaults.conf.

Glances

sudo apt install glances

Then added this to /etc/systemd/system/glances.service

[Unit]
Description = Glances in Web Server Mode
After = network.target

[Service]
ExecStart = /usr/bin/glances -w -t 5 -B 0.0.0.0

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

Then had to follow this thing to get it to not display a blank page… :/

Miscellaneous Notes

Reset HomeBridge password

Remove auth.json in /var/lib/homebridge if installed on a RaspberryPi.
Else you can find it in $HOME/.homebridge.
Else you can find it in /var/lib/docker/volumes/homebridge if running in Docker.
(Else just reinstall the damn thing and keep better track of your passwords…)

Then sudo systemctl restart homebridge.service. It’s on http://192.168.1.75:8581

References