In this article, I will share the knowledge and hacks I did to convert my laptop into a server. Going forward, I must present my intentions for writing this Article. I want to bring forward that picture to broaden our outlook and at the same time appreciate the beauty underneath. For the sake of this article, I did the below-mentioned things.
The above link is to the website running on my laptop that you can access it right now. NOTE: If you are not able of access this website then at the time of your reading, the laptop might have been switched off because of power failure, loss of internet connectivity or IP address change.
So, these are the limitations of maintaining your own server. If you are willing to commit to this process and be enriched with the ideas, then follow along. This is not a copy paste operation so get your observation into play and your imagination a wing. In this article, we will understand the structure and the mechanics of the internet. So, today the understanding of internet is utmost important for any developer or even a person. I would say it is a huge network of computing devices communicating with each other based on a pre-agreed set of rules called protocols.
The edge devices that are part of this network are called hosts or end systems. Laptops, mobiles etc are hosts. The end systems are connected by a network of communication links and packet switches. The communication links are made up of physical medium such as copper wires, fiber optics, radio spectrum etc. One end system sends data to another by segmenting the data into small segments with header bytes on them. These packages of information are called packets and are sent through the network to the destination end system where they are reassembled into original data.
A packet switch is responsible for routing the packets to its destination. The packet switch takes a packet arriving on one of its incoming communication links and forwards that packet on one of its outgoing communication links.
Our routers are a packet switch. The sequence of communication links and packet switches traversed by a packet in known as the route through the network. There is beautiful analogy presented in the book Computer Networking by Kurose and Ross.
It says a factory that needs to move a large amount of cargo to some destination warehouse located thousands of kilometers away. At the factory, the cargo is segmented and loaded in a fleet of trucks. Each of the trucks then independently travels through the network of highways, roads, and intersections to the destination warehouse.
At the destination warehouse, the cargo is unloaded and grouped with the rest of the cargo arriving from the same shipment. Thus, in many ways, packets are analogous to trucks, communication links analogous to highways and roads. Packet switches are analogous to intersections, and end systems are analogous to buildings.
ISPs include local cable or telephone companies. Each ISPs is in itself a network of packet switches and communication links. These ISPs are also interconnected. All the component of this network run protocols that control the sending and receiving of information. These protocols are most important for the unanimous functioning and thus important that everyone agrees on what each and every protocol does.
How does one application running on one end system instructs the Internet to deliver data to another software running on another end system? Taking an analogy from the same book: Suppose Alice wants to send a letter to Bob using the postal service. In a similar manner, the internet has an API that the software sending data must follow to have the internet deliver the data to the software that will receive the data.
What are client and server program and P2P architecture? Both are good pieces of software, but which one you use will depend on your specific needs. If you still aren't sure, give them both a shot and see which one you like better!
You can install FreeNAS on a ton of different systems using a number of different methods, but here are the things you'll need for our method:. FreeNAS is actually designed to run on a flash drive or compact flash card rather than one of the drives in your computer. If your computer doesn't have the ability to boot from USB, you'll have to follow some slightly tweaked instructions here and you won't be able to use one of your drives for storage. If the computer on which you're installing FreeNAS is bit capable, grab the bit image; otherwise, you'll want to grab the bit image from the bit tab along the top.
Here's what you need to do:. Mac users : To install FreeNAS on your flash drive, you'll need an app called Keka , as well as a little command line work:.
Download the FreeNAS image archive and right-click on it. Choose "Open With Keka" from the menu. Insert your flash drive. Click the Erase tab and format it, ensuring it only has one partition. It doesn't matter what you format it as, we're going to overwrite it in a minute. Unmount the partition after its created. Note the path of your USB drive in the list. Be SURE to replace the "if" path and the "of" path with the correct ones for your system the first being the location of your FreeNAS image, the second being the path to your flash drive.
If you do this incorrectly, you can cause severe data loss! Give it time to finish the copying process. When it's done, you'll get a message saying it completed successfully.
Here are the things we recommend doing to get it set up:. Take some time to poke around FreeNAS' configuration settings and tweak anything you see that you might want to change. The above steps should get most people going, but if you have specific needs like if you're using static IP addresses instead of DHCP reservations you may have to tweak more.
Now that your FreeNAS system is up and running, it's time to add your hard disks to its pool. Here's how:. Repeat this process for all your attached hard drives. Then just select what filesystem it's already using, and you'll be able to use your existing data.
When your hard drives are all set up, it's time to share them over the network. We're going to use CIFS, since its preferable for households with Windows machines or with multiple operating systems.
If you have an all-Mac household, look into AFP as an alternative. Now, head to your main computer. If it's a Windows machine, open Windows Explorer and click on the "Network" shortcut in the left-hand sidebar. You should see your FreeNAS machine pop up, and from there you can navigate to any of your shared drives.
When prompted, enter your username and password the one we created from the FreeNAS "Users" settings earlier and you should be able to create and edit files right from your PC. Congratulations, you have a fully operational file server! Now you can use these disks for whatever you want. You can store data on them, use them for backup, or even access them directly from your home theater PC though if you require streaming to DLNA devices, you'll want to check out the streaming section below.
If you want to do more than just share files, FreeNAS has a fantastic plugin system to take advantage of. Here, we'll show you how to install three popular plugins for some pretty cool tasks. So this is your last chance to archive any files that your flash drive already contains, before they vanish forever. A prompt will appear when the FreeNAS installation process is complete. Press Enter and then select the option to reboot your system in the main menu. At this point, your server is up and running.
Look to the left side and click the My Account menu item to expand it. Now choose an admin user name and a password. Click the button to save your changes. Then click Change Password and do the same. Security first! To set up your storage volumes, click the Storage button in the upper-left corner of the FreeNAS Web-based configuration screen. From there, click the Create Volume button that appears in the main window.
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