Description

Smartbox is a completely open source easy-to-install, easy-to-manage resilient, minimal hardware specificiation, and feature rich network server (with an emphasis on ease of use) capable of:

· Windows domain control (using samba)
· History-based backup and recover system (using rsnapshot)
· Simple software RAID(mirrored discs)
· Remote peer-to-peer backup to an untrusted peer (i.e. another smartbox)
· Groupware server (e.g. wikidbase, open-xchange, opengroupware, etc.)
· Email server
· Asterisk software PBX to support a local VoIP phone system
etc

This project, which is based on the highly stable and well supported ubuntu linux distribution, is aimed at voluntary and non-profit organisations that could do better than to pay a big wad of cash for the purchase and maintenance of conventional network servers over which they have little control (e.g. to add new users to the network themselves, recover files from the backup system, etc.).

The design of this system is entirely based upon research into the voluntary and community organisation (VCO) sector by team members of Illuminate ICT, and by the wider findings of other ICT Hub projects.

Here are some key features of "SmartBOX":

· New: wikidbase (development version): go to port 8888 of the smartbox (e.g. http://smartbox:8888) and enter user/password: admin/wikidbase
· Windows domain controller
· Automatic logon.bat generator for auto-mounting relevant windows shares on the client.
· Historical backup system with pre-mounted backup folder for easy recovery of lost files
· Simple RAID management
· Web interface for simple configuration.
· Remote smartbox-to-smartbox backup – as this is under development, this does not yet encrypt data on the remote server, as it will do when complete.

Installation

Download smartbox.iso from any of these places and install it (this is a thinly-veiled Ubuntu server CD):

smartbox.iso md5sum: f773a9e83890972765daff728f91429d

• Softmedia (good mirror)
• Germany Mirror - Thank you Sebastian Bengsch
• US Mirror - Thanks Ben
• humyo - rarely works
• torrent - needs more seeds

1. Note, make sure the smartbox has Internet access through your network before installation (i.e. plug it into your network).

2. When the SmartBOX CD is installed, login to the server

3. To complete the smartbox installation with the latest release files from the Internet, type the following:

$ sbinstaller

(enter your password if prompted)

1. Then wait while smartbox installs and configures its components.

2. That's it!

Note that, if it said 'command not found' run this to download the command:

$ wget http://www.nickblundell.org.uk/packages/sbinstaller

$ bash sbinstaller 

Note that the smartbox CD is really just to install the operating system and to bootstrap the smartbox, and so the sbinstaller command will always look for the latest release of smartbox, download it, then install/upgrade it. Therefore, you do not need to get a new ISO when you wish to install or upgrade to the latest smartbox.

Upgrading

To upgrade an existing smartbox, simply type:

$sbinstaller

which will look on the web for the latest release, grab it, then install it.

Joining Windows Machines to the Domain (W2k and XP)

• Right click on my computer, then select properties, then 'computer name' tab

• Then click the 'change' button

• Then type the MS domain of your smartbox

• To join the domain type use username 'Administrator' and the password (see above).

Possible problems

Sometimes the installer hangs, waiting for the package 'pythondialog'. Just let it wait a while, or cancel and re-do the installation proceedure. I assume this wait is down to the popularity of that package or its host website.

If the command sbinstaller fails for some reason, try it again. If it contiues to fail, please check the forum on this site and add a question if you can't find a suitable answer.

Ubuntu installation: CDROM fails to read some installation files

At Ubuntu install menu, press F6 then add 'ide=nodma' the boot options. This will switch off direct memory access and seems to fix this problem on older machines.

Appendix

Installing SmartBOX from CD (Ubuntu)

1. Pop in the Smartbox cdrom into the drive and reboot.

2. Choose language

3. Choose keyboard layout – choose the non-automatic option

4. Select character encoding

5. Choose a hostname for the server. Type smartbox unless you want something else

6. OPTIONAL ADVANCED SETUP: Partitioning for raid-1 (alternatively, look here)
   

   1. Select guided partitioning, then select first disc and use erase entire disc option

   2. Do the same for the second disk – so they have identical partitions

   3. Change all of the partition types to RAID device

   4. Select configure software RAID option

   5. Pair off raid devices

   6. Set the first raid partition (the biggest partition) to 'ext3', mountpoint '/'

   7. Set second raid partition to 'swap'

   8. Save and continue with Ubuntu installation

7. Configure clock

8. Add the admin user and note the username and password that you set

9. Important: Do NOT select the software installations for LAMP or DNS.