At home I've a fileserver PC and Ubuntu clients including one that's
ended up needing to be left on 24/7.  I'm thinking of moving the
server's 2 disks to the always-on desktop box to save electricity.  All
PCs are on a wifi ADSL router using Cat5 and WPA, and we've an
(untrusted) lodger.  Backups are nightly between encrypted server disks,
and approx weekly an incremental to an unencrypted USB drive which is
locked away. [*]

Have I thought of all the pros and cons, and how should I secure this
arrangement (especially NFS)?

Power: saves 25%
    same disk count, one less mobo

LAN security: no change - is it enough?
    client login passwords; static client IPs;
    NFS exports to individual IPs;
    encrypted data disks; ssh with passwords

Physical security: worse.
    fileserver is in the loft,
    PC and router are on the desk

Noise: OK
    desktop gets 3 quiet Barracuda disks

Speed: got a PCI-IDE card
    so each disk can be on its own channel

Future expansion: costly
    will need to replace with larger disks.
    2 channel PCI card => only add 1 more disk

Stability: not sure.
    The 24/7 desktop has mostly run between power cuts so far.  Apps are
    installed as needed mostly from universe and there's a spare PC for
    reboots e.g. learning grub2.  Browser memory leaks eventually fill
    swap and fell the box: the browser could be run in a VM to avoid
    this.

Bring on the advice please!

Anthony


* story in a nutshell; some features not yet implemented quite like
that.

--
Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk
Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------

Reply via email to