After seeing these symptoms and a machine that is totally unresponsive, I chose to blindly reboot the machine, as I was running the server headless.  Not something I would ever do in a production environment, but it’s my home server.  After a reboot, the server wouldn’t even respond to ping requests, and I saw in my router that it had not registered its DHCP lease upon boot.  My obvious next step was to connect a monitor to this machine and actually see what was going on.  As I moved the machine around to plug in the monitor cable, I noticed that the steel case was warm (borderline hot, in fact) to the touch.  Once the monitor was connected, I immediately saw the root of the problem.  I was staring at a BIOS screen telling me the boot drive had failed.

Knowing what the problem was made for a clear path for recovering.  I located a replacement IDE hard drive and swapped it into the case and reloaded a stock installation of Debian 6, Squeeze.  Recreating the basic installation was no problem, and I added Webmin back onto the system.  Fortunately, I had no user data on the orignal hard drive, and I had kept the data volume in its own volume group, to avoid problems like this, should they ever come up.  The only parts of the configuration that were located on the original drive were mounting, NFS, Samba, and DNS configurations.  On the other hand, I had not gotten around to backing up that configuration to another machine to avoid such a problem.  ;-)

After getting a new boot drive with an OS on it, I moved to getting the data volume up and running.  Based upon my previous post, the data lives inside of a LVM logical volume on top of a physical RAID1 array.  Since I was simply trying to locate and re-enable an existing array, I ran: “mdadm –assemble –scan” which found the two partitions in the RAID1 and activated them.  Since they had not been touched in quite some time, no resync was even necessary.

The next step was to locate and reactivate the logical volume so that I could actually mount and use the data stored on the volume.  I ran each of the LVM *scan commands, “vgscan”, “pvscan”, and “lvscan” to confirm the metadata had been preserved.  Everything looked good, so I just had to reactivate the volume with the “vgchange -y a” command, which tells LVM to activate all available volume groups and logical volumes.  I was finally able to mount the data drives and verify that all of the expected data was there.

Now that the data drives were healthy, I had to finish recreating the lost configurations.  I added a permanent entry in /etc/fstab to mount the volume at boot, along with my NFS exports.  Also, I added the local users to the system and gave Samba passwords.  My only time-consuming task was to re-enter the forward and reverse DNS entries for my internal machines and set the DNS forwarders.

Now that the configuration was back to where I wanted it, I took the extra step of using Webmin’s backup module to export all of the configuration information from the system to my laptop.

Once I really knew what was hapenning, the fix really didn’t take that long.  I spent about 4 hours between loading the OS, reactivating the data drives, and getting the local services set back up again.  With the added knowledge of RAID and LVM recovery in Linux, as well as configuration backups, it would probably only take about an hour; most of that time would be waiting on the OS to install to the drive.

The hardware you can use for this project is fairly straightforward. I used a hodgepodge of parts I had laying around. I used:

• Case: older Antec case
• Motherboard: Mini-ITX M10000N small form-factor motherboard, nearly everything integrated
• System Hard Disk Drive: IDE drive I had lying around, 30 GB

I had the bulk of what I needed for the project, but I still needed the drives and a way to attach them to the motherboard. I ordered:

• 2 SATA hard drives, 1TB, from NewEgg
• SATA Host-Bus Adapter to add SATA ports to the system from Deal Extreme
• Assorted SATA data and power cables from MonoPrice

Once all the parts arrived, I started my build. For anyone who has built a computer or replaced parts knows how simple the build really is. The motherboard is mounted into the case, along with the drives. The SATA card is placed into this motherboard’s PCI slot, and the cabling is connected. About an hour later (I removed a VERY old motherboard from this case.), I had the system built and ready for the software for the project.

Several distributions of free software could manage both the storage array and the services designed to present the array to the rest of the network. I chose to use a stock installation of Debian 6.0 stable, with as few packages installed as possible, to keep the bloat down. Of the specific software that I made sure to have installed was the SSH server, NFS file sharing services, and Samba file sharing services. After I installed Debian, I manually installed WebMin to provide a web interface for configuring everything.

First business is to create the array from the SATA disks. I used the cfdisk utility at the command-line to create a single partition over the entire drive, using a partition type of DA, which is listed as a Non-FS data partition. I then repeated the procedure for the second disk. Next, I used the webmin panel to create a RAID1 array (/dev/md0) with both of the disks. After I had the array, I created a new LVM volume group to contain the data array. Creating the volume group in Webmin requires a physical volume to be added to the newly created volume group; I chose the RAID array. Finally, I created an ext4 filesystem and waited for the disks in the array to sync. The synchronization process took roughly eight hours.

The next day, I used webmin to create some SMB shares and NFS filesystems. These will allow my Linux machines to use the data as if it were local and give access to the couple of Windows-centric devices available on my network.

With two fairly short days, and some waiting for disk synchronizing, my file storage device is complete. I am in the process of copying my data from my unreliable desktop to the device as we speak. Among my future improvements and enhancements to the configuration will be a tweaking the mounts and setting up a dedicated space for each user, instead of just a single wide-open storage space.  From the hardware side, I eventually will upgrade to a hot-swap carriage from IcyDock.  I can also add up to two more hard drives to the existing card.  As long as the drives are at least 1TB, I can expand the existing RAID1 into a RAID5.  If the drives are larger, I will create one partition as large as the partitions on the original drives.  I can then create a new partition for the rest of the new drives and create a new array.  This is, to the best of my knowledge, is the way the Drobo allows for expanding storage.

I have been using the tablet off and on since then, with most of the functionality available while logged in, but there have been a few rough edges.  With a tablet PC, how do I log into the tablet while it is undocked from the keyboard?  I have used a great on-screen keyboard/handwriting recognition tool called Cellwriter.  It requires a little training, but the tool is very accurate after training.  There are two instances where a user needs to enter a password, when logging in and when unlocking the screensaver.

• Login: I use Gnome, so GDM is the login manager I prefer on this tablet.  Changing the configuration was fairly wasy.  The configuration file, in Debian, is /etc/gdm/Init/Default.  I found that a single line, added above the final “exit 0″ line, was enough to add the keyboard: “cellwriter –keyboard-only –window-x 170 –window-y 568 &” and restart X by logging out.

• Screensaver: The screensaver was slightly more difficult, requiring two steps to configure within gconf-editor:

1. Enable the embedded_keyboard_enabled key in /apps/gnome-screensaver.
2. Edit the embeddes_keyboard_command to include: /usr/bin/cellwriter –keyboard-only –xid

I could have chosen one of a number of alternative keyboards, but Cellwriter works so well and looks so clean compared to the other tools I had tried.  There are two issues that I have been dealing with with little success…

First, the –keyboard-only flag is in both locations to run the keyboard without regards to the written input.  I expected to need that during login, as GDM has idea who is logging on until after they have logged on and GDM is no longer needed.  However, I did try to use it normally with the screensaver login, and I could not get gnome-screensaver to accept my known-good password while using the handwriting portion of the application.  While I would like to be able to write my password, your entire password remains on the screen in the input box until you accept the input.  So, I will try to get at working sometime, but it probably better that i have to type my password, keeping it hidden from view.

Second, each of the applications would randomly spam one of the input buttons as I was typing on the screen.  This forces me to have to simply hit the enter key and start again.  At some point, I will have to try using the native fpit driver within Xorg.  I might already be, now that I have upgraded my system to the post-Lenny testing version of Debian (Squeeze).  I haven’t otherwise updated the system’s overall configuration in several months.

So, hopefully, I can start getting even more utility out of this again, without the encumberance of this keyboard.  As much as I would like to try one of the new netbooks, like the Acer Aspire Once or the HP Mini 1000, the lack of a touch screen makes those devices a less-attractive form-factor that this handy piece of gear.

I would like to announce the arrival of the Apple2PC. My first mod, I took an old Apple IIe and swapped out the original components with modern parts. The system includes:

• Via M10000N Mini-ITX motherboard with 1GHz processor, onboard audio, video, and network connections, 256MB DDR RAM, 4 USB ports and 2 Firewire ports on the back, and more…
• 30 GB Maxtor hard drive
• 250 watt low profile power supply

The actual construction only took me about 3 days, once I sat down and did it. The parts had been sitting for more than a year, waiting for me to get motivated…

I plan on writing up something about the construction later. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, but I want to get it done soon.

My next challenge was to get the network card working. Keep in mind that this laptop does not have working PCMCIA sockets because it fell off the table…. Since this had been a laptop I had been previously using, I had already found a suitable USB network adapter, the D-Link. I first tried to install the drivers for the network card, but I could not get the provided 2.4.18 kernel source from the Debian CD’s to match the pre-compiled kernel. Since I had to compile a kernel from scratch, anyway, I went ahead and used my USB Zip drive to copy over the 2.4.24 kernel source code. Then, I extracted, configured, and compiled my kernel.

Next, I compiled and installed the drivers for the network interface, available from The Linux-WLAN Project. After installation of the drivers, the log file said that the device had no driver claiming it. So, I actually found the source code that links the product/vendor code to a driver and edited the prism2sta.c file to add the cod
es in. I recompiled the modules and reinstalled. At this point, the interface was recognized.

The next step was to get the kernel to set up the network interface automatically. On my home network, I have a DHCP server set up, but there are two commands that are needed to turn on the radio and associate with the Access Point. To get these to be executed automatically when you plug in the card, place the following two commands in /etc/network/interfaces:
pre-up wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
pre-up wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=”” authtype=opensystem

Once the network is configured, the next step is to install the streaming software. At slimdevices.com, I downloaded the tarball, rather than the RPM. After extracting the code, I
copied it into place and ran the software. It defaults to using port 9000, but that can be changed in the server interface. I changed it to port 80, for ease of access. At the same time, I changed the directory of the music library to point to my collection, once I got it copied to the server.

After getting the software laid out in the right locations, I decided I wanted to add it into the init system, so I needed to have a daemon startup and shutdown script. It turns out that the one for the sympa mailing list manager worked well for me, after some slight modifications. After creating the script for the init.d directory, I created the appropriate symbolic links in the rcX.d directories.

There are some last minute details that I am still working out, such as using NFS for native Linux mounting from other machines and Samba for Windows file sharing. The only other large project yet to conquer is a firewall. Of course, the Shorewall package will dramatically simplify that project.

In a matter of a couple of days of experimentation, I have set up my old laptop to stream and share my entire music collection to any machine that is on my network, giving me the freedom to listen to my music anywhere in the house or out in the yard, when it finally warms up in Ohio.

Once I finish with the metalworking, there have to be several holes drilled to attach the backplate to the chassis and to attach the motherboard and other components inside the box.

After that, I can begin assembly, as long as I don’t want to paint the rear panel.

Once I get those pieces, I can assembled everything and then begin to work on the operating system/system configuration. I am leaning towards a dual-boot configuration so that I can have full gaming support no matter which game I want to play.

Once I got the card added to /etc/pcmcia/config, it bound to the Orinoco driver, and I just pulled up an IP via DHCP. Really slick.

Sitting in the lobby, I an getting about 50KB/s, downloading OpenOffice 1.0.1. Figured it was about time to upgrade.

Next, I will have to update my main box to Debian 3.0 I feel confident enough now that I can get it installed without too much hassle.