Omnimaga
General Discussion => Technology and Development => Computer Usage and Setup Help => Topic started by: ElementCoder on January 30, 2013, 02:04:53 pm
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I may want to set up a server in my home someday in the future and I was wondering what I would have to do. Things I have in mind:
- SVN stuffs
- Minecraft server
- Possibility to host websites (is this possible?)
I've never set up a server or worked with it so I don't know what I should do soft- and hardware wise.
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For hosting a Minecraft server over LAN, just get the server application or Bukkit, configure it, and run it. In Minecraft, connect to that computer's IP. To get the IP address for the computer, type ipconfig in cmd.exe or use an iOS app (Fing is nice). Most Computers can run a minecraft server, even my 12 year old desktop. For hosting a website, get Apache. I never found it very hard to use, and PHP is usually easy to install on it.
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Hardware:
A custom (you build it) PC with:
(due to MC) at least 4 GB RAM
(due to general servering/hosting) multiple TB Disk space
(due to the fact that there is no need for a better one) really cheap graphics card (only needed for setup)
(due to need for hard drive space) Large case with plenty of bays
(due to need in general) A power supply
(due to not wanting your server to crash) A really dependable motherboard (this must be REALLY, REALLY, REALLY GOOD)
(due to multiple people being on the server) A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY GOOD cpu (no joke, more cores = better in this case)
(due to always being on and tons of potential use) FANS FANS FANS and HEATSINKS HEATSINKS HEATSINKS
(due to server) Wired internet card, and this must be the best you can get for your money
anything needed to build a computer that I have not mentioned
And most importantly: the networking components that are not part of the computer
The fastest ISP in your area
Wired internet
Everything else necessary for networking
Software:
A servering linux (Ubuntu server works well)
Apache server
Java (MC)
WINE Is Not an Emulator (aka WINE) (for running the server EXE for minecraft)
Minecraft server
A web browser
On the networking side:
Make your IP static
Port forwarding necessary (look up how to do this PROPERLY)
Security programs out-the-wazoo
That's what it takes to make a public server... (If I forgot to mention something, please let me know)
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On the networking side:
Make your IP static
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This is what you would need to host your own website... I have never done it because it can be expensive...
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Wow pimath that's the best explanation/list I've seen so far anywhere. You showed me exactly what I need to do, thanks! Now to find the time and money to do this, but I'm not sure it's gonna happen because my parents pay the internetz and they don't like paying more for what they do not use :P
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WINE Is Not an Emulator (aka WINE) (for running the server EXE for minecraft)
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Thi bukkit server is a normal jar file that should run on any platform. The vanilla minecraft serve can also be downloaded as jar iirc.
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You can use (almost) any PC you can find. My Server is an 2,0 GHz Athlon II XP 2400+ and has 512 MB RAM.
Minecraft Server runs fine, while Apache runs in the background.
Also, you don't need a static IP, dynamic dns should be enough.
dyndns.org was free until last year, IIRC.
But there are still many free dns providers available.
My advice: Use Linux, but not Ubuntu.
It's buggy, slow as hell and a pain to configure.
With opensuse you have yast and don't have to configure everything with weird config files nobody understands.
You don't need new internetz, DSL 16000 is enough for basic hosting and minecraft (~120 kb/s upload).
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Yeah you don't really need a static IP and state-of-the-art everything. Just use dynamic DNS instead, it's easy to set up and less expensive too.
I don't really know why people give IPs instead of hostnames even though they have a domain name for their site (maybe they think it doesn't work but it actually does, a misconception that could date back to old FPS games without any DNS support I guess). That's exactly the point of DNS, so you don't have to remember numerical IPs.
http://freedns.afraid.org/ is a pretty nice one with tons of domain names to choose a subdomain from.
For the software, you might want to get a bare-bones Linux distro such as Arch Linux and desactivate pretty much every process but the system ones (it needs about 25 MB RAM) so you can give more RAM for the web server and Minecraft.
Also I should look at clustering computers.
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Wow pimath that's the best explanation/list I've seen so far anywhere. You showed me exactly what I need to do, thanks! Now to find the time and money to do this, but I'm not sure it's gonna happen because my parents pay the internetz and they don't like paying more for what they do not use :P
Those were specifically for your server IF you are doing web hosting, which you said was likely. A Minecraft Dedicated server would be less of a price, because the hosting requires almost everything to be top-of-the-line. A dedicated server you can run off any PC with good enough RAM, Internet connection, and CPU.
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And to server os, use debian, it is like the most stable one.
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And to server os, use debian, it is like the most stable one.
True... I said Ubuntu as an example... It's not really the best one for servering. Go with Sorunome's post
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Yeah you don't really need a static IP and state-of-the-art everything. Just use dynamic DNS instead, it's easy to set up and less expensive too.
I don't really know why people give IPs instead of hostnames even though they have a domain name for their site (maybe they think it doesn't work but it actually does, a misconception that could date back to old FPS games without any DNS support I guess). That's exactly the point of DNS, so you don't have to remember numerical IPs.
http://freedns.afraid.org/ is a pretty nice one with tons of domain names to choose a subdomain from.
For the software, you might want to get a bare-bones Linux distro such as Arch Linux and desactivate pretty much every process but the system ones (it needs about 25 MB RAM) so you can give more RAM for the web server and Minecraft.
Also I should look at clustering computers.
Wait. So you don't need a static IP? How does the DNS know when my server IP changes.
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Wait. So you don't need a static IP? How does the DNS know when my server IP changes.
Nop. Just use www.no-ip.org ... That's how i have my Minecraft server running 24/7 at home and i can give ppl a nice url instead of an IP
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Wait. So you don't need a static IP? How does the DNS know when my server IP changes.
Nop. Just use www.no-ip.org ... That's how i have my Minecraft server running 24/7 at home and i can give ppl a nice url instead of an IP
Yeah, well if you want to do websites you need to do some CNAME and redirect juggling, also, you need a faster connection than me (upload: 50k/s, download: 100k/s)
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I've have been using Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS for several years now, and I have never had to put the server down because it crashed or something similar. I'd have had an uptime of more than a year and a half if I wouldn't have had to shut it down because of a hardware issue.
My server has a static IP, and I use it daily for mail, sharing media, hosting a website and providing several other services. Ubuntu 10.04 has proved to me to be perfect for a server, and I will continue to use it. And I recommend it too.
As for server hardware, I recommend you to also use a RAID setup. This doesn't necessarily need to be hardware RAID, but that's always better if you can get it :)
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I've have been using Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS for several years now, and I have never had to put the server down because it crashed or something similar.
We regret setting up Ubuntu. It became slow as hell after a few days and nothing worked as we wanted it to.
Now our server runs opensuse, best decision we ever made.
As for server hardware, I recommend you to also use a RAID setup. This doesn't necessarily need to be hardware RAID, but that's always better if you can get it
Do NOT use hardware RAID. The only good raid controllers cost more than 1000 $ and the cheaper ones are crap.
Linux software raid (mdadm etc.) is faster and works on completely different hardware.
If your RAID controller dies, your data is lost and recoverable only if you have the EXACT same model.
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As for server hardware, I recommend you to also use a RAID setup. This doesn't necessarily need to be hardware RAID, but that's always better if you can get it
Do NOT use hardware RAID. The only good raid controllers cost more than 1000 $ and the cheaper ones are crap.
Linux software raid (mdadm etc.) is faster and works on completely different hardware.
If your RAID controller dies, your data is lost and recoverable only if you have the EXACT same model.
I don't know where you're coming from with that, but while I do not own a server, I have set up three or four, all with RAID, and never had an issue....
Also, what would you do as an alternative?
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I don't know where you're coming from with that, but while I do not own a server, I have set up three or four, all with RAID, and never had an issue....
Asus server mainboard, 2005.
Speed was about 250 MB/s, with linux software raid (5) 460 MB/s.
It broke one year ago, but we got raid errors a week before, so we could backup everything.
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I don't know where you're coming from with that, but while I do not own a server, I have set up three or four, all with RAID, and never had an issue....
Asus server mainboard, 2005.
Speed was about 250 MB/s, with linux software raid (5) 460 MB/s.
It broke one year ago, but we got raid errors a week before, so we could backup everything.
OK, then I guess your experience beats mine :D
anyway, do you have an alternative?
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Linux software raid runs everywhere, but needs more ram and cpu.
It's also a bit complicated to set up (and boot with grub) but it's worth it.