Seekbrain.com

Ok,

This is the fifth part of my guide on how to setup a home network. If you’ve only just dropped in I’d recommend you have a quick read over parts 1, 2, 3 & 4. Throughout this guide I’ve exclusively used CentOS4 and I’ve assumed it’s a basic clean install.

I cover the following topics in this part:

• POP3/IMAP Server
• Outbound SMTP Server
• Local mail pull
• Web based mail access
• Dynamic Virtualhost Access

(Read on …)

This is the fourth part of a multipart series on how to setup a home/office using CentOS4. If you’ve just dropped in I’d recommend taking a squiz at parts 1, 2 & 3. Using the original requirements specified in Part 1 we can determine what we have left to achieve:

• Reliable shared internet access with either automatic or manual failover to an alternate means of connectivity (ala iBurst Wireless or ick, !dialup!).
• A method of handing out IP addresses to all “dynamic” clients on the network. That is to say, we’re looking for a DHCP server.
• Optimisation of possible bottle necks associated with a home based broadband connection. DNS & HTTP caching come to mind.
• Reliable, fast central mail storage. This will be pulled from the internet servers into which the mail comes into, stored into users mailboxes and accessed by IMAP/POP3.
• Outbound SMTP relay setup as a smarthost relaying to the ISPs upstream SMTP server. This is mainly necessary because occasionally the upstream ISP may differ (if for instance the connection drops) and updating 1 smart host is much easier than updating numerous settings per machine.
• Web based access to the central mail storage.
• A large house wide storage system. This is primarily to accomodate a significant amount of “in development” stuff I work on (like PHP & MySQL RPMs for instance).
• Local DNS zone for local hostname resolution. I find it difficult to remember IP addresses so a DNS server is fairly essential (and it looks nice).
• Wireless internet access should be available throughout the house.
• Centralised authentication. Ie. House wide username/password combinations.
• Centralised home directories without risking long downtimes should a key server fail.
• Internal Network monitoring. This is purely to keep an eye on general statistics (like for instance disk space usage etc.) to avoid any disruptions.

So in this article I hope to achieve the following:

• Setup NIS Authentication system on Tethys
• Setup NIS Slave on Dione using Tethys as the source
• Modify associated clients to utilise this authentication scheme

(Read on …)

This is the third part of a multipart series as I go through the process of setting up a home network. If you’ve just hit this article I’d recommend going through Part 1 & 2 first. I guess the first thing we should do is run through what we’ve achieved using the requirements we defined within the first of these articles:

• Reliable shared internet access with either automatic or manual failover to an alternate means of connectivity (ala iBurst Wireless or ick, !dialup!).
• A method of handing out IP addresses to all “dynamic” clients on the network. That is to say, we’re looking for a DHCP server.
• Optimisation of possible bottle necks associated with a home based broadband connection. DNS & HTTP caching come to mind.

HTTP Caching is something we’ll worry about soon but now I think it’s necessary to begin setting up Tethys first.

We cover the following topics in this article:

• Secondary DNS Server
• Local DNS Zone
• Local Zone Slave DNS Setup
• Centralised File sharing
• Transparent/HTTP Caching Proxy Server

(Read on …)

Ok,

This is the second part of my guide on a home network setup. If you’ve only just dropped in I’d recommend you have a quick read over Part 1 . Throughout this guide I’ve exclusively used CentOS4 and I’ve assumed it’s a basic clean install.

I cover the following topics in this part:

• ADSL Setup
• DHCP Server Setup
• NAT Setup
• Caching DNS Server Setup

(Read on …)

Hey there,

Well, every few years or so I’m charged (or at least, I charge myself) with the responsibility of setting up our new rental premises with the most cost effective, efficient and clean solution to our day to day I.T. activities. My way of thinking is that, by setting all this up in a planned and carefully implemented manner we will be able to rely on the infrastructure just as much as we would if it was a “mission critical” component. Realistically, given that I am required to be able to fix a server onsite I rely upon my home network being up and running in the most efficient manner possible.

Subsequently, I thought it’d be pertinent to outline (for anyone else also endevouring on the task) what I did (am doing) when setting up my home network.

(Read on …)