[colug-432] Simple File Server NAS setup

[Dan Kaiser]

Hi Everyone,

I'm trying to replace my old file storage & backup system with an true NAS
and automated backup system.  (I previously had a PowerMac G5 with several
massive drives as the primary storage and two external USB drives.  I'd
backup to one external weekly and store it in a fire safe, then rotate that
drive monthly with another kept at a relative's house a few hours away.
 (Very manual, but it gig the job.)

I have a few older towers (P4, AMD Athlon, AMD Sempron with 1.5-2 GB RAM
each) that I'd like to use.  One as the primary NAS file server, one as a
local backup of the first server, and the other for remote backup using
Crashplan or something similar (maybe even rsync via ssh.)  I'm jumping the
gun here. These will come later.

Anyway, I have the first NAS set-up with Ubuntu server LTS 12.04 and I have
the beginnings of the file server set up, but I'm sure I've done it the
inefficient way and am currently fighting samba more than making any
headway.  (Can't for the life of me get user security to allow write
access.)  I've learned a lot in the process like editing fstab, samba
config, some NFS config, etc. but I'd like a working solution now and then
I can continue to tinker and learn with the other backup boxes.

I figure multiple folks in this group probably have a NAS server set-up,
and I'm looking for some pointers on a simple solution.  It has been a
couple months since my PowerMac's power supply fried and I've been without
a true backup since.  I'm fine with nuking the existing OS and starting
fresh if that is easiest.

I tried some out-of-the-box solutions like OpenMediaVault and Nas4Free
before my current attempt with Ubuntu Server and couldn't seem to get
either of them configured correctly with the limited web GUI.  The files
will be accessed by multiple OSes, so I need samba rather than just NFS.
 If I can have the same source files shared via both NFS and samba that
would be ideal.

As always, any advice will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

-Dan
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a
habit." - Aristotle
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