SERVER

Now, as for building a server, this is my true first Linux Server I'm building. I've created plenty of desktop and laptop Linux systems. Now, let's roll back the clock to the good old days of Microsoft DOS 5. Starting a server is very interesting. The entire install is very strange, being we are all used to working with a mouse and keyboard. 😋 Now drop the mouse and just a screen and keyboard. Yup, there is no graphical environment here now. No mouse to use or icons to click. You have to know what you are doing to get one fired up. I installed Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Server Edition. Then installing the network management software took a bit to wrap my head around, be we are running a live server here at home. This machine will have several tasks to do in regards to the live website server. Then handle all the security cameras and store the video footage. It will be a large cloud server for backing up all our personal data and business data between workstations, laptops, and even cellphones.

WORKSTATIONS

The two workstations are high-quality machines for handling all the website work, video processing (KDEnLive), photo processing (GIMP), and much more. These workstations will bind to our cellphones. This will allow us to keep right on working, being text messages will display on the monitor. All 3 machines come with 2.5 GBit connection on CAT6 cable or WiFi 7, which is capable of a lot more. The main WiFi in the house was upgraded to WiFi 6. A huge improvement is speed. 4TB M.2 SSD Drive in each workstation. Storage of files and data is no issue now. The server will be tasked with making backups as we sleep at night.

I've just had a series of things go wrong. First off, we are down to a single laptop for doing website work. I lost my old yellow box computer it finally died after 20 years of service. The old AMD CPU, the video software is no longer supported by Ubuntu. Just too old. Now my @MoparMom computer was our house server for the video cameras and storing the backups. This machine died with hard drives. Again 20 year old computer. Then @Tweety Bird blew the monitor on her laptop. This has made it tough to do the server work and repairs, and adjustments now.

Now I've been granted help from a private, unnamed investor who wanted to help Mopar1973Man.Com stay alive and on the internet. I'm currently building 2 work station computers.

• 5.4 GHz AMD Processors (6 core)

• 32 GB of DDR5 Memory

• 4 TB M.2 SSD Harddrive

• GeForce RTX 5060 Video Card

• 1,000 Watt power supply

Now the Server is going to be much different. 36 TB of storage.

• 5.4 GHz AMD Processors (6 core)

• 32 GB of DDR5 Memory

• (4x) 4 TB M.2 SSD Harddrive

• (2x) 10 TB SSD Harddrive

• GeForce RTX 5060 Video Card

• 1,000 Watt power supply

Now the design will be that my server will be running 24 hours, 7 days a week. This will allow my server to contact the website server and make daily backups of the running server and bring them home to the server at home. Now the workstations will be automatically backed up every night. Even store our cell phone photos and information. We are adding more cameras here, so a chunk of this storage will be for the cameras on the property. This server will be set up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Server Edition software. This will be headless, meaning there is no monitor, keyboard, or mouse on this server. This makes my home server very secure, being the only way you'll have access to this machine is over SSH connection (SSH stands for Secure SHell). This is all encrypted and firewalled inside the house.

My entire network is based on a 28-port TP-Link managed switch, protected by a TP-Link Gateway, which is firewalled, then Starlink doesn't allow any port forwarding, so it makes it nearly impossible to see anything inside my network. I've also created several VLANs to keep access to different devices under strict control and prevent unauthorized people from accessing other devices, like my cameras or workstations. Yes, the information is very secure.