I never expected to actually do any server admin these days, since i dont really have the time and energy to do it, especially knowing that server admin can be very complicated. from choosing the right operating system to user permissions, everything has to be done through either command line or a series of menus that take one entire book or hours of training video to find.

until of course, one day i have the time and energy to do it. at first its just starts with me looking on an online store for used 1l-size computers to be used as a server. theere are plenty of them in the market of course, sold for like a couple marks (around US$40) to the high end ones that sold 90-100 marks (around US$100). but i dont want that !!11!!, so instead, i ends up using the very skeleton of a laptop that you see above for the picture.

Why?

Generally? because this toot by Veronica from Veronica Explains says it well in her toot

and at the same time, because i've always been about these kind of things, i like doing things hand-crafted and complicated. its just something that i find quite restful and tranquil, even as i write this post, i still find myself look back at times when i actually just enjoying my time doing something on my computer, not necessarily productive, sometimes it has to do with art, sometimes it has to do with motion, sometimes its just a little writing like this.

but having all of that and nowhere to put them away is something that i have a problem with. such that i wish i had a way to keep them away somewhere. but that's not even the only point of me having this.

another one is media persevation. because too many media has lost through time. and my hunch is that a lot more will be. YouTube will not be online forever. so is netflix, if anything Netflix is one of the largest sinner in terms of media persevation. if it didn't go viral as soon as the first teaser runs, they will pull it out just after one season, that's how greedy they are about viewership and profit, largest sinner, but only by a small margin compared to Disney, Paramount, Comcast, and more.

and that's why, i want to be able to run my own server, just in case if one day i have to do it myself to serve my own community, in real life, or in cyberspace.

Where do we even start...

Well, the OS of course, after all there is a lot of option out there, paid and free, with support or wild wests. i decided to just work with something familiar with me — Debian. downloaded the net-install and choose everything default with kde plasma, and web and ssh server. simply because its familiar to me. i still need a bazilion of tutorials though. I'm not that literate towards server administrations after all.

of course before even deciding the OS, how are you going to set your hard drive up, is the OS going to be on the same place as the content - which is NOT advised at all. but for home server its kind of fine. and also do you have any external storage that needs to be accessible in SMB, its mostly having to do with /etc/fstab mounting which depends on what kind of disk format that you use, mostly its flags and such, although in this article i will not elaborate as for me this is just my journal entry about doing things and making stuff~

from there its a normal install... except when it wasn't

It gone wrong...

I think it was about two days after i finished the initial setup, where i manage to get smb and jellyfin works, i had a problem with SSH afterwards, for some reason it keeps refusing my ssh connection from my main laptop. so, being lazy to analyse... and have tried various ways to see if its the firewall - which probably is the actual culprit. but i'm too bothered to deal with it and just reinstalled the entire thing... twice...

in the end, until today i haven't actually configured it yet, if anything, haven't configured it and have no time or energy to do it. but a little spoiler ahead. i'm getting a new device that have nothing to do with any of these server stuff, but it will probably make me in need to either program or ~~steal~~ implement some gallery codes. hopefully i can just use iframe just like this applet you are reading this blog, or basically my entire website if i can say so myself.

In any case...

Servers are fun, i had a blast last week when i realised i can actually build my own video server, with farmers and tracktors. and even set up a way to be able to remotely send files as a backup. probably also works with some automation to do that every night. but i haven't yet implemented it before it breaks down, as per usual. that only means i have to do it again sooner or later Orz.

Either way, thanks for reading, and i will see you again on another post.

Yours Truly,
Amelia Yukihana Elfenlied
15th of August 2024.