Random Synapses

I have a small network set up at home, and a bunch of files I’d like to share easily without the need to keep my computer on all the time. Clearly, a file server is my solution, but there are 1001 ways to make one.

The obvious choice is to get a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. Lots of these are popping all over the market. Some are as simple as a hard drive in an external box with an Ethernet connectors, others can create redundancy over several hard drives and even run applications on their own.

Pros: they’re quiet and don’t eat up a lot of electricity.

Cons: oh boy, what a long list. The cheap ones require all computers to install some software, have limits in number of concurrent accesses and use the unreliable FAT instead of NTFS or some other file system. The more expensive ones have a severe problem with performance; RAID is incredibly slow, defining access restrictions is quirky at best, and I could go on for days.

If you want to go in detail about what’s available on the market, SmallNetBuilder.com site has an entire section dedicated to NAS.

So, about a year ago I rescued an old computer from a second hand shop. It’s a pretty decent Dell desktop, with enough juice to run a dedicated file server software, and then some. I maxed out the memory installed on it and added a fat hard drive with plenty of space. Then, I began looking around for software options. I crossed out Windows in a second, as it’s a resource hog and requires constant maintenance. I could install some decent Linux, but I dreaded customizing it for the role I had in mind. And finally, there are some specialized Linux/BSD distributions for file servers that caught my eye, all oriented towards simplicity of use and complete remote management through a friendly browser interface.

First to look at was OpenFiler, considering the reviews. All seemed nice, except it would play really well in a network with Active Directory or LDAP for managing accounts, and I really didn’t feel like tinkering with it to make it run one.

Next was FreeNAS, a BSD spin-off, which survived on this box for a few weeks. It’s weird at configuring drives and shares, and the account authentication is still problematic. Plus, I’m reading lots of posts about people losing data in the event of an upgrade. Not fun.

Now I’m downloading the recently released new version of ClarkConnect. It’s more than what I need, but I can “opt-out” on extra features. But even before I install it, the information available on it warn me that the particular Dell hardware I have may not be supported and may not work. Tut tut.

Worst case scenario, I’ll just get Ubuntu Linux (possibly Server) installed and running for what I need. At least with that one I know that I’ll have open possibilities and loads of help. But, for the sake of keeping resources low, I’ll end up fiddling with this as much as if I kept running Windows, if not more.

Looks like I’m going in circles. What solution would/did make you happy?

The first e-mail I have sent was sometimes in 1994, so I’ve been very much alive and active online for a whopping 13 years. I’ve got a fleet of e-mail addresses, a long list of forum accounts, and many logins for various online services. 9 years ago I was launching my own tentative of a site, on Tripod. Remember Tripod, Hotbot, Lycos, Netscape and all those buzzwords back then? Gosh I’m old.

One would think it had to happen sooner. Having an account hacked into, I mean. Nope. I think I defy statistics. This must be some sort of a record, to be so prolific online and only have the first intrusion today. And it wasn’t even something important — it was my 10 year old eBay account, which only saw around a dozen transactions over the years. How pathetic is that? Not even my Yahoo! account.

So here I am, talking with eBay customer support about unlocking my account, and unsure whether I should worry or laugh. I have no idea how it happened, since those principles that kept me safe so far have not been crossed. I’m thinking of an exploit on eBay’s site used to spam sellers with ads through the “Ask seller a question” option. This would make more sense than breaking my random consonnants and digits password, always changed less than a month ago. I mean, you’d probably screw up the login even if I spelled out the password to you, twice.

For the peace of mind, I just took a tour on my major accounts and gave them fresh, random passwords. The eBay account lock-out has been addressed within 3 hours. Now I think I’ll celebrate this glitch in a perfect score, the reminder that even with the best protective measures in place, mistakes do happen. It’s only natural, and it had to happen. Issue contained, damage insignificant, moving on.

Have you been hacked? How did you deal with it?