Setting up a home server

daniel.m.tripp · January 28, 2024, 9:06am

I can vouch for that name (I have a bunch of Tripp branded USB to PS/2 adaptors - they’re the best! )

Sheila_Flanagan · February 29, 2024, 5:41pm

Before I finalize installing items and setting up the home server, currently on Fedora 39 workstation, I have a question.

I read an article today on why choose the server version over the desktop version and had not thought about one thing: updates and upgrades.

On desktops, with so many open apps/windows on various virtual desktops, it is a pain to reboot, but certainly not prohibitive.

I see forums where people talk about rebooting every few months. Really? I had just checked on seeing if I could run everything for the server in terminal, and needing to know when services need restarting or system needs a reboot is a key point. Cockpit does that for me whether I use Fedora sever or desktop OS.

So on a home server, is it the prevailing theory that you do not upgrade or reboot often? Because I certainly get notified in Cockpit of reboots at least 1-2x weekly on the current desktop OS.

Is that a real benefit of using a server version? Upgrades and updates requiring rebooting are minimal?

Just don’t want to have to redo everything later and find out I could have used a server OS and had less interactive management required than a desktop OS.

Thanks,
Sheila

nevj · February 29, 2024, 10:19pm

I think if you want stability and infrequent updates, then a Debian based fixed release distro probably makes a better home server than either Fedora or a preconfigured Server OS.
Things like TrueNAS will be good, but may also be more restrictive than a genersl purpose Linux .
Lets see what @daniel.m.tripp thinks

Sheila_Flanagan · February 29, 2024, 10:23pm

Yeah, that was part of the conversation: that people stay on Debian to avoid upgrades and frequent updates?

I’m okay with any Linux on the server (well except Arch…lol) but if not having to reboot 2-3x a week is what you get with a server OS vs desktop OS, I’ll just switch now.

Thanks,
Sheila

nevj · February 29, 2024, 10:34pm

You dont have to accept updates as frequently as they are available.
Any fixed release distro can be frozen. I once ran Debian 8 for 3 years without an update. It was stable.
I dont know what the update policy of a server OS is, but you can ignore it and set your own in either a server OS or in any fixed release Linux. The only thing to avoid is rolling release distros… you dont want to be compiling Gentoo every week in a server.

pdecker · February 29, 2024, 10:46pm

I’m a fan of Ubuntu. You can install Ubuntu server without any desktop environment and manage it using Cockpit.

Here is a video showing how to configure automatic updates:

He demonstrates on a desktop, but it would work the same on a server with no desktop environment.

Sheila_Flanagan · February 29, 2024, 11:02pm

Pros of Ubuntu over Fedora? Updates/releases are longer? I use Cockpit now, but it being my first headless OS, I was skeptical I could manage everything from terminal and Cockpit, so I removed Fedora server and installed workstation 39. Now that I have been doing it for a few weeks, it’s a piece of cake.

But I do use No Machine if I need something that’s quicker with GUI (like downloading tons of stuff from cloud, etc.). Couldn’t do that headless, but am no longer using that cloud anyway. Am going to attempt rclone with Proton Drive (since it’s included in my mail package).

But guess I am in the camp that believes updates (not upgrades) need to be implemented as soon as delivered to the system.

Thoughts?

Sheila

pdecker · February 29, 2024, 11:53pm

One of the things demonstrated in the video is how you can configure it to only apply security updates and not upgrades. It could also do upgrades if you wanted, but it seems reasonable that for an automatic update you may want to apply just security updates.

Fedora may also have a similar automatic method too. I’m not sure of that.

As far as downloading things on a headless machine, you should be able to download it using another computer on the network and copy it there. Or find the link to download it, then ssh to the server and “wget” it from there.

Always options.

I’m sure Fedora workstation will do the job just fine. Maybe there will be a few extra updates due to the extra packages required by the desktop environment. Hopefully that isn’t a big deal. You could always remove the desktop environment if it becomes a problem.

Sheila_Flanagan · March 1, 2024, 11:18am

I did not even know that was an option. I thought you would need to reinstall an OS without desktop.

Cockpit has that option to enable automatic updates, yet I was hesitant to do it. But it still requires rebooting a lot, even when I update myself in terminal (there is an option to update from its GUI).

But it occurred to me, why does Pop OS seldom say to reboot? LM & Fedora will alert when system needs rebooting and Cockpit alerts if system requires reboot or when some services need restarting.

Well, I think for now, I will just keep it as it is and continue getting the self-hosted items set up.

Thanks,
Sheila

EDIT: Wow, while typing this reply, I was updating Pop and as soon as I finished, an alert appeared, “Please restart your system to finalize updates” LOL.

nevj · March 1, 2024, 12:10pm

It is mostly daemons needing to be restarted because they have had updates.

daniel.m.tripp · March 1, 2024, 1:34pm

Not necessarily - e.g. Debian (Raspbian) 11 and 12 - will restart daemons as necessary - but suggest a reboot anyway… 9/10 (reboot suggestion) that will mean there was a kernel update…

Daemon updates don’t need a reboot…
Kernel updates generally need do need a reboot… Apparently “live-kernel” in Ubuntu based distros (if you’re registered) doesn’t always need a reboot - no idea how that works, never tried it…

pdecker · March 1, 2024, 2:13pm

I applied the same updates on my Pop laptop yesterday. It was an updated kernel, 6.6.10.

I’ve never done it, but I’ve read you can.

A few years ago, on servers, I would run ‘init 6’ rather than ‘reboot’ or ‘shutdown -r now’. It does the same thing. It tells the computer to reboot and initialize at run level 6. Not sure but I thought that meant with no GUI/DE.

I just tried ‘init 6’ on my Ubuntu laptop and it did reboot, but with GUI/DE. Live and learn.

@daniel.m.tripp That’ll spoil your fun. Better not update yet.

I log all my kernel versions.

Linux dpd-pop-os 5.19.0-76051900-generic #202207312230~1663791054~22.04~28340d4 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed S x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.0.12-76060006-generic #202212290932~1671652965~22.04~452ea9d SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed D x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.0.12-76060006-generic #202212290932~1673966427~22.04~e15d5b5 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue J x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.0.12-76060006-generic #202212290932~1674139725~22.04~ca93ccf SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu J x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.1.11-76060111-generic #202302091138~1675975749~22.04~f771a7f SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu F x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.2.0-76060200-generic #202302191831~1677858327~22.04~3cea1be SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri M x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.2.0-76060200-generic #202302191831~1678319661~22.04~4d98339 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu M x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.2.6-76060206-generic #202303130630~1678808579~22.04~372c291 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue M x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.2.6-76060206-generic #202303130630~1679424972~22.04~4a8cde1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue M x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.2.6-76060206-generic #202303130630~1680814622~22.04~3850312 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu A x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.2.6-76060206-generic #202303130630~1681329778~22.04~d824cd4 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed A x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.2.6-76060206-generic #202303130630~1683753207~22.04~77c1465 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed M x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.2.6-76060206-generic #202303130630~1685473338~22.04~995127e SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue M x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.2.6-76060206-generic #202303130630~1689015125~22.04~ab2190e SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon J x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.4.6-76060406-generic #202307241739~1690928105~22.04~d567a38 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue A x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.4.6-76060406-generic #202307241739~1692717645~22.04~5597803 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue A x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.4.6-76060406-generic #202307241739~1694621917~22.04~ac5e1a8 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed S x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.4.6-76060406-generic #202307241739~1695312586~22.04~4d8f3e9 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu S x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.5.4-76060504-generic #202309191142~1695998943~22.04~070916d SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri S x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.5.6-76060506-generic #202310061235~1697396945~22.04~9283e32 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun O x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.6.6-76060606-generic #202312111032~1702306143~22.04~d28ffec SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon D x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.6.10-76060610-generic #202401051437~1704728131~22.04~24d69e2 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon J x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux 
Linux dpd-pop-os 6.6.10-76060610-generic #202401051437~1709085277~22.04~31d73d8 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed F x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

nevj · March 1, 2024, 10:34pm

Yes, Debian looks after reboot needs much better than other distros.

Funny, but I cant remember getting a reboot request from a rolling release distro? Not even when a kernel updates in Void. It just puts the new kernel there and waits for a boot.

Gentoo avoids installing new kernels… it downliads the source code and leaves it there for you to compile if you wish.