Rebuilding my home server

By Greenjam94

A long time ago, I built a computer and have since sparsely used it as a home server. The last time I reinstalled an operating system on it, I installed Ubuntu Desktop Eoan and never remembers to update the machine. This blog post will serve as a record of what I did to setup the machine again after wiping it.

Services I installed included

  • ufw
  • ssh
  • ftp
  • Minecraft
  • Samba fileshare

While attempting to install samba on the old system, apt update failed. After some brief research, the answer seems to be to overwrite the old system and install a new operating system.

I copied the minecraft server data onto an external drive and prepared for the new operating system.

Install process

  1. Go to https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop and download the latest LTS version

  2. Flash the .iso disk image to a USB drive using https://www.balena.io/etcher/

  3. Install Ubuntu following the prompts onto the server with a screen and keyboard attached

  4. Ensure the computer is using a static IP on the home network

  5. Setup SSH to allow remote connections from other computers

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openssh-server
sudo systemctl status ssh
sudo ufw allow proto tcp from 192.168.0.0/24 to any port 22
  1. Harden
sudo apt install unattended-upgrades
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

# https://linux-audit.com/audit-and-harden-your-ssh-configuration/
sudo cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/sshd_config.bak
sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config # follow above link

sudo ufw enable
  1. Mount the external hard drive and setup Samba
sudo fdisk -l #List disks
lsblk #shorter format, list disks alternative
cat /etc/passwd #to confirm uid and gid

sudo mkdir /media/folder
chown uid:gid /media/folder
sudo mount -o uid=1000,gid=1000 /dev/sdb1 /media/folder # Attach the external drive to Ubuntu filesystem

sudo apt install samba
samba --version
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
#[share-name]
#   comment = Named Samba Share
#   path = /media/folder
#   read only = no
#   browsable = yes

sudo service smbd restart

#Firewall access
sudo ufw allow proto udp from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 137
sudo ufw allow proto udp from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 138
sudo ufw allow proto tcp from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 139
sudo ufw allow proto tcp from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 445

sudo smbpasswd -a user # User has to be a linux username

\IP\share-name Enter samba creds

  1. Minecraft

Add oracle repo

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openjdk-r/ppa
sudo apt update

Get Java sudo apt install openjdk-17-jre-headless

install screen sudo apt install screen

Allow in ufw firewall

sudo ufw allow proto tcp from 192.168.0.1/24 to any port 25565
sudo ufw allow proto tcp from 192.168.0.1/24 to any port 25566
sudo ufw allow proto udp from 192.168.0.1/24 to any port 19132

Add user to organize minecraft specific operations with default settings sets up a /home/mc directory to host all

sudo adduser mc

Get the server jar latest link from minecraft https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/download/server/

wget it to the server

Start screen with a name screen -S minecraft

run the jar java -Xms4g -Xmx8g -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui Be aware of the avaialble RAM to use with this config, set a minimum and maxium that is within the system’s specs

Conclusion

I was able to rebuild my home server to run on the latest LTS version of Ubuntu. The server is hosting a Samba fileshare and minecraft servers to enjoy with family.

This server still has room to grow, a local webserver could be set up or additional services started as well.

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