I have been on and off this forum for the last few weeks gathering info, but in the last 2-4 days this site has really saved me.
Here is the situation; I run a web based business specializing in logos and graphics. Copies of all my files are on one of the PCs on my LAN in the US. My LAN consists of Comcast as the ISP, linksys cable modem, 2 linksys WRT65G routers, 6 PCs (4 Win, 1 Fedora, 1 Mac), Linksys PAP2 VIOP box, and a ReplayTV. I am currently on vacation in S. Africa. A webhost that hosted part of my site went down / crashed. They did not appropriately back up so close to all my graphic files got deleted. I had customers with pending orders and was losing out on business since the site was partially down.
On vacation I carried my Laptop and my VIOP box and a spare netgear router I always had lying around. I did NOT carry the copies of the files I needed (about 600 MB in graphic files) I was set up a quick local LAN here using a 512 K DSL connection. The VIOP worked flawlessly and I was able to call my customers and advise them of the delays with their orders.
Several weeks before leaving for vacation, I flashed both WRT54G routers with HyperWRT firmware for 2 main reasons.
- Static DHCP so that my Replaytv and PCs always get the same LAN IP based on their MAC addys. I use a show sharing service for my replay that requires it maintains a specific LAN IP for port forwarding
- Setting up WDS so that I can get wired PCs / devices online without running long cables across my house in the following set up
“Cable Modem---WRT54G(A) (((--WDS+WEP--))) WRT54G(B) “
I set up my primary router with Dynamic DNS using a free account on
www.dyndns.com and set up remote management on the router.
Here is how the Fedora box fits in; I left my fedora machine running as well as the routing eqpt and a win server that hosted my graphic files. I had ssh running on the fedora machine. I remote logged into my router and port forwarded my ssh port to the fedora machine. Once I have ssh access to the machine I was able to
- mount drives and folders on the win machine with all my files I needed
- copy all files to the fedora machine that I would need to dump onto my new web server
- run a shell script to convert close to 1000 files totaling 600 megs from psd (photoshop) to zip using the best compression.
- set up VNCserver for gui access to the fedora machine
- set up squid to create a proxy that I could tunnel my traffic to bypassing the local ISPs blocked ports in S. Africa
- secured my ssh access my editing my ‘host.allow’ file to restrict access based on IP range for ssh access.
- use yum to install a GUI based ftp client on the fedora machine.
I had the option of setting up an Ftp server on the fedora machine then downloading the files 600 + Meg to me here in S. Africa then uploading them to the new webserver. This would not work well for 2 main reasons
- slow transfer speeds
- the local ISP has a monthly bandwidth cap (cost adjustable) of 3 GB. Being close to the end of the month only 400 MB was left in bandwidth usage and I had to move 1.2 GB (600 down and 600 up) which would not work
With the VNC service running, I was able to use tight VNC to ftp the files directly to the webhost from my local LAN in the US. This was significantly faster and saved on valuable bandwidth. The VNC interface was real slow, a lot of click and wait for a response, but it worked flawlessly.
I was able to get my site back up and running in about 36 hours and have since caught up with orders and such.
Thanks to this forum and its members I was able to get all the info I needed on how to set up the various services on the fedora machine. This literally saved my skin.
Feel free to ask any questions about my overall set up. I will be sure to help where I can. I apologize for the long post. Could not help it tho….had to say thanks …
Regards
Linear Mode
