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Old 03-27-2006, 09:56 PM   #1
NetRAVEN5000
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Setting up Compaq file server


I'm setting up an old Compaq as a file server. I've got it all set up with "webmin" now and stuff, and now I've got a couple questions.

1. When trying to access my password-protected shared folder, I get a password prompt. Then I type in my password and a little while later I get another password prompt. Then I type in my password and a little while later I get another password prompt. etc, etc. I'm using Konqueror to browse the share - is the problem with Konqueror or my Samba configuration?

2. The server's not fast at all - it's a 200MHz "Pentium Overdrive". Anyone know of any good fast webmin themes that can help me decrease the load on the server?

3. Is there a way I can configure and compile a kernel for one machine, on another machine? I want to compile a new kernel for the old Compaq, but I want to do it on a faster machine.

4. In Windows many motherboards have an overclocking utility. But this Compaq's BIOS doesn't let me go in to change (or even view) settings. Are there any Linux overclocking utilities I can use?

(For anyone wondering why I'm going to put up with such a painfully slow server. . . it's mostly just going to be used for small documents and such.)
 
Old 03-28-2006, 02:55 PM   #2
shorun
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NetRAVEN5000
I'm setting up an old Compaq as a file server. I've got it all set up with "webmin" now and stuff, and now I've got a couple questions.

1. When trying to access my password-protected shared folder, I get a password prompt. Then I type in my password and a little while later I get another password prompt. Then I type in my password and a little while later I get another password prompt. etc, etc. I'm using Konqueror to browse the share - is the problem with Konqueror or my Samba configuration?

2. The server's not fast at all - it's a 200MHz "Pentium Overdrive". Anyone know of any good fast webmin themes that can help me decrease the load on the server?

3. Is there a way I can configure and compile a kernel for one machine, on another machine? I want to compile a new kernel for the old Compaq, but I want to do it on a faster machine.

4. In Windows many motherboards have an overclocking utility. But this Compaq's BIOS doesn't let me go in to change (or even view) settings. Are there any Linux overclocking utilities I can use?

(For anyone wondering why I'm going to put up with such a painfully slow server. . . it's mostly just going to be used for small documents and such.)
1. most likely samba on the server

2. you can try to unmark those options you are not going to use in webmin, so they simply won't need to load.

3. i don't think so

4. don't overclock with a utility, best don't overclock. try turning off every little thing you don't need on
the server, but don't overclock it. i've noticed it really doesn't do any good...
 
Old 03-28-2006, 05:42 PM   #3
NetRAVEN5000
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shorun
2. you can try to unmark those options you are not going to use in webmin, so they simply won't need to load.
Well thanks but I meant like a text-only theme that minimizes server use - a lot of them have pictures that increase the amount of server use.
Quote:
3. i don't think so
I'm pretty sure you can somehow. RPM-based distros use RPMs to upgrade the kernel, and I'm pretty sure they don't recompile a new kernel - I think they unpackage a pre-made kernel.
Quote:
4. don't overclock with a utility, best don't overclock. try turning off every little thing you don't need on the server, but don't overclock it. i've noticed it really doesn't do any good...
Overclocking a new PC doesn't give a noticeable speed increase. But I'd think it would on a real old machine where the processor speed is really one of the biggest things slowing you down. When I have more time later in the year - and once I get the thing to actually work as a Samba fileserver - I'll start taking things off, too, to ensure that I have as much processing power as possible for serving files.
 
Old 03-28-2006, 06:02 PM   #4
thorn168
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I don't think your problem is that the processor is too slow but that the system bus is too slow. Your PCI bus is probably only 33/mbs and depending on the amount of ram on your machine you are slowing down in the swap file process.

My suggestion is to not connect to webmin locally on the server but to connect to webmin remotely from another machine. That should improve the performance of your administration tasks on the server.

Also if this is a Samba only machine, you can try using SWAT instead of Webmin to administer the server.
 
Old 03-28-2006, 07:40 PM   #5
NetRAVEN5000
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thorn168
I don't think your problem is that the processor is too slow but that the system bus is too slow. Your PCI bus is probably only 33/mbs and depending on the amount of ram on your machine you are slowing down in the swap file process.
It's got 128MB RAM, and according to Webmin it's only using 20MB or so - it's not even touching the swap space. And having a 200MHz processor certainly doesn't help as far as speed.
Quote:
My suggestion is to not connect to webmin locally on the server but to connect to webmin remotely from another machine.
That's what I'm doing. In fact, it seems like Webmin and links don't get along too well, and to save drive space I didn't put KDE or GNOME on there (the root drive is only like 2GB - I wanted to save the 20GB drive for the network storage).
Quote:
Also if this is a Samba only machine, you can try using SWAT instead of Webmin to administer the server.
There's other features of Webmin I like too such as user administration, remote command execution to do upgrades, uploading/downloading files, being able to see how much memory is in use and what programs are running, etc.

It'll help when I recompile my kernel with only the features I need. Right now I'm just using Slackware's standard 2.4 kernel, and it's probably loading modules for a few devices which is slower than having them built directly into the kernel.

My biggest problem right now is figuring out why I can't connect to my Samba shares. That's what's really important.

Also, I noticed that Webmin's "Disk and Network Filesystems" tool has an option for "Trade off space for speed?" for my ReiserFS partitions. . . what does this mean - will it access files quicker if I use this option?

Last edited by NetRAVEN5000; 03-28-2006 at 10:00 PM.
 
  


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