Open Media Vault – Set Up

Open Media Vault

Set Up

So we need to log into the system, remember the IP address from before. Enter the IP address from the installation, in this case http://10.0.0.1/ into your browser of choice. You should now see the log in screen for Open Media Vault. I suggest that you change your password straight away – here’s a guide from OMV Wiki. I used PuTTY to connect the server which can be downloaded from here, if you plan the access the server regularly then this article maybe useful on the OMV Wiki again.

Web GUI	Terminal Log In
User: admin Password: openmediavault Connect to OMV using the web interface – Login as admin. Select menu item Access Right Management > User. Select admin from list. Click Edit button. The windows Edit user is displayed. Enter new password in field Password. Re-enter the new password in field Confirm password. Confirm changes and close window by pressing OK button.	User: root Password: openmediavault Change root password in CLI Connect to OMV using a SSH connection. Login as root. Enter command passwd Enter new password. Re-enter in new password. You changed the root password. Enter command logout, to logout from CLI.

Ok from this point on you will be making changes to your server and setting up exactly how you want it to be. I use Open Media Vault to serve video files, pictures and music to various devices in my house and if you want to see have a look at my network diagram.

If you ever forget the GUI password then log in via SSH and excute The following command is very useful if you forget the GUI logon. omv-firstaid

1. Configure Network Interface
2. Configure WebGUI – Change the port for the Web Interface (Default is 80)
3. Change WebGUI password
4. Exit

Now all the basic access is done we can move on the setting up the server. As Open Media Vault is very versatile though the core system and the variety of addon that can be downloaded.

I’ll start with the storage options then users and after that the
actual services – SMB / CIF , FTP, Transmission etc.

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Storage

Here’s overview of some of the options available.

• Physical Disks
  • Each device can have the following physical properties changed
    • Advanced Power Management
      • Disabled
      • 1 – Minimum power usage with standby (spindown)
      • 64 – Intermediate power usage with standby
      • 127 – Intermediate power usage with standby
      • 128 – Minimum power usage with out standby (no spindown)
      • 192 – Intermediate power usage with out standby
      • 254 – Maximum performance, maximum power usage
    • Automatic Acoustic Management
      • Minimum performance, Minimum acoustic output
      • Maximum performance, Maximum acoustic output
    • Spindown Time
      • 0 to 360 minutes
    • S.M.A.R.T.
      • Activate S.M.A.R.T. monitoring.
    • Write Cache
      • Enable write-cache. (This function is effective only if the hard drive supports it.)
• RAID Management
  • Create / Grow / Recover / Details / Delete
• Logical Volume Management
  • Physical Volumes / Volume Groups / Logical Volumes
• Filesystems
  • Create / Resize / Quota / Mount / Unmount / Delete
• S.M.A.R.T.
  • Settings / Devices / Scheduled tests

When I was setting up the server for the first time I had to migrate my existing LVM set up from an Ubuntu server which presented some challenges and a healthy worry that I’d lose my data but all went well and I have working Open Media Vault with 4 TB of usable data.

Filesystem

Let’s assume that you have a nice empty HDD already installed so let’s start with adding a filesystem. Navigate to Storage / Filesystem then select your HDD and select CREATE then XFS for the filesystem, it’s also good idea to LABEL the HDD so as we be storing Films and TV Episodes let’s called it Videos (original I know)

The following choices are available EXT 3 EXT 4 XFS JFS If you want to read some more on filesystems try Debian Administration here.

This will set up a basic server, if you want some back up then explore Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) and if you want to group all your disks into one large group try Logical Volume Management (LVM). I have set up my sever using LVM, it has four HDD – 2TB and 2 x 1TB which are grouped into three groups – Data, Music and Videos.

The server is left on all the time so I’ve gone for the following options …

• Advanced Power Management
  • Intermediate power usage with standby
• Automatic Acoustic Management
  • Minimum performance, Minimum acoustic output
• Spindown Time
  • 30 Minutes
• S.M.A.R.T.
  • Yes
• Write Cache
  • Yes

These options have worked well with the XBMC set up I have downstairs.

Let move on to the Users and Shared Folders.

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Users & Shared Folders

• Access Rights Management
  • Users
    • Add / Edit / Delete
  • Group
    • Add/ Edit / Delete
  • Shared Folders
  • Add / Edit / Priveleges / Delete

Users

Let’s select Access Rights Management then USERS / ADD. I’ll be using the server to provide TV Shows & Films for XBMC and providing Family Photos and Kids Vidoes for my wife’s Windows 7 laptop and Windows XP used by daughter for TV Shows & Films.

Note: If your planning to use NFS and want to make it secure set a manual UID and GID the when you set up the other device you can use the same details.

Name Comment Email Password Confirm Password Home Directory Shell Specify user ID manually UID Groups Modify Account

Once you have created some user it’s time to move onto the Shared Folders

Shared Folders

This isn’t to be confused with a SMB/CIFS shares, the folders are contains for your files which then can be used by each service. For example I have a music shared folder that is used by miniDLNA and SMB/CIFS.

Navigate to Access Rights Management / Shared Folders,

Name: (This will be name of the share with in Open Media Vault) Volume: (The Volume will one of the HDD Drive as defined in Filesystems) Permission: Administrator: read/write, Users: no access Administrator: read/write, Users: read only Everyone: read/write Comment: (Good idea to write a meanful description here) Comments

So for example I have created the following shares

• Data – Linux Distros, Windows Drivers
• Video – Ripped Films & TV
• Photo – Family Photos

At this stage you might want to look at the privileges for each of the shares.

As you can see you have the options to set the permission for the groups and users from Read/Write, Read Only or No Access.

So that’s the shared folders set up now lets move onto sharing the content with the other devices on your network.

If you are using Windows machines the let explore SMB/CIFS

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SMB/CIFS

Taken from Open Media Vault

 

• Workgroup: The workgroup the server will appear to be in when queried by clients.
• Description: The NT description field.
• Local master browser: Yes / No (Allow this server to try and become a local master browser)
• Time server:  Allow this server to advertise itself as a time server to Windows clients
• Enable:  Enable user home directories
• Browseable: Set browseable (This controls whether this share is seen in the list of available shares in a net view and in the browse list.)
• WINS support
• Enable WINS server
• Act as a WINS server.
• WINS server:  Use the specified WINS server.
• Log level:
• Null passwords:  Allow client access to accounts that have null passwords
• Use sendfile:  Use the more efficient sendfile system call for files that are exclusively oplocked (This may make more efficient use of the system CPU’s and cause Samba to be faster. Samba automatically turns this off for clients that use protocol levels lower than NT LM 0.12 and when it detects a client is Windows 9x.)
• Extra options:  Please check the manual page for more details.

So they are the options available. my settings and comments are below

• Workgroup: Make sure that this is the same as your windows machines other you may have difficulties browsing the shares
• Description:Again go for meanful description as this will be displayed against the share
• Local Master Browser: Yes – more information here
• Time Server; Yes
• HomeDirectories: Yes – A home directory for each user will be created, be careful with this as the directory is on OMV root directory under /homes/{user name} so if you save files here it will easily fill up your device and if that happen you can’t access the GUI.
• Browserable: Yes – See shares with looking through the network, No – the share is available you just need to know the name, ie. //openmediavault/films

The local master link will contain more information of the other options but that should be enough to get SAMBA working.

Lets add a share

Navigate to Shares, select add

• Name:  The name of the share.
• Comment:  This is a text field that is seen next to a share when a client queries the server.
• Shared folder:  The location of the files to share.
• Public:  If enabled then no password is required to connect to the share (Make sure the user ‘nobody’ has the required permission for the shared folder.)
• Read only:  Set read only (If this parameter is set, then users may not create or modify files in the share.)
• Browseable:  Set browseable (This controls whether this share is seen in the list of available shares in a net view and in the browse list.)
• Inherit ACLs:  Honor existing ACLs – Samba Documentation here
• This parameter can be used to ensure that if default acls exist on parent directories, they are always honored when creating a new file or subdirectory in these parent directories.
• Inherit permissions:  Enable permission inheritance (The permissions on new files and directories are normally governed by create mask and directory mask but the inherit permissions parameter overrides this. This can be particularly useful on systems with many users to allow a single share to be used flexibly by each user.)
• Enable recycle bin:  This will create a recycle bin on the share.
• Hide dot files:  This parameter controls whether files starting with a dot appear as hidden files
• Extended attributes:  Enable extended attribute support (Allow clients to attempt to store OS/2 style extended attributes on a share.)
• Store DOS attributes:  Enable store DOS attributes support (If this parameter is set, Samba attempts to first read DOS attributes (SYSTEM, HIDDEN, ARCHIVE or READ-ONLY) from a filesystem extended attribute, before mapping DOS attributes to UNIX permission bits. When set, DOS attributes will be stored onto an extended attribute in the UNIX filesystem, associated with the file or directory.)
• Hosts allow:  This option is a comma, space, or tab delimited set of hosts which are permitted to access this share. You can specify the hosts by name or IP number. Leave this field empty to use default settings.
• Hosts deny:  This option is a comma, space, or tab delimited set of host which are NOT permitted to access this share. Where the lists conflict, the allow list takes precedence. In the event that it is necessary to deny all by default, use the keyword ALL (or the netmask 0.0.0.0/0) and then explicitly specify to the hosts allow parameter those hosts that should be permitted access. Leave this field empty to use default settings.
• Extra options