Help Starting a server?

[Sineater]

I bought a dell poweredge r610, in hopes to use it for a home server. It has no OS on it, so i dont know where to start. My goal is to have a server that can A.) Host a minecraft server, B.) Run with raid for drives, and C.) Be a storage server for home. I dont know much about this stuff, but the most important thing is the storage. I want to be able to drag and drop files via the NETWORK tab in Windows 10 file explorer. Any help would be appreciated. discord is a good form of communication for me, so mine is Sin Eater#5417. Thanks in advance! 

[Intelxeon]

open media vault, windows 10 for minecraft (youtube to activate), youtube for raid

[Jarsky]

Perhaps just use UnRAID which is very popular for doing your storage, Linus and other YouTubers have plenty of videos on it. 

Then Minecraft you could run in a VM on UnRAID with MineOS Turnkey to easily create/configure/manage 

[tatte]

This'll be surprisingly long, yet still rather general. I hoped to demonstrate it's not that complicated, but my delivery skills aren't particularly great.

 

I recommend Debian, "netinstall" image saves space and is the modern way to go. You can create bootable USB with Etcher. I prefer going with normal install (not graphical), and installing only the essentials (it asks you what bundles you want to preinstall, it'll make sense when you get there).

 

Once you have the system up and running, log in to su (type su and press enter, it'll ask your administrator password). Install sudo by entering "apt-get install sudo", once that's done, make your normal account a sudoer (this command keeps changing, if "usermod -aG sudo username" doesn't work, turn to Google). Hit CTRL+A+D and log in to your normal account.

 

For Minecraft and filesharing you'll need JDK and Samba (there's probably alternatives to Samba, but my knowledge is, in the scheme of everything, extremely narrow). With program called screen, you can keep your Minecraft running undisturbed. You'll probably also want remote access with SSH, we'll use openssh-server for that. You can install all of them with a combined command: "sudo apt-get install openssh-server screen default-jdk samba", and from there you can probably already pick up how to install additional software. I find this far easier than any graphical implementation.

 

If you want to try a web server while you're at it, just install "apache2 default-mysql-server php php-xml php-mbstring php-mysqli". Some may have changed, it's important to read what the OS is telling you. Additional setup is required, and setting up the MySQL will take particular care, so be prepared to hit Google (start with entering "mysql_secure_installation").

 

I suggest you start moving to your main PC now. You can find the local IP of your server with "ip address show" (there's almost certainly a better way, but I haven't bothered). Get Putty or Putty Tray (latter has some nice candy), enter the IP and connect.

 

Once all that's done, create a new folder for your Minecraft server by entering "mkdir foldername", you can browse the directories with "cd foldername", "cd /path/to/somewhere", and "cd .." to go up a folder. It's very efficient once you get used to it. You have a home directory, and I suggest you use it for stuff like Minecraft servers (/home/username/minecraft). To remove folders use "rm - r foldername", and to move files or folders, you can use "mv /thing/that/moves /place/it/moves/to".

 

Once you're in the right folder, enter "screen" so your server won't close once you log out. To download Minecraft, get the newest file from Mojang ("copy link address") and download it using wget (for e.g. "wget https://site.tld/somecan.jar"), once that's done just follow Minecraft's instructions. After it has created the eula.txt and prompts you to edit it, you can use "nano eula.txt", see the bottom of the screen for nano's commands. You can exit the screen with CTRL+A+D, and you can have multiple screens running at the same time (albeit changing between them isn't very convenient IMO, maybe I'm doing it wrong).

 

I haven't used Samba in a while, and I frankly prefer just using SFTP so I can't come up with any of the steps off my head. It will however get you where you can just use the normal Windows Explorer and browse the server like it's local storage. I have this wiki in my notes.

 

Finally, you can keep the server up to date with "sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade". Choosing linux for your server will be by far less effort and much more stable in the long run. Going with everyday Windows might be tempting for its familiarity, and it'll probably do the job, but the chances of it biting you in the behind are alarmingly good.