Ubuntu desktop as a nas server

I had a spare Desktop in my basement with Ubuntu installed on it. So had, in past added a spare hard drive to it.So I decided to use it as my own Nas server. Use it to back up pictures, mp3s etc.

Here's a list of steps that I had to follow in order to finally set it up:


Step 1: Upgraded ubuntu to 10.4.

Step 2: By default ubuntu will be configured with DHCP. That's no good. Got to fix he ip address so the network drive mounts do not break everytime the server starts up.

• The easiest way to do this is to edit /etc/network/interfaces (don't mess with the gui it was kinda flaky).

--------------------------------
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.1.100
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.1.0
        broadcast 192.168.1.255
        gateway 192.168.1.1
-----------------------------------

• edit /etc/resolv.conf. Add your DNS name servers here. Or just add 8.8.8.8 ( gooogle's free dns service)
• now just restart networking: /etc/init.d/networking restart ( or sudo service networking restart)
• >ifconfig should now tell you that the ipaddress has changed. ping google.com to make sure you are up and running. 

Step 3:  Install samba.

• The best resource that I found was this : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202605.
• Note that in the link above the setting "guest = ok". This will allow any user to access your samba share. It should be set to no.
• Make sure that you set "security = user"  and "users = winuser, otheruser" . This will restrict the access to users who have password.

Step 4: Map network drive in a windows machine.

• You might have to change the windows firewall setting for it to be able to connect to your shared network via smb.
• Use map network drive option in Windows explorer to map your machine. Use the following for folder:

//192.168.1.100/media/

• Click on the "Connect using a different user name". link. Enter usename and password.
  

Date in java difference anyone ?

Turns out it not simple function call to get the difference between two dates and display the result is a nicely formatted output. I ended up doing this (With liberal help from google )

import java.util.*; import java.text.*; public class Test1 { private static String getDateDifference(String format, Date d1, Date d2 ){ long dl1 = d1.getTime(); long dl2 = d2.getTime(); long sec2Millisec = 1000; long minute2Millisec = sec2Millisec*60; long hour2Millisec = minute2Millisec*60; long day2Millisec = hour2Millisec*24; long diff = (dl2-dl1); long days = (diff)/(day2Millisec); diff = diff%day2Millisec; long hours = (diff)/(hour2Millisec); diff = diff%hour2Millisec; long mins = (diff)/(minute2Millisec); diff = diff%minute2Millisec; long secs = diff/sec2Millisec ; return String.format( format, days, hours, mins, secs); } public static void main(String[] args){ try { Date d1 = new Date(); Date d2 = new Date(d1.getTime() + 1113660*1000); System.out.println (Test1.getDateDifference(" %d days, %d hours, %d mins, %d secs", d1, d2)); }catch (Exception e){ System.out.println("err = " + e); e.printStackTrace(); } } }