Basic Intro

Posted by HyperLithium

May 1, 2009

homeserver Here in part 4 we have gone from learning about why we want a server, how we are going to go about getting a server, building a server, and are now setting up the software for our server. A little bit of a journey for some but well worth it. As a matter of fact, Telos in our user forums, has already setup his own server and has reported Windows Home Server as “Rocking.” So, the bottom line here is, if you want a server that rocks in your house just keep on reading.

Install
To be honest, I almost was going to skip this because it is the easiest Windows install I’ve ever done. If you have installed XP, Windows 2000, or any Windows Server 2000 or newer this install is cake. Let me give you a rundown though…

Set your PC to boot from a CDROM and put your disk in. This can be done in the BIOS or sometimes by hitting F10 or F12 at startup
Once the install starts Windows Home Server will load drivers and read your hardware
As long as WHS can find at least a 65GB HDD attached you can then select “New Installation”
There will be a prompt informing you that ALL drives it finds will be formatted
WHS will run through the install
Select a name for your server. I advise something simple and easy to type (mine is “Hera”)
Home Server will wrap up the install with a reboot then prompt for a password (use something strong)
Server will reboot and done on that part

Networking
Some people might have problems after their initial install so I want to slip in some basic networking and troubleshooting. First, most home networks are of the 192.168.1.x or 192.168.0.x variety with the former being more common. Usually your router will automatically assign itself to 192.168.1.1 and then hand out IP addresses via DHCP to computers that are connected. So, your first computer might have an IP of 192.168.1.100 and your second 192.168.1.101. DHCP scopes vary by default but many will start at 100 and go up. The bottom line is that your computers all need to have the same scheme to talk to each other. So, if you have a laptop that has an IP assigned to it manually and does not match the spec of your network it will have to be changed. For most people, no changes are needed as most home routers will automatically know exactly what to do with a new computer.

A simple test to see if two computers should be able to “talk to” each other is the ping test (this is all relating to computers on a local network and NOT over theinternet). In Windows we can do this by clicking Start –> Run –> Type “cmd” and hit enter. At the prompt type in “ping 192.168.1.100″ where the 192.168.1.100 is the IP of the computer you want to talk to. If you are unsure of what that IP might be that is easy to get as well. On the computer you need to get the IP information of do Start –> Run –> type in “cmd” and hit Enter. Now, we will use IPConfig to show information about the computers networking. Type in “ipconfig /all” and there should be information relating to your connection. IP Address, Subnet Mask, Default Gateway, etc should all be listed. If none of those things are filled in check your cabling. After the cabling make sure you adapter is not disable in Windows Networking (Start –> Control Panel –> Network). Should all of those be okay you might need to get a newIP from your router. Start –> Run –> Type “cmd” and hit enter. Now, type in “ipconfig /release” and wait for the command to complete. Follow that with “ipconfig /renew” and hopefully there is now an IP assigned.

These are very basic techniques and I don’t want to spend much more time in this article aside from the above. We are always more than willingly to help anyone out with more advanced or weird conundrums in our forums so please feel free to ask.

More important is the Windows side of things. I would advise everyone to check the workgroup on each of their computers. If your Server is on the Workgroup “Serenity” then your computers should be as well. Changing a Workgroup in Windows XP is very simple. Start –> Control Panel –> System –> Computer Name –> “Change” button. Change the Workgroup to match, reboot, and you’re golden. Repeat this on all of your computers (followed with Reboot, of course).

Home Server Connector
On whatever computer you will be managing the server from you will need to install the Home Server Connector. This is a small piece of software that allows direct control of the server with a “Console” interface. No, not a console like Linux has but a simple, yet powerful, GUI interface. For me, this was a separate disk and a 5 minute (if that) install. If you do not have a separate CD I believe you can simply put the Windows Home Server disk into your PC and select “Home Server Connector” after theautorun screen comes up.

Once that is complete and you initially login the server via your new console there will be a backup prompt. This is the Home Server’s automated system backup which is a great feature. It will automatically detect compatible computers on your network and ask to back them up. There will be a wizard that will allow you to choose what exactly to backup.

Windows Home Server Console
Now it’s time to get acquainted with your Home Server Console. Here we can see what the basic console looks like when logged in.

console1

This is the first screen that will be seen that shows the status of the computers on your network. Right now, I am not backing up “GodzillaII.”

One of the first thing we should be doing is adding users so let’s get on that. Click on the “User Accounts” tab and click “Add.” This gives us some options here. First, fill in the First and Last name fields and then the Logon Name. At the bottom we have the option to turn on remote access to Shared Folders, Home Computers, both, or leave the access at none. Only you can decide what is best for your user names but I would advise to not freely hand out access.

cnosole2

When picking out a username for yourself it is wise to match it to whatever your username is on your other computers. So, if on your laptop your name is “Superman” you should make the LOGON name for your main user account “Superman.” Yes, it can work either way but if you have synchronous user names and passwords there isn’t a need to login each time.

Once you have set a password for this account it is time to setup access to shared folders. Home server makes this easy to do giving three levels of access per share. “Full,” “Read,” and “None.” These are pretty self explanatory but “Full” is basically equivalent to “Write” access or allowing the creation and removal of files. Think twice about this. If your Xbox or other device uses a “username” to login to your server and it really is only streaming just allow “Read” access to warrant a good security practice. The wizard will finish with a status screen to tell you everything was done successfully.

Shared Folders
By default Home Server will try to share out Videos, Software, Recorded TV, Photos, Music, and Public. This makes these folders accessible on the network. If you wanted to add a folder to the list like “Work Documents” click “+Add” at the top and go through the wizard.

console3

Notice the “Enable Folder Duplication” option. For pretty much all of your folders this is something you want checked. Folder Duplication is the fault tolerance built into Windows Home Server that will allow for one drive to go down and your data to still be safe. If you are currently only using one HDD then this will not be an option. This wizard will then allow you to pick out access levels for your users and wrap up with a summary and location.

console4

Leading us into How to Access your Files!
I’m only going to do this for the LOCAL network at this time and will talk more about the remote access in the final piece of this puzzle. So, now that you have setup your shares you need to get to them. There are a bunch of ways to do this!

1. When you installed your Windows Home Connector it made a shortcut on your desktop the the shared folders. Simply double click this shortcut and all of the shares should show up.

2. Your server is available via DNS (by name) so if you’re in a file explorer it’s possible to just type in “\\name” or for me “\\Hera” You will get the same result if you do this from Start –> Run.

3. To make things a little bit easier you can map network drives. I like to do this with some data but not all. This makes your network drive (shared folder) appear as a lettered drive to Windows. To do this open a file explorer (Windows Key + E) then hit Tools –> Map Network Drive. Pick out a drive letter you want to use and here you can type in the location by hand like “\\Hera\music” or browse to the folder. When you browse you are going to want to go to “Entire Network” –> “Microsoft Windows Network” –> “Workgroup Name” –> “Server Name” –> “Folder.” Also, be sure to reconnect at logon!

map

Basic Storage Information
The last part we will go over here is the Server Storage menu. Simply click on the “Server Storage” link to bring up information about your hard drives. This is very handy to see how your drives are doing and how much space your server is using.

console5

Here we can quickly see the amount of space the shared folders are taking, duplication, PC Backups, and everything else including free space. This also shows your drives Health status, their make, and total capacities. There is more information to be had with an add-on but I will show everyone that next week.

Next Week!
That wraps up this weeks article. Next week we will be covering Remote Access, Add-ons, using Remote Desktop to Access your server, and some other more advanced topics. For now, you should have a very usable server environment!

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