NaQ's Complete Setup Guide for Linux Seedboxes (Fedora Core/CentOS/Debian/Ubuntu)

Well i've done some test and a complete reinstall of my server with fedora 6 and here are my results ^^

- Disable SELinux
"restart" doesn't work with fedora, it's the command "reboot"

- yum install flash-plugin
As you said, with the repository, it works ^^

- Change FTP & SSH Ports
the directory is "/etc/ssh/sshd_config" and not "/etc/sshd/sshd_config"

- Setup the FTP Server (VSFTPD)
"local_enable=YES" is already with a value
You should split the changes and the additions so that we don't have to search for the existence of each line


And the best for the end :
- truecrypt with fedora 6 without modifying the kernel ^^

All these steps required to be logged as root :

First install the dependencies

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yum install fuse-libs
wget download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/development/i386/os/Packages/libstdc++-4.3.0-0.13.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh libstdc++-4.3.0-0.13.i386.rpm --replacefiles

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Then, get the bin of truecrypt 5

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wget http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads/t...use-x86.tar.gz
tar xfs truecrypt-5.0a-opensuse-x86.tar.gz
rpm2cpio truecrypt-5.0a/truecrypt-5.0a-0.i586.rpm | cpio -idmv

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Then copy the bin in the bin directory

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cp usr/bin/truecrypt /bin/

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And at the end, clean up a little

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rm -rf truecrypt*
rm -rf libstdc*
rm -rf usr

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You can execute truecrypt as any user just by typping "truecrypt" ^^

Next step : testing the firewall and create some very simple script to launch the main program wwhen the server reboot (vncserver for the user that needs it, utorrent, truecrypt...)

Of course you can add these info into your guide and i think when it will be done, i will make a pdf of it to keep it ^^

Thanks a lot goodkat & dieudesorcs! I've updated the mistakes (reboot & /etc/ssh/sshd_config).

Some news :

Use of truecrypt with Fedora 6
(the following required the installation previously describe)

1) Connect to the server using vnc
2) Login as root (su or by login to a vncserver lauched by root)
3) launch truecrypt

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# truecrypt

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The truecrypt window opens

4) Click on create a volume
5) Follow the wizard and fill the form
5.a) The volume must standard (hidden isn't supported by the os)
5.b) Volume location : we are going to use a file. So select a path and chose a name for the file (the truecrypt extension is ".tc", but you can chose whatever you want)
5.c) Size : chose the size of the file (the file will be created with this size and so you encrypted directory will have this size)
5.d) Chose the encryption and hash algo (i'm still testing them to find out which have good speed)
5.e) fill the password of your encrypted volume
5.f) filesystem : chose none : we will create it later
5.g) move your mouse to create random data and click on format.

6) When your volume is created, mount it
6.a) Click on "select file..." and select your volume
6.b) click on mount
6.c) fill the volume's password
6.d) click on "Option >"
6.e) under file system, check "do not mount"

7) the volume should appear mounted on a slot. Select it and look at the volume properties : "virtual device" show where the volume is mounted (for me it's "/dev/loop0")

8) we are now going to create the file system:

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# mkfs.ext3 /dev/loop0

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9) on the truecrypt window, unmount the volume

10) create the directory where you want the volume mounted

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# mkdir /home/mounted_volume

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11) Mount the volume using the truecrypt window (and putting the directory's path into the option) or by command line:

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# truecrypt /dev/loop0 /home/mounted_volume

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I'm testing this because i've some problems when i dowload a torrent into the encrypted volume, i get a disk overloaded when i'm at 3-3.5MB/s and then the speed is capped at 2.5MB/s and when i download into a standard directory, i get the disk overloaded at 8.5MB/s without any cap

So i'm still investingating this and if there is any consequences on the upload speed

I've started messing with Truecrypt on CentOS 5. Your instructions helped a lot. It's good that we don't have to mess with the kernel with Truecrypt 5 :). I'm experiencing the same speed issue you have. It appears bittorrent disk writes to a truecrypt volume is terribly slow, you can view this under the speed tab/disk statistics. When your cache is full is when everything slows down (disk overloaded). I don't think changing the encryption/hash will improve the situation, since the CPU usage I see for truecrypt stays under 10% at all time during downloads.

If there's no solution for this issue, truecrypt isn't worth using. Or maybe, we can save to the normal HD first, then move the finished downloads to the truecrypt volume automatically using the feature in utorrent. I've tested normal disk reads and writes to a truecrypt volume, and the speed is fine. I also haven't test the upload speed...

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Originally Posted by naq

I've started messing with Truecrypt on CentOS 5. Your instructions helped a lot. It's good that we don't have to mess with the kernel with Truecrypt 5 :). I'm experiencing the same speed issue you have. It appears bittorrent disk writes to a truecrypt volume is terribly slow, you can view this under the speed tab/disk statistics. When your cache is full is when everything slows down (disk overloaded). I don't think changing the encryption/hash will improve the situation, since the CPU usage I see for truecrypt stays under 10% at all time during downloads.

If there's no solution for this issue, truecrypt isn't worth using. Or maybe, we can save to the normal HD first, then move the finished downloads to the truecrypt volume automatically using the feature in utorrent. I've tested normal disk reads and writes to a truecrypt volume, and the speed is fine. I also haven't test the upload speed...

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It is quite logical it's slower since it has to be encrypted! Just checked under windows if you make a new volume in truecrypt you can benchmark all encryption options! Under encryption options! Don't know if it is available under linux! One single encryption technique is faster as 2 or 3 simultaneously...
Since you're reading and writing constantly using a bittorrent client this will pretty much kill harddisk performance!
I don't have time to test it on my linux testbox...:frusty:

I don't see the benchmark option anywhere in the Linux version. From what I read, it's the encryption algorithms (AES, Serpent, Twofish) that affect the disk's speed, not the hash algorithms (that's for the password). I've tried AES and Twofish, as well as the ext2 and ext3 formats, all with the same bad result. It's just the way the bittorrent protocol works... the writing to disk performance is terrible. The only way this is acceptable is if you have at least 2GB of RAM for cache, and the fastest HD available.

Edit: ok, I didn't test normal copy/move files properly, this is also slow too. Speed is only fast in the beginning, which I suspect due to files being moved to memory until it's full, then the writing to truecrypt is slow... I don't think this is right. So I will test first what the speed is under Windows, and will try creating a truecrypt partition instead.

well... i have the exact same conclusions ^^

I tried twofish and AES with the three hash algo and compared them to an non encrypted volume.
For these tests, i used utorrent with a torrent that can max my bandwith and monitor the disk and the cache using the disk

tab of the torrent in utorrent (disk statistics) that allows to see the use of the disk and of the cache)
- With are encrypted volume, the speeds are great until the cache is full (the download speeds are slightly inferior to the

dowload speed with a non encrypted volume (1 or 2 MB/s less)). But when the cache is full, the download speeds drop and stay

between 1MB/s and 2.5MB/s.
- With a non encrypted volume, it's the same, but when the cache is full, the download speed doesn't drop so much and stay

above 5MB/s (in the worst case ^^)

So in this configuration, truecrypt is not worth it. There are 2 solutions:
- Cap the download speed and increase the cache. With a download speed capped at 3-4MB/s and a cache of at least 500MB, i can

download a 4GB file without having "disk overloaded". But i'm not interested in that solution because i need the best

download speed in order to be able to upload as soon as possible.
- download the torrent into a non encrypted volume and then automaticly move it to the encrypted volume. Only the torrents

currently being downloaded are non encrypted and the rest of them are. I tested this solution with 10 torrents and it doesn't

change the speed.

I need to test two more things:
- test upload speed with an encryted volume
- test with encrypted partitions and not with a volume


Now, some other news ^^
I add a usb flashdrive to my server. and i'm using it as swap.
First find where the usb drive is:

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# ls -l /dev/disk/by-id
# ....
# lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Mar 8 13:45 scsi-SATA_Hitachi_HDS7216_PVF904Z23YBN5N-part3 -> ../../sda3
# lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Mar 8 13:45 usb-Kingston_DataTraveler_2.0_89900000000000006CB02A9C -> ../../sdb
# lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Mar 8 13:45 usb-Kingston_DataTraveler_2.0_89900000000000006CB02A9C-part1 -> ../../sdb1

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So mine is under /dev/sdb1
- sdb is the physical drive, and sdb1 is the partition, so i need to use this one.
- my command is /dev/disk/by-id and the answer is ../../sdb1. That means two back and one forward to sdb1. So /dev/sdb1

Then we have to make it a swap disk:

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# mkswap /dev/sdb1

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And then said to the system to use as a swap :

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# swapon /dev/sdb1

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This last command adds the usb drive to the swap. But at the next boot, you will need to retype this command. Moreover, the

previous swap partition is still used and i don't want that (it's a partition of my main disk).

you need to edit /etc/fstab which contains all the file system, how they are used and mounted.

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# nano /etc/fstab

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In my case, i don't like the linux text editor (vi, nano...) so i connect with winscp (ftp client) and i edit the file with

it ^^

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# <sys.fichiers><pt de montage><type> <options> <dump> <pass>
/dev/sda1 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/sda2 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
/dev/shm /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sys /sys sysfs defaults 0 0

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If you want to delete the previous swap partition, delete the line

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/dev/sda3 swap swap defaults 0 0

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And add

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/dev/sdb1 swap swap defaults 0 0

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to automaticly use the usb drive as swap.

I tested the upload from within truecrypt, and it appeared to be fine. Note that truecrypt will use lots of CPU while uTorrent reads data. You used the "move finished downloads" in utorrent? how long does the move process takes? Because normal move/copy to truecrypt for me is slow too, but it most likely is because that my current server is too weak. On my laptop running Vista, with a truecrypt FAT volume, I get sustained 12MB/s writing a movie in RAR format to it.

I tried creating a truecrypt partition (used the partition for /home). I noticed that the format speed during the Create Wizard is significantly faster than the speed when creating a truecrypt file. But that's as far as I got, since my server froze during the mkfs process. Make sure you unmount the partition before doing this, and comment the partition out in fstab too. If the partition can't be unmount due to being busy, you'll have to restart first. I won't be able to test a truecrypt partition until next weekend though when I get a new server. In the mean time, I'll try creating a truecrypt file with FAT to see how it'll perform on this server.

Let us know if the flash drive will help with cache in utorrent, seems like a good idea. OVH offers this, right?

For the speed during moving file, i don't know the exact speed, i will test it.
Yes, I'm using the functionality of utorrent to move the files.

OVH offer a 1GB flash drive when you take a server for 6 month and 2 gb for a 1 year...

more info :
http://www.ovh.co.uk/products/flash_disks.xml

you can use it for swap, for backup....

I love this tutorial, I keep coming back and just re-reading it so that what I am actually doing sinks in.

Thanks for sharing.

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Originally Posted by dieudesorcs

For the speed during moving file, i don't know the exact speed, i will test it.
Yes, I'm using the functionality of utorrent to move the files.

OVH offer a 1GB flash drive when you take a server for 6 month and 2 gb for a 1 year...

more info :
http://www.ovh.co.uk/products/flash_disks.xml

you can use it for swap, for backup....

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2GB freebie ordered :) thanks