Basic Help installing Turnkey NAS GRUB/Windows MBR

Thank you very much for the reply, I was a little impatient and pulled my drives and installed turnkey on the remaining USB /hardrive and it worked flawlessly. I can boot the system, and access the file manager and that is it. I am so new to linux in general, jedmeister, since I am not known for asking for help until it is way to late, hahahaha.. Is there somewhere on this site that I can find great documentation that will show me a step by step to set up my hard drives create a shared folder and allow me to access the information across my network. I have this little baby up and running now it is time to make it fly... :-) I also hope the documentation, will explain how to acess the raid etc etc.

I hope you can point me in the right direction.

many thanks

Endless

So you wish to install to the HDD and then place the HDD in the other PC? It would be a good idea to unhook the other drive(s) to reduce chances of an accident. But if you're going to open it up anyway, it may be best to plug the HDD straight into the motherboard rather than use a USB adaptor - just eliminates a possible point of problems (although it should work ok I would think).

Another idea (if you haven't already pulled the HDD out) is to just rob the CD ROM from the other PC and just plug it in temporarily.

A third idea (assuming the PC you intend to install too will boot off USB) is to convert the ISO to a bootable USB. I haven't tried it with TKL but it should work as it works fine with other versions of Linux. Use a program such as UNetbootin to set the USB up.

Hope my ramblings are of some use! Good luck :)

If so then it already has a shared folder set up. I assume you are accesing it from a Windows machine? I can't speak for other versions of Windows (although I'd assume they'd be the same), but in XP its as simple as opening a Windows Explorer window (ie My Computer) and in the address bar type

\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\

Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of your TKL Fileserver eg mine is 192.168.1.59

It will ask for a username and password, username is root and password is whatever you set it up to be when you installed. That's it! Too damn easy!

If you don't have an address bar in Windows Explorer then you will need to turn it on, can't remember exactly but I think you can enable it in Folder Options>>View or something similar - if not, then Google is your friend!

If you want to set up other users then you can do that via the web interface called Webmin. In the address bar of a network connected web browser (on a remote machine) type:

https://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:12321/

Again replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with your NAS IP. Again use the username root and the password you installed with to access it. Once in, you can add new users and then in Samba you can add shares and change share permissions. Remember though that just like in Windows, there are share permissions and file permissions you need to set both! Probably the easiest way to play with file permissions is in the Webmin File Manager click on the folder in the right pane and click the Info button. If you wish to avoid the hastle of worrying about file permissions, you can make your new users part of the root group, and use Samba permissions to control access. Although be warned, that opens up a huge security hole. It depends on where it is running and what other users will be accessing it. Obviously if you intend for it to be accessable offsite (ie over the net) then it pays to be especially vigilant when it comes to security.

Hope that gets you started. There is a little more info on the appliance page, unfortunately otherwise there isn't really any documentation so you'll have to play and see what happens! Post back if you have any other questions.

Hello jed,

Thank you for taking your time to respond to me, your responses have helped me tremendously. I have a couple of not so simple questions for you. As I move forward and start to slowly understand how this OS is set up. I have found that although the OS can see my 3 1TB hard drives. I am afraid that they are still formatted in a windows format and I do not seem to be able to find a way to mount the drives or see them. Is there a certain way I should be formatting the drives? Is there a way I can view the drive in file manager or anywhere else? Or do I need to delve into the Terminal services?  I know I might be becoming a pain in the backside with all these novice questions but. I do think that this might help others in the future as well. So I am up and running, I can access everything you posted about/above, but my issue is that I do not or cannot access the hard drives in the system.  They are configured in the bio as a raid 5. What do I do next…..  format, punt, hold my breath and spin around three times?  Tehehe..

Hopelessly lost

Endless

[edit] Actually just had a quick read of your last post again and RAID 5 is probably a great option for your setup. Whilst I don't know a lot about it and it may be a little trickier, the end result would probably be ideal if you can get that going. The below may be useful anyway (the RAID array will hopefully be seen by TKL as a single disk) and so may still work. Otherwise I'd strongly suggest posting on the Ubuntu forums (link at the bottom)

As for filesystem, assuming the HDDs will only be accessed by the NAS then a native Linux filesystem may be a good option (such as ext3 - the Ubuntu 8.04 default). FAT32 works fine also. NTFS will work too, but you need to install a driver (see below).

This forum topic (different appliance but same theory) has a little bit of basic info on setting up a new drive and then this one should help you with more specifics (its a USB HDD but theory is the same - also includes NTFS installation instructions). Hopefully thats enough to get you going, but if you need a bit more help then post back. I should have a bit of time over the weekend. 

In the meantime, if you need more guidance and you want to chase it down yourself, keep in mind that TKL is basically Ubuntu Server 8.04 (aka Hardy Heron) under the hood. You will be able to find plenty of info online, google is good, but the Ubuntu Forums are probably even better.