Debian installation on Magnia SG20

I downloaded the 180 MB ISO image for Debian 5. I created a VMware machine with

• "Other Linux with 2.6 kernel"
• 512 MB of RAM
• 1 GB IDE drive - after installation I will transfer everything to Compact Flash.
• 2 network interfaces

I booted from the ISO image and installed a basic Debian image. I accepted most defaults.

• Time zone - Pacific
• Partitioning - I created a single 1GB partition (no swap space)
• Filesystem changed from 'EXT3 journalled' to EXT2
• Use archive at osuosl.org
• "Standard" installation (I want to decide what packages to install later.)

The CF will be mounted read-only most of the time to increase its longevity. Therefore I don't want a swap space on the CF drive and I don't want journalling on the CF drive.

I am assuming there will be a CF adapter in IDE slot 0 and a 2.5" drive in IDE slot 1 The system will spin down the hard drive when it is not in use. I will do everything I can to minimize hits on this drive to prolong its lifespan.

What this server will be used for

The primary function is to implement an asterisk phone system. Beyond that I'd like to set up a web-based system for tracking volunteer hours. I have an idea that volunteers will be able to log in and out either via Web page or phone, and when they are logged in they can receive phone calls on the phone they logged in on. When they are logged out they can receive voice mail messages. A web page will show who is logged in and where.

• Phone system - Asterisk
• Intranet Web server - cherokee with php
• Database? - I will avoid needing one. A DBMS will generate too much uncontrolled disk i/o.
• File and print services - Samba
• System management - Webmin, openvpn, ddclient

Webmin will be used locally by staff to perform simple administrative operations. Openvpn will be set up so that I can get secure remote access to the server from my home. Using Openvpn means I will have to set up dynamic dns updates so I will install ddclient.

Packages

After the initial install, 504 MB of disk space were in use. The space usage as configure below is about 530 MB

I added packages, cleaned things up, and rebooted.

apt-get install asterisk festival samba ntp
apt-get install cherokee php5-cgi
apt-get --purge remove bind9-host
apt-get install openssh-server rsync 
apt-get install openvpn ddclient dnsmasq
apt-get install hdparm smartmontools
apt-get autoremove
apt-get clean
reboot 

On reboot I noticed NFS file sharing was enabled. I removed the packages. I don't like exim4 email so I removed that and replaced it with postfix.

apt-get --purge remove exim4 portmap nfs-common
apt-get install postfix

I chose "no configuration" for postfix, I will set it up myself later.

Hard disk

I wanted the second hard drive to be a physical drive, not a CF card, so that it can be used to store data files, voice mail, etc.

So I added an 8GB hard drive to the virtual machine and moved the /var partition over there. I created two partitions on the hard drive. The first is swap space. The second will be /var. I moved the home directory tree and made a symlink for convenience; you could create a separate partition for home. I don't plan to have any normal user accounts on this system so I don't feel it needs to be a separate space.

telinit 1
fdisk /dev/hdb
mkswap /dev/hdb1
mke2fs -j /dev/hdb2
mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt
cd /var
tar cf - * | (cd /mnt; tar xpf -)

Move the old /var directory so the new one can be mounted in its place

umount /mnt
cd /
mv var var.old
mkdir var
mount /dev/hdb2 /var

Add a line to /etc/fstab to mount the new /var partition

echo "/dev/hdb1 swap swap defaults 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
echo "/dev/hdb2 /var ext3 defaults 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

Make sure things are still working

reboot

Now you can safely remove the old var tree if you want

cd /
rm -rf var.old

Moving home directory and creating a symlink

cd /var
mkdir home
mv /home/* home
cd /
rmdir home
ln -s /var/home

Moving tmp to /var/tmp

cd /
tar cf - tmp | (cd /var; tar xpvf -)
rm -rf tmp
ln -s /var/tmp

This moved about 200 MB from my root filesystem to the hard drive, leaving the CF image at about 455 MB.

Reducing disk access

Swap space is in the hard disk but hopefully seldom is ever used. We should have enough RAM to run everything without any paging.

Setting disk spin down

Logging

Using a RAM disk Should /var/run be on a RAM disk?

LCD program

I added the SG20 lcd program; see Magnia LCD for details.

External sound system

My Chintimini application calls for being able to hear incoming phone calls on a speaker. I am not sure how to do that yet. USB speaker?