Category: Howtos

Since the time I’ve posted the Unicenta 3.8 Installation guide, it’s been long that I haven’t updated the post. It took me almost two years to update the guide, due to busy schedules. Well, now I got the opportunity to write the guide for this open source point of sale system called Unicenta POS 3.91.

Jump Links

• Things Needed for the Linux POS Setup
• Procedures
  1. Launch Ubuntu & Download Unicenta
  2. Download Java JRE and Install
  3. Download and Install Unicenta POS 3.91.x
  4. Create Launcher for Unicenta 3.91 in Ubuntu 16.04
  5. Create Unicenta Auto Start on Login Launcher
• Installing Unicenta Using GUI
• Solution for Desktop Shortcut Not Working
• Video Guide

Also Read: – Things you need to know when building your own POS System. – Installing uniCenta 4.x.x on Linuxmint 19

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If you’re looking to build your own Linux POS System, then follow this Ubuntu 16.04 guide to get you started. You don’t need the latest in PC Hardware, all you need is any computer with at least 512MB of memory. You could use those old Pentium IV based PCs and just throw in some RAM, maybe two sticks of 256MB or single stick of 512MB Ram, then load up Ubuntu and voila! You could now setup your own free POS system, that is based on Linux.

Before you start with the guide, I require you to install Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop version first. You can either use a physical machine or a Virtual Machine, it’s your choice. But of course, you have to use physical machine for your production environment.

There’s one thing I need you to take note of, I’m not an expert in this field, but I tell you what, I have real-world experiences setting up this kind of thing professionally in a production environment. And guess what? I just learned all this by myself. Yes, that’s a fact!

Everything can be learned, so be patient and follow through this guide step-by-step.

Step-by-step Guide on Installing Unicenta 3.91 on Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop

Using Ubuntu 16.04 with Unicenta requires a bit of Linux terminal knowledge. You need to understand some of the commands used in this guide, you could lookup Google for this command if you wanted to learn more about it.

The following commands will be used in this guide:

• cp – the copy command
• mv – move file/directory command
• chmod – set file/folder permission
• nano – to launch the nano text editor

Things Needed for the Linux POS Setup

• Ubuntu Desktop 16.04 (32 or 64-bit), 64-bit shall be use for this guide.
• Unicenta POS 3.91.x.
• VirtualBox or VMWare for the virtual machine, only if you wanted to use a guest machine to load up Ubuntu Desktop.
• Java JRE – for your specific Ubuntu architecture (32/64-bit).

Procedures

I like to mention again in this section that I’ll be using Ubuntu Desktop 16.04 64-bit version and Unicenta 3.91.3. So, to easily follow on this guide, I highly recommend that you should use the same version and architecture. Once you learned how to do this, then you could choose to use any version you want. In addition to this, using the same setup as mine, will let you copy/paste the command or copy part of it and make necessary adjustment.

Also take note of this YouTube video link that you could use as visual reference along with this guide.

Step 1: Launch Ubuntu & Download Unicenta

Fire up Ubuntu Desktop 16.04 and download the latest version of Unicenta POS. At the time of writing this guide, version 3.91.3 is the latest.

Note: For some reason unknown yet to me, creating a launcher or desktop shortcut for start.sh is not working. I haven’t dig further due to lack of time, but I managed to make a work-around. If you have read my Unicenta 3.8 installation guide, creating a Desktop Launcher is very easy and flawless.

Step 2: Download Java JRE and Install

As of September 30, 2016, the latest version of Java Runtime Environment is 8u101 – which in this case, will be used.

1. Download Java JRE – for your specific Ubuntu architecture (32/64-bit). But in this case, I’m gonna be using jre-8u101-linux-x64.tar.gz.

   Reference Image:

   When using Firefox in Ubuntu, the default download location for files is in /home/your-user-name/Downloads. To quickly access this location using terminal is by invoking this command: cd ~/Downloads then type in ls -l to list your downloaded items. jre-8u101-linux-x64.tar.gz should be listed.

2. Extract jre-8u101-linux-x64.tar.gz

   From commandline, type: tar zxvf jre-8u101-linux-x64.tar.gz

   If you do this while on Downloads directory, then the extracted files is in that directory.

   In this case, the extracted directory is named jre1.8.0_101

   Reference Image:

   [caption id="attachment_2258" align="aligncenter" width="765"] Screenshot – Java JRE Extracted [/caption]

3. To install

   Move jre1.8.0_101 to /opt/ directory.

   sudo mv jre1.8.0_101/ /opt/

   To verify, type:

   ls /opt/

   You should see jre1.8.0_101 listed there.

   Then type:

   sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /opt/jre1.8.0_101/bin/java 110
   

   Sample output (actual screen output in this case):

   update-alternatives: using /opt/jre1.8.0_101/bin/java to provide /usr/bin/java (java) in auto mode
   

   Next, type: sudo update-alternatives --config java

   If only single version of JRE is installed, then the expected output is:

   There is only one alternative in link group java (providing /usr/bin/java):
   /opt/jre1.8.0_101/bin/java
   Nothing to configure.  

   Otherwise, a prompt will ask what version to use.

4. Set environment so users can use your configured Java JRE location

   sudo nano /etc/environment

   The above command will bring up Nano Text Editor and will allow you to edit /etc/environment file.

   Expected screen output should be:

   PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games"

   Now, below that text, enter:

   JAVA_HOME="/opt/jre1.8.0_101"

   So it will look like this:

   PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games"
   JAVA_HOME="/opt/jre1.8.0_101"

   Then type ctrl + o then enter key to save. ctrl + x to exit the text editor.

   Next, type:

   source /etc/environment

   No text output will appear, but to verify, type:

   echo $JAVA_HOME

   Expected output in this case is:

   /opt/jre1.8.0_101

   If you see the above output, then that’s great! You have successfully installed Java JRE for Unicenta 3.9. Next step is to reboot your system. Just type sudo reboot from commandline, to quickly do a reboot.

   Once rebooted, proceed to Unicenta 3.91 installation steps below.

Step 3: Download and Install Unicenta POS 3.91.x

If you don’t have it yet, download Unicenta POS 3.91.x to your preferred location inside your Ubuntu file system.

Using Firefox under Ubuntu 16.04, by default, is configured to download all files in /home/your-user-name/Downloads. So check this directory for the downloaded files. Unlike Unicenta POS 3.8 which came in an archived format (zip), version 3.91.x is a .run file.

In this case, my downloaded file name is: unicentaopos-3.91.3-linux-x64-installer.run

Now, before you can run or execute the file, you must first set the file permission to executable. For this, you can either use the commandline or the GUI, when installing Unicenta 3.91.

Note: This guide on Unicenta 3.91 installation or setup under Ubuntu will also work under Linuxmint

3.1. Using the commandline is like so, open terminal do the following:

1. change directory to Downloads directory or your chosen download location, in this case, I typed; cd ~/Downloads and ls. After invoking this command, you should see the file unicentaopos-3.91.3-linux-x64-installer.run, with white colored text – this file name may not be the case in the future.

   Then set execute permission:

   chmod a+x unicentaopos-3.91.3-linux-x64-installer.run

   To verify, type:

   ls while still in the Downloads directory, you should notice that the text color is now green.

   OR if you type ls -l, you’ll see that file permission have been set to executable by observing the x – which means executable by file OWNER-GROUP-OTHERS, i.e x-x-x

   Sample output:

   -rwxrwxr-x 1 chubbable chubbable 99352965 Sep 30 19:28 unicentaopos-3.91.3-linux-x64-installer.run
   

2. Execute the Installer File

   While still in Downloads directory, run the installer file unicentaopos-3.91.3-linux-x64-installer.run, and when asked where it should be installed, choose the /opt directory.

   To run/execute the installer, do the following:

   sudo ./unicentaopos-3.91.3-linux-x64-installer.run --mode text

   You’ll then be asked to choose the language you wanted Unicenta to use. The default selected option is English, which is 13 from the selection menu. This is by default selected, you just need to press enter key here if you’re going to use English. Else, enter the number specified for the language you wanted to use.

   Sample output:

   [41] Traditional Chinese - 繁体中文
   [42] Turkish - Türkçe
   [43] Turkmen - Türkmençe
   [44] Valencian - Valencià
   [45] Vietnamese - Tiếng Việt
   [46] Welsh - Cymraeg
   Please choose an option [13] :
   

   Next, you’ll be asked to choose which JVM to use, sample output in my case:

   Please choose an option [13] :
   
   JVM Selection
   
   Please select the Java(tm) Runtime to use
   [1] Oracle/Sun 1.8.0 64-bit /usr/bin/java
   [2] Oracle/Sun 1.8.0 64-bit /opt/jre1.8.0_101/bin/java
   
   Please choose an option [1] :
   

   In my case, I’d choose 2, so I typed 2 and press the enter key to proceed.

   Next prompt would be:

   Welcome to the uniCenta oPOS Setup Wizard.

   ---

   Please read the following License Agreement. You must accept the terms of this agreement before continuing with the installation.

   Press [Enter] to continue:

   To accept the LA, just hit enter key several times until it prompts you to:

   Do you accept this license? [y/n]:

   Press y and enter.

   Next prompt would be the installation location:

   Please specify the directory where uniCenta oPOS will be installed.
   
   Installation Directory [/opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3]
   

   Press Enter key to accept and use the suggested location, which is [/opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3 in this case. When asked of "Do you want to continue", of course you would say yes, so hit y key and enter.

   Setup will take a breeze, see sample output below:

   Reference Image:

   [caption id="attachment_2260" align="aligncenter" width="814"] Screenshot – Unicenta Installation using Ubuntu Commandline[/caption]

3. Running ang Testing Unicenta 3.91

   While still in commandline, navigate to /opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3 directory. This is where we installed Unicenta during the commanline-based installation. To go to this location, type: cd /opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3 then type ls -l. You should see files like; start.sh, configure.sh and migrate.sh. You need to set file permission for these files, and you should do chmod a+x *.sh for this.

   Once done, you should now be able to execute/run Unicenta 3.91 on Ubuntu 16.04.

   To run/execute, just type ./start.sh.

   NOTE: It may take a while for the first run, so be patient and wait for the splash screen to show. But you must answer and click Yes for the first prompt.

   When you see the screen like the one blow, then congratulations! You did it!

   Reference Image:

   [caption id="attachment_2261" align="aligncenter" width="1022"] Screenshot – Unicenta 3.9 Successfully Installed in Ubuntu 16.04[/caption]

3.2. Using the File Manager:

1. Using the File Manager, navigate to Downloads folder (in this case), then right click on the file. Then choose Properties, then Permissions. Tick the check box labeled Allow executing file as program, and close the dialog box.

   Reference Image: [caption id="attachment_2259" align="aligncenter" width="476"] Screenshot – Set Permission for Unicenta Installer[/caption]

2. Next run/execute the installer file.

   You could double click or right-click then choose RUN.

   It may take a while to open during the first time, so please be patient and wait for dialogue box or pop-up window. Choose language, JVM path, accept license agreement, and installation directory and follow on. When using the GUI/File Manager to install Unicenta 3.9, the default selected location is your Home Directory. That is – /home/your-user-name/unicentaopos-3.91.3. I recommend that you choose the /opt location for multi-user/multi-login setup.

Step 4: Create Launcher for Unicenta 3.91 in Ubuntu 16.04

The old and known way of creating a launcher, under Linux, no longer works this time. I wasn’t able yet to search on this, why the launcher doesn’t work. Launcher creation for older Unicenta version was mentioned in this post. Jump to Linux based installation section.

Creating the launcher in this version of Unicenta, and as a work-around, involves additional step to what was mentioned in my older post. This time, you need to create a simple .sh file inside the Unicenta 3.91 installation directory. Then make reference to this file when creating the Desktop Launcher.

Procedure – Using Commandline

1. Open Terminal and type: nano ~/Desktop/Unicenta.desktop

2. Copy/paste the following:

   [Desktop Entry]
   Encoding=UTF-8 
   Version=1.0 
   Name=Unicenta
   Comment=Fires up Unicenta oPOS
   Type=Application
   Exec=/opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3/launcher.sh
   Icon=/opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3/unicentaopos.ico
   

   Save the file: ctlr + o and press enter key, then exit the editor, ctrl + x.

   Set file permission:

   chmod a+x ~/Desktop/Unicenta.desktop

   If you’re following the whole guide, you observed that /opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3 is the installation directory. If you came to this part from Search Engine, then make the necessary adjustment to path.

3. Solution for Desktop Shortcut Not Working

   Open a terminal then type: sudo nano /opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3/launcher.sh.

   Then copy/paste the following:

   #!/bin/bash
   cd /opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3
   ./start.sh

   Save the file and exit the editor.

   1. Set file permission

      sudo chmod a+x /opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3/launcher.sh

   2. Test the Unicenta 3.91 Launcher, by double clicking on it, or right-click then open. Take note, that it may take a while to start when it’s first time to launch.

Procedure – Using GUI

1. Create the Unicenta.desktop file by right-clicking on the Desktop, then choose New Document, then Empty Document. Make sure you name the file with .desktop extension. Then double click on it to launch the text editor.

2. Copy/paste and save

   [Desktop Entry]
   Encoding=UTF-8
   Version=1.0
   Name=Unicenta
   Comment=Fires up Unicenta oPOS
   Type=Application
   Exec=/opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3/launcher.sh
   Icon=/opt/unicentaopos-3.91.3/unicentaopos.ico

3. Make the file executable – right-click on Unicenta.desktop file and choose properties, then permission, then tick the checkbox Allow executing file as program. And that would be it. Now test the launcher, and pray it would work. But it should work if you followed carefully.

Step 5: Creating an Autostart on Login Launcher (optional)

If you want to make Unicenta launch automatically upon user login, then you need this extra step. It’s a very simple step and will only require a minute of your time.

1. Click on the the Search your computer button.
2. Type Startup to locate the startup menu.
3. Click Startup Application.
4. Click Add button.
5. Enter Unicenta Auto Launch under Name field.
6. Under Command field, browse to your Unicenta Installation Path, and then choose launcher.sh – this is the file created to get around the "Shortcut Not Working" issue.
7. Under Comment field, you enter Autolaunch Unicenta upon login.
8. Finally, click the Add button, then close the dialog box.

Now, reboot your system to test. Unicenta should be able to start automatically upon user login.

Reference Image:

[caption id="attachment_2268" align="aligncenter" width="511"] Initial step in creating Unicenta Auto Launch on Login[/caption]

It’s a Wrap!

If you followed this guide carefully, then you should be able to launch your instance of Unicenta 3.91. If not, then feel free to ask help using the comment section below.

In case you find this guide too technical for you, or you don’t have the time to do this by yourself but have the proper funds, then I would suggest that you try those readily available system on the cloud. It’s called Cloud POS System.

No instruction yet for Windows, and I don’t have any future plans. Why so? Because I don’t have Windows installed on my system. I can’t afford the License.

For Windows 7, 8, 10 users out there, I highly recommend that you use Ubuntu or Linuxmint for your POS system. Why so? Because installing Unicenta on Linux is way more quicker than on Windows. In addition to this, you don’t have to spend so much money just to run a POS software. It can run on Linux, which is free, so why not use Unicenta with Linux instead.

In this step-by-step guide, I will show how you would install osTicket (the free help desk software) locally, under Windows using a portable Web Server called USBWebserver. In case you didn’t know yet, osTicket is a free and open source helpdesk software and help ticketing system, similar (but not entirely the same) to platforms like; Zendesk, Freshdesk, Groove and Ladesk. Installing it under Windows should be easy and quick, but NOT that easy under Ubuntu 16.04. In this post, both Windows and Ubuntu local install are covered.

Jump Links

• System Requirements
• How to install on Windows (WAMP)
• How to install on Ubuntu 16.04 (LAMP)
  • Requirements
  • Step by Step Guide
  • Removing PHP version 7.0 and install v5.6.0
• How to install on Windows 7, 8, 10 using XAMPP
• How to install osTicket on Ubuntu 16.04 VPS

Overview

osTicket, the open-source help desk platform, is widely recognized as a free helpdesk and support ticket system. It’s known for its flexibility and reliability among help ticket systems available online.

You can host it on-premise using your intranet server or opt for Enhancesoft’s cloud-hosted solution (paid). Self-hosting is also possible via platforms like Digital Ocean or Amazon AWS.

osTicket is developed by Enhancesoft, a U.S.-based software company. It’s been downloaded over 1.4 million times and used in more than 200 countries.

As of version v1.9.14, some release highlights include:

Enhancements:

• User data updates during CSV import
• Consistent agent formatting and sorting
• Memcache backend support
• Email domain validation via DNS
• Sticky ticket queue selections

Fixes & Improvements:

• Charset mapping for ISO-8859-1
• Handling of organization and user custom data
• Email threading and missing headers
• PDF export crash prevention
• Improved bounce detection and i18n fixes
• Windows® deployment and upgrade stability

Full release notes here

System Requirements

osTicket has a small footprint, any modern web server setup will work. To install and run it, as of version 1.9.8, the following components are required;

1. Web Server: Apache 2.4 or later
2. PHP 5.6 (v7.0 is not supported yet – as October 2016)
3. MySQL 5 (or later)
4. A minimum server RAM of 1024 MB

Procedures – Windows Based

Installing osTicket on a Windows-based web server (WAMP) requires downloading a portable stack called USBWebserver. It works with Windows XP, 7, 8, and 10. You could also use other stacks like XAMPP, but for this guide, USBWebserver will be the focus.

NOTE: Use this setup for testing only—not for production environments. The official osTicket demo has a 14-day limit, but this method lets you explore without restriction.

Step 1: Download and Configure USBWebserver

• Extract and run the software.
• Change the Apache port from 8080 to 80, unless another server is running.
• Set the Root Dir to {root}/osticket.

Step 2: Create the Installation Folder

• Inside the USBWebserver 8.x directory, create a folder named osticket.

Step 3: Extract osTicket Files

• Extract osTicket-v1.9.14.zip or whatever version you’ve downloaded.
• Copy all contents from the upload folder into the osticket folder.
• Duplicate ost-sampleconfig.php and rename it as ost-config.php.

💡 TIP: On Windows, hold Ctrl and drag the file to duplicate it in the same folder.

Step 4: Launch USBWebserver

• Run usbwebserver.exe.
• Both Apache and MySQL indicators should turn green.
• If not, double-check your folder path and port settings.

Step 5: Open osTicket in a Browser

• Launch Chrome or your preferred browser.
• Visit http://localhost and ensure you see the osTicket installer interface.

Before continuing, let’s create a database.

Step 6: Create a MySQL Database

• Visit http://localhost/phpmyadmin.
• Login:
  • Username: root
  • Password: usbw
• Create a database named osticket, and use the same name for the user.

🎥 Video Demo

Step 7: Launch the Installer Wizard

• Go back to http://localhost.
• The wizard should load and show all system checks.
• If you see a config file error, make sure you completed Step 3 properly.

Step 8: Complete Installation Fields

Fill out the form with your preferred settings. For database:

• MySQL Database: osticket
• MySQL Username: osticket
• MySQL Password: your-own-password

Note: Admin Email and System Email should be different.

Once done, click Continue.

Step 9: Final Steps

You should land on the "Congratulations!" page. osTicket is installed!

You can now run osTicket from any Windows computer—just plug in your USB, launch usbwebserver.exe, and you’re set!

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Next Steps

➡️ Continue to Ubuntu Install Guide →

Jump Links

• System Requirements
• How to install on Windows
• How to install on Windows 7, 8, 10 using XAMPP

Ubuntu 16.04: Installation Summary

• Step 1: Install the LAMP Stack on Ubuntu 16.04
• Step 2: PHP version 7.0 and install v5.6.0
• Step 3: Install phpMyadmin for Database Server administration
• Step 4: Create a database for osTicket
• Step 5: Extract osTicket ZIP File and copy the files to web root
• Step 6: Apply necessary file and folder permission
• Step 7: Start the installation wizard
• Step 8: Fill out all the necessary fields
• Step 9: Post-install task

Procedures – Ubuntu Based (LAMP Stack)

This section of the guide requires you to have an instance of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerius), Desktop or Server edition, it’s your choice. But for production or live environment, you should use Ubuntu Server edition.

To setup osTicket on Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop or Server edition, you also need the following requirements.

Requirements For Ubuntu 16.04

1. Web Server: Apache 2.4 or later
2. PHP 5.6 (v7.0 is not supported yet – as October 2016)
3. MySQL 5 (or later)
4. A minimum server with a RAM of 2GB (4GB minimum, for production server)

Installation Steps for Desktop Edition

If you want to install osTicket locally using Ubuntu, then you need a Desktop version of Ubuntu 16.04. It’s up to you whether you want to use the 32 or 64-bit version. But in my case, I’m gonna be using the 64-bit version.

Why the 16.04 LTS version? Because it’s the latest, and it has latest fixes and features that I won’t be discussing here.

Before starting off with this guide, make sure you already have downloaded the latest version of OST. Also, you must already have launched a Terminal.

To launch a terminal in Ubuntu Desktop, press and holdctrl + alt then t

Then follow these steps below to start off.

Next: Installing OST on Windows Using XAMP

Jump Links

• System Requirements

• How to install on Windows (WAMP)

• How to install on Ubuntu 16.04 (LAMP)

  • Requirements
  • Step by Step Guide
  • Removing PHP version 7.0 and install v5.6.0

• How to install on Windows 7, 8, 10 using XAMPP

  • Procedure

XAMPP: Alternative Way of Installing osTicket on Windows

Here’s another step-by-step guide on how you would setup an instance of osTicket on Windows 7, 8 and 10. You will need another WAMP stack called XAMPP, a software project maintained by Apache Friends. It’s an open source software that makes developer’s life easier, by providing them an easy to install Apache distribution containing MariaDB/MySQL, PHP, and Perl. Not only that, it also help newbies like us, to setup a web server in Windows, the quickest and easiest way. How so? Because setting up a web server is just two step away; download XAMPP and install XAMPP and voila! You have a WAMP server!

On the other hand, there is also a Windows-based WAMP stack I mentioned, and that is USBWebserver. It’s a portable web server that you can take and run anywhere you want. Read how I setup OST with this stack by clicking here.

To install osTicket using XAMPP, first you need to download the latest version of XAMPP and make sure you choose the stack that supports PHP v5.6.x and below. Why? Because OST doesn’t support PHP v7.0 yet, as of October 25, 2016 (v1.9.14).

Reference Image: [caption id="attachment_2303" align="aligncenter" width="639"] Screenshot – XAMPP Download Page[/caption]

Okay, enough with the talk, let’s start off with this tutorial.

NOTE: A quick video guide is available from this YouTube Link

It’s a Wrap!

There you have it! By now, you should already have an instance of osTicket that you can test all the way without limits. You can explore and test all the features locally. Test it as an Agent or Admin without limits. After all, it’s a free help desk software and open source.

Once you decide to use and wanted to set it up on a production environment, say like VPS or dedicated server, you just need to sign-up for the hosted account provided by Enhancesoft Team.

Or if you want to setup your own instance and have the courage of setting it up on a live environment, then consider Amazon or Digital Ocean as your Cloud Server Host. Their service is newbie friendly and their support is top notch.

Installing osTicket locally is not that hard, with this step-by-step howto guide, you can quickly set up an instance on any of your local servers or machine.

Previous: Setup OST on Ubuntu 16.04

Wanting to learn how you would create your own remote VPN access server? Well, jumped in and I’ll teach you how you would exactly do this using free and open-source software called OpenVPN AS or OpenVPN Access Server.

In this guide you’ll learn how to setup and configure a remote access server for you

VPN needs. If you’re up on setting; a secure Internet connect, bypass ISP traffic shaping or capping, use a country-based IP to get access to country specific services like Hulu, Netflix or Vevo, then this guide definitely for you.

First off, I want to give you a brief overview about the difference between the OpenVPN Community Edition and OpenVPN Access Server. You probably thought that setting up your own VPN remote access server is that difficult and tedious, well I’ll tell you that it’s not. There are two editions of OpenVPN, as I’ve mentioned it already. The one to be used in this guide is the OpenVPN Access Server edition.

This edition is easy to install and very easy to configure too. It actually has a Web-based GUI where you can easily configure and administer, creating new user and new VPN settings is just a point-and-click away. The Community Edition is not restricted to number of users, while the Access Server Edition is limited to 2 user accounts only (license restricted). If you need more VPN users accounts to your remote access server, you should purchase more license for them, and the minimum number of license that can be purchase is 10. By the way, you can set a user account to have more than one concurrent connection from its end, that means, a single user account could have more than one connection. The Access Server Edition comes in software package, that means you can just download and install it on various supported platforms (Debian, Fedora, Centos).

Unlike the Community Edition, where you need to manually install it using the command-line, and you need to generate the SSL/RSA files manually too. With OpenVPN Access Server Edition, everything is simplified and polished, you can easily install your own VPN access server using only two commands (wget and dpkg – more on this below). If in case you only landed to this page from somewhere else while searching for VPN or OpenVPN, and you’re not actually wanting to setup your own VPN Access Server, instead you’re searching for VPN providers that you may subscribe to, then see the list below. With these providers, you don’t have to go through all the steps mentioned in this guide. Instead, you only need to download the configuration file from your client dashboard, once you subscribe and paid. There is also a VPN provider that lets you signup for a VPN trial account.

Known VPN Service Providers

1. Hide My 4ss
2. CyberGhost
3. PureVPN
4. SaferVPN
5. SwitchVPN

Road-warrior Setup With US-based IP

There are various implementation of an OpenVPN access server; one could be a road-warrior setup, site-to-site connection, client-to-server

VPN setup in pfSEnse, or just a simple remote VPN access to access certain IP-based or Country-restricted service like HULU or Netflix. So for the first part, I will cover the procedures on how to setup a single client to remote access VPN server. This VPN implementation is applicable to a road-warrior setup and at the same time, access HULU or Netflix using VPN. If you’re always on the go and Internet connection is part of your job, this setup would be very beneficial to you to secure your connection. Also, if you’re looking to subscribe for a HULU or Netflix account but not yet offered in your country, then this would be the easier and cheaper way to access the service from your country. For this setup, you’ll need a VPS (Virtual Private Server) to host your OpenVPN Access Server instance. Don’t be discouraged when I mention VPS, it’s not that hard to setup and not that expensive as you may thought of. We’ll be using one from Digital Ocean’s Ubuntu droplet, this is gonna be easy and I’ll walk you through the step-by-step guide on how to set things up. After you completed this setup, you won’t be needing the service of known VPN providers anymore, because you already have it and it’s lot cheaper than Air VPN or Ghost VPN. Using Digital Ocean’s $5 droplet, you can setup a 1TB monthly bandwidth allowance and a 20GB worth of SSD storage, not that bad for a personal DIY VPN access server. Okay, enough with the talk, let’s move on.

Requirements For This Setup

• 1 Digital Ocean droplet (VPS worth $5)
• OpenVPN Access Server Edition, Package for Ubuntu 14.04
• SSH Client (Putty for windows or plain terminal for Linux)
• Any computer or mobile device to test your setup

Procedures

• Step 1: Create your SSH-key pairs to use with your Digital Ocean droplet (VPS). This is very essential before creating your first droplet or server. It’s a good way to secure your connection between your local machine and remote server right from the start. So before you create your server, generate the SSH key pair. This would be a password-less connection using the root account from your Ubuntu server.

  If you’re on Windows, you need to download putty.exe and puttygen.exe. Use puttygen.exe to generate the SSH keys. You can download it from this link After downloading the file, fire it up and you should see something like this:

  Reference Image: [jig ids="1810"]

  Tick SSH-2 RSA from the Parameters field-set and enter 2048 or 4096 in the Number of bits in a generated key field-set. Then click Generate button to start creating the SSH keys. Move your mouse randomly within the window to fill up the progress bar. When it’s done, you should see another field-sets containing; the generated public key, Key finger print, Key comment, Key pass-phrase, Save public key and Save private key button. Reference Image: [jig ids="1811"] Save the generated SSH public key by copying the whole block of text found inside the Key text area and paste it to a new text file (use notepad) and save it with a file extension of .pub. In my case, I’ve created a folder named SSH-Keys inside my Documents folder and then I saved the file as digital-ocean-ssh.pub. Reference Image: [jig ids="1812"] While still on the PuttyGen window, click Save private key button to save the SSH private key file to a filename with .ppk file extension. In my case, I’ve put it inside SSH-Keys folder with a filename digital-ocean-ssh.ppk. You may now close the puttgen.exe window to continue with the next step. Reference Text for .pub ssh key file content:

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAQEArEJ7LaeS68oGbvdts5aGIZBQjZ5zmdGaorw
/AhMWD8NYbasqJh0wuJpHQRxWc0g93FNSOW7LGtQme7QuiEM9HyJQWyLtiwi9udqaxgSM2x
Xilnxe49kFxtypfCgsKAyzC0phXCYb7QUdgLKWEr33d6soNohzqVre2meXZcDmZuAechMJf
73JSHi76FSdg4YPhwCriqvyL56/pI4h3SjKLfyIVGBPiJy25xbLE8E7frbFrDAeyvfUzEDP
W3C40vXcLH1XONNI/Jv8E66DXFCm1sCxya9su9tnlshJ+ZXjvLWLkN38i0wc1kPqHGwUXua
FQS0/hDv/aD6SVJfNLXXaGQ== rsa-key-20140828

If you’re on Linux/Mac, simply fire-up a terminal and type: ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048 -f ~/.ssh/name-it-like-you-wish

ssh-keygen is the main command, -b 2048 tells key strength if it’s 1024, 2048, and 4096 bits. -f ~/.ssh/name-of-the-file tell it to where the ssh-keys should be saved in your local folders.

• Step 2: Sign-up for a Digital Ocean Account and create your first VPS (Virtual Private Server) or droplet (as what Digital Ocean refers to). After signing up, make your initial deposit of $5 to enable your account for droplet creation. But if you signup now through this link, your account will be credited worth $15 in total. So you get additional $10 credit on top of your $5 initial deposit, and would be able to run a 512Mb VPS for 3 months. Awesome right? Reference Image: Before creating your first VPS, add your public SSH keys by copying and pasting it to your control panel. To do this, go to your navigation menu (left side) click SSH Keys to go to the next page, then click the big blue button labeled Add SSH Key. Enter a name, let’s say for instance Windows Machine, and paste-in your public ssh key inside the Public SSH Key text area. Then click the big green button labeled CREATE SSH KEY. Now you’re ready to spin your first droplet. See next step below. Reference Images: [gallery ids="1816"]

• Step 3: Create a droplet for your OpenVPN access server. For this guide, we’ll be using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 32-bit Server Edition for our Host-OS, but you may use the 64-bit version. Click the big green button labeled Create then fill up Hostname field, for demo purposes, let’s name it openvpn. Select size and click the $5 package, which is a 512, 20GB, 1TB/month VPS package.

  Select region and choose San Francisco 1, New York 1, 2 or 3.

  Select image by clicking Ubuntu Logo then Ubuntu 14.04 x32 button.

  Reference Image: [jig ids="1820"] Now, under Add optional SSH Keys, add the SSH keys you have added previously from step 1 by clicking on it.

  Reference Image: [jig ids="1821"] Make sure Enable VirtIO is checked, and finally click CREATE DROPLET button. Your VPS will then be created for under 55 seconds. When it’s done, proceed to the next step.

• Step 4: Login to your server remotely using SSH. Login using SSH by typing ssh root@ip-address-of-your-server. If you’re on Windows, launch putty.exe and do the following:

  • Fill up Host Name (or IP address)` field with your server’s IP address
  • From the left-pane, expand Connection menu and click on SSH to expand it more
  • Click Auth and click Browse button under Authentication parameters field-set.
  • Navigate to your .ppk SSH private key file and open it.
  • Then finally click Open button again to make the SSH connection Reference Images: [jig ids="1823,1824,1825,1826"] If you’re on Linux/Mac, simply open up a terminal ctrl + alt + t and type in the ssh command.

  Note: If it’s your first time to connect, you’ll be asked about PuTY Security Alert, just make sure that you’re connecting to the right IP address and click YES.

• Step 5: Download and Install OpenVPN Access Server. Now that you’re logged in as root, let’s download and install the right OpenVPN-AS package for our version of Ubuntu, which is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Server x32. Head over to the OpenVPN AS download page and right-click on Ubuntu 14 amd/x86 32-bit green button, then select Copy Link Address from the context-menu. Reference Image: [jig ids="1827"] Go back to your terminal and type in wget then space. Then paste in what you copied by right-clicking on the terminal window and click paste. Middle mouse click if you’re using PuTTY. This is what should be in your command-line:

  wget http://swupdate.openvpn.org/as/openvpn-as-2.0.10-Ubuntu14.i386.deb

  Reference Image: [jig ids="1828"]

  Press ENTER key to start the download. After this, install the .deb package by using the following command:

  dpkg -i http://swupdate.openvpn.org/as/openvpn-as-2.0.10-Ubuntu14.i386.deb

  That should install the package and will only take a few seconds to complete.After this process, you OpenVPN web-gui should be accessible from:

  Admin UI: https://your-server-ip-address:943/admin Client UI: https://your-server-ip-address:943

  When installed, an administrative user-account is created and that you should enter a new password for it. The administrative user-name is

  openvpn, this is the user-name that you should use when logging in to the OpenVPN Web-GUI. So let’s create a new password for it and type the following command then press ENTER key;

  passwd openvpn

  You’ll be asked to enter your new UNIX password.

• Step 6: Create a local user account for your OpenVPN client. Create a local user-account for your VPN user account. This account will be used for the web-ui login. To create a new user-account, type the following and press Enter key:

  adduser vpnclientone

  Then enter a password for it.

• Step 7: Login to OpenVPN Web-UI and create a client account. Login as openvpn user with the password you previously created from step 5. The admin login URL is https://your-server-ip-address/admin. Make sure to use httpswhen accessing the web page. From the main navigation menu on the left side of the page, click on User Permission under User Management menu. Create a new VPN user by supplying the user-name you previously created from step 6. Enter the user-name in the New User text field. You may select Allow Auto Login by ticking the checkbox, to allow users to connect to the VPN server without providing their user-name and user-password. Click Save Settings to finish the process.

• Step 8: Connecting from a client machine or device. S how to connect to the VPN server, the answer is like this; first login as a client to the OpenVPN web-ui and download the applicable user connection profile, then install it like any other software. If you want to connect from a Windows-based machine, login using your VPN client account, then choose and download OpenVPN Connect for Windows. Depending on the current version of the client software, you should download a file similar to this one; openvpn-connect-2.0.8.106.msi. Reference Image: [jig ids="1829"] After you install it, launch the OpenVPN Connect client software and check it from you system tray. Right-click on the icon and click Connect to your-server-ip-address, and you should be connected. Now make an IP address check by typing what is my ip in the google search bar, it should output your server’s IP address. Check your Internet speed and go over at speedtest.net. It should also detect your current IP address location. Then check if you can already access HULU, Netflix or Vevo, even you’re outside of US. If you’ve granted access, then your VPN access server is working!

• Step 9: Configure your server to have a dynamic domain name. This step is optional. If you wanted to give your server a domain name, you could do that for free using a dynamic dns service like NO-IP. To set this up, sign-up for an account and login. Then navigate to Hosts/Redirects menu and then click on Add Host. Then fillup the fields, like so:

  • Hostname => your-desired-name.ddns.net
  • Host Type => DNS Host (A)
  • IP Address => your-server-ip-address Then click

  Add Host button to finish the setup. Your OpenVPN Access Server is now accessible using your configured host name. So when you’re on the road and you need a secured Internet connection, access your server using your host name and download the necessary configuration file.

Basic Server Security

Now that you got your server working, you need to setup some basic server security to harden your access server a bit. Though this is not a server for public use, it’s important to secure it just in case someone would try to gain access to your VPN server. So to implement basic security, follow the procedures below. For this part of the guide, we need to setup the firewall. Firewall Setup. To setup a basic firewall in Ubuntu, you need first to enable UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall). It’s an easy to use firewall front-end for IP tables, and it comes pre-shipped with Ubuntu. To enable UFW, type in sudo ufw enable or ufw enable if you’re logged in as root. You’ll be prompted with a message like this: Command may disrupt existing ssh connections. Proceed with operation (y|n)? y Just press y to continue. Do not logout yet while still on the server, you need to open the port for your SSH server. To open the port type in; ufw allow ssh

Note: In Ubuntu 14.04, this will block all incoming port, except for port 80, 443, openvpn default port. You have to open port 22 for incoming SSH connection. After this, your firewall should be set. Harden SSH Server If you want to add more security to your server, hardening SSH is another good way to prevent automated attacks to your VPN server. To make this happen follow the steps below.

• Create a new admin user-account:

  Login as root via SSH and type in:

  adduser your-admin-user-name

  Enter a strong password twice, then press enter key to continue. You may skip other details by pressing enter key. Once done, add the new user to the sudoer file. This should give the new user an administrative privileges to your server.

  To do this, type the following command:

  usermod -aG sudo your-admin-user-name

  Next, copy your authorized_keys file to .ssh folder, under your new user-account’s home holder.

  Do the following steps:

  • Create a new folder under /home/your-user-name/ and name it .ssh. In Linux, a folder or file prepended with a dot means it’s hidden. To create the folder:

  mkdir /home/your-user-name/.ssh/

  • Copy the current authorized_keys to your new .ssh folder. cp .ssh/authorized_keys /home/your-user-name/.ssh/

  • Change the folder owner and assign it to your new-user-account. chown -R your-user-name:your-user-name /home/your-user-name/.ssh/

  • Change folder and file permission. chmod 700 /home/your-user-name/.ssh/

  chmod 400 /home/your-user-name/.ssh/authorized_keys

  DO NOT log out or exit from your session yet. Do the next step below.

• Disable Root Login: Disable root login. To do this, login as root user using SSH and edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file by typing:

  nano -c /etc/ssh/sshd_config

  Look for the line (line 28 or close) containing

  PermitRootLogin without-password, change it to PermitRootLogin no. Next, find the text #PasswordAuthentication yes (around line 52) and change it to PasswordAuthentication no Next, look for UsePAM yes (last line of the page) and change it to UsePAM no. Create a new line and enter UseDNS no, this is not really a big security benefit but it makes loging in pretty quick. Then create a new line of text under that with AllowUsers your-user-name

  Reference Text:

  UsePAM no
  UseDNS no
  AllowUsers your-admin-username

  Finally, save the file by pressing

  ctrl + o then enter key to confirm saving the file, then press ctrl + x to exit the editor. Make sure that you put the right user-name for AllowUsers or else you won’t be able to log in anymore. You need to rebuild your droplet if that happens. To implement your settings, type in service ssh restart. After restarting SSH you won’t be able to log in as root user anymore, so you need to login with your new user-name:

  ssh your-user-name@server-ip-address

  or

  ssh your-user-name@hostname

  If you got logged in, then you did! You have configured your SSH server for better security.

That’s a Wrap

There you have it, you now know how to setup your own VPN server, either for a road-warrior setup or to access HULU or Netflix outside of US. It’s not that difficult to setup, just read the guide carefully and don’t be in a haste when you try to follow this guide. Take your time and double check what you’re doing, on every step of the way. If there is something you want to ask about this guide, or something you wanna share, feel free to post your comment below.

Here is a simple guide that will help you setup your DVR (Security System) and Router for remote web access, using a DD-WRT router and a free DDNS service. This guide is intended for personal and home use. Corporate or industrial setups are far more complex to setup than this. I will not discuss about complex firewall and RADIUS setup here, since this guide is primarily intended for simple and basic home use setup. You could setup your own advance CCTV system once you understand and learn the basics of simple networking.

If you follow this guide, I’d like to warn you first that this requires a DD-WRT flashed router. I don’t have any other routers at hand right now, that is why this is the thing that I’m gonna use with the guide. The idea would be the same even when you use another router, you may still follow this guide. I’ll discuss with you about Port Forwarding, this feature is almost available in all modern-day routers in the market. I will not dig into technical details and will not explain every terminology used in this guide, but I will walk you through to setup the necessary things so you could access your DVR or CCTV system remotely via the Internet.

Follow this guide step by step and you will surely learn how to access DVR remotely even without a public static IP address.

You need the basic stuffs enumerated below for this guide. Read on.

Preparation

Before following this guide make sure your Internet and CCTV/DVR are working as they should and that you already have a working home-network setup. When all is running fine, go ahead and start with this guide. Check the stuffs below and make sure it comes handy.

Things You Need:

• DD-WRT Flashed Router, or any other Router w/ DDNS support
• Router already configured to use PPoE
• ISP issued modem already in bridge-mode
• Network Switch/Hub, if you don’t have extra port from your router
• DDNS Service Account from No-IP.com

Steps To Take:

1. Assign static IP and port number for your DVR or IP-Cam
2. Setup port-forwarding
3. Signup for Dynamic DNS service & setup DDNS in your DD-WRT Router
4. Testing

Terms You Need To Get Familiar With (in case you’re not)

• Private IP – means the IP address assigned and usable within your internal network or LAN.
• Public IP – means the IP address assigned to you by your ISP, most are dynamic IPs and changes all the time.
• Static IP – means an IP Address assigned manually and not by a DHCP server.
• Dynamic IP – means an IP address assigned dynamically by a DHCP server, like the ones issued by your ISP or by your router within your LAN.
• Port Forwarding – means the technique to re-route or redirect a packet bound to a specific UDP/TCP port and machine, to another specified port or machine.
• Dynamic DNS (DDNS) – is a method that keeps a Name Server constantly updated with a host’s IP address.

Note: You don’t need a STATIC IP subscription from your ISP, just to get your CCTV remote viewing setup working or to setup your DVR for remote access. The reason why I’m telling you this is that, I came across a forum site where some of it’s veteran member suggests that you need to get a Static IP from your ISP to get the setup working. Not really a mandatory thing to get, with the power of Port Forwarding technique and DDNS, static Public IP will not be a requirement. What is required, is a static IP address assigned to your DVR or IP-Cam.

Let’s Get Started, Whenever You’re Ready

Before proceeding with the following steps below, make sure that you’ve already assigned a subnet for your private or internal home network. But in case not, do the first step below.

1. Assign static IP and port number for your DVR or IP-Cam.. There are ways to accomplish this; assign a static lease from your router or assign a static IP address from your DVR/IP-Cam Admin Panel. But I suggest that you assign the IP address using the admin panel. What you’ll be assigning is a Class C addressing, which are used only for internal network (ie: 192.xxx.xxx.xxx/255.255.255.0). Most routers are pre-configured to use 192.xxx.xxx.xxx as the router’s IP address and 255.255.255.0 as it’s subnet mask. I suggest that you follow this scheme and assign one to your DVR or IPCam.

   Advancing further with this guide, assign a static IP address to your DVR or IP-Cam using its Admin Panel. You may press the button Menu either from the DVR itself or remote control. Generally you should see the settings from Network Setup or Networking screen or other similar words. If you don’t see it from the main screen, explore the sub-menus.

   When you found the setting, assign an IP using 192.xxx.xxx.xxx (ie 192.168.100.101) and also assign a port. There are two ports to fill-up, port for administration and port for viewing. So go ahead and fill those up, you may enter a port number like 9001 and 9002. Most DVRs comes pre-configured with IPs and Ports, if your device comes with pre-configured network settings, I suggest that you just adapt and use it with this guide. You may adjust your router settings to match your DVR or IP-Cam’s network setting. The purpose of the port assignment is to specify a port dedicated for administration and another port for viewing only. To illustrate this further, take a look below.

   Note: Only choose port range above 1024. Higher port range would be nice, but keep it below 65535.

   When you access the Admin Panel via network, you typically type this in your browser’s address bar;

   http://192.168.100.101:9001

   To just view or monitor a camera via Web, you would type like this in your browser’s address bar;

   http://192.168.100.101:9002

   Take a look at the images below. That is how I’ve setup my IP address settings in my DD-WRT router.

   Some DVRs or IP-Cams are configured differently, so it depends how its web server are configured. So you might need to consult your manual on how to reach your Admin Panel via web browser. With some model you have to type in like this (yours may be different);

   http://192.168.100.101:9001/admin < — for web admin http://192.168.100.101:9002/view <– for web view

   Alright, if your done with the IP address assignment, you can now test your settings and open up your DVR or IP-Cam’s admin panel using any browser you like (some old models have incompatibility issues with Internet Explorer 7 and below). Use the IP address and port combo that you had set in the previous steps mentioned above. You need a computer hooked to the same network and configured to use the same IP/subnet as your DVR configured with. So if your DVR is configured to use 192.168.100.101 your computer should be configured to use 192.168.100.xxx (ex. 192.168.100.100)

   This is how it should look like in your DVR network setting:

   • Your DVR network setting

   Address: 192.168.100.101
   Netmask: 255.255.255.0
   Gateway: 192.168.100.1

   This is how it should look like in your computer network setting:

   • Your computer network setting

   Address: 192.168.100.100
   Netmask: 255.255.255.0
   Gateway: 192.168.100.1

   You don’t have to follow exactly the way I put the IP, you can make your IP addressing like 192.168.xxx.xxx with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. The Gateway IP should be the IP of your router.

   If you successfully accessed your DVR using your network config, then you may now proceed to the next step.

2. Setup the router and configure Port Forwarding. In this step I will discuss how to port forward in DD-WRT flashed routers, so I suggest that you have this router handy before proceeding with this step. But if you don’t have it, you may still follow, since port forwarding is generally the same with most routers. You’ll always find these fields; port range (port from and port to), application name, IP address and protocol The only difference are the location of menus and arrangement and placement of input fields.

   I’m gonna be using my Linksys WRT54G2 v1 model, flashed with DD-WRT v24-sp2 (10/10/09) micro. If you have a different router it’s alright, you can still follow this guide, since most routers has similar port forwarding menus.

   Alright let’s start. Login to your DD-WRT router using your login credentials. Upon logging in navigate to NAT / QoS >> Port Forward.

   Then do the following steps:

   1. Fill up te Application field and enter cctv-admin, or name it whatever you like. In this step, we’ll be forwarding ports to your DVR’s Admin Page.
   2. Fill up Port from and enter 9001. This is the port you had setup in your DVR or IP-Cam from the previous step.
   3. Fill up Protocol, you may select Both
   4. Fill up IP Address and enter 192.168.100.101. This is the IP Address of your DVR or IP-Cam.
   5. Fill up Port to and enter 9001.
   6. Check Enable.
   7. Repeat step 1, but this time you should enter cctv-view or name it whatever you like.
   8. Fill up Port from and enter 9002. This is the port you had setup in your DVR or IP-Cam.
   9. Repeat step 3 and step 4, you may substitute the IP address with your IP.
   10. Fill up Port from and enter 9002.
   11. Check Enable.
   12. Finally, click Apply Settings.
   13. We’re done with this step, next we test our settings.

   Test Your Port Forwarding Settings. To test if you successfully configured a port forward setup, you need to access the IP address with a port number combo and from another separate network, that is not within your network. It should be from another outside network. So you’ll need another separate Internet connection to test your config.

   To test your config, you should know what your current Public IP Address is. You can find this out by just typing what is my ip in google.com’s search field. Doing this will show you the result page similar to the image below.

   Now that you know what your Public IP is, go ahead and fire up your browser and enter the following in your address bar.

   http://128.199.252.11:9001

   You should be redirected to your DVR’s admin panel’s web page. If you reached the page, then you have successfully configured a port forward setup in your DD-WRT router. By now, you already have a remote web access to your DVR or IPCam using your known public IP address. But that’s not it.

   If your rebooted your router or your ISP changed your IP address, you can’t access your CCTV system using your previously known IP address any more. You need to know your new public IP address so that you could type it in and access your DVR or IPCam. But how would you know about the change? Your ISP or your CCTV system won’t even notify or update you about the change, so you need a method that will do this for you. This is where DDNS comes into play. DDNS service will not only notify you about the change, it will also notify and update a name server that maps your Public IP Address to an easy-to-remember hostname. So with this method, 128.199.252.11 shall be mapped as name.domain.tld or your-own-domain.tld.

   Read on, to follow the DDNS guide.

3. Setting up a Dynamic DNS in DD-WRT. You need to configure this service in your DD-WRT router, specially when you’re on a a Dynamic IP Plan. You may also use this service with your static IP plan, but you may rather use a registered domain name if you have a static IP.

   Subscribing to a static public IP plan is expensive in most third world countries, in my country (Philippines) static IP address subscription is almost 5 times the monthly subscription fee of a regular Internet Plan. It’s impractical to subscribe for such service only for the purpose of setting up a DVR for remote online access. But I’ve seen and met several people, personally and from forum sites, they subscribed for a static IP just for the sole purpose of "CCTV Remote View" or "DVR Remote Access" setup. I like to mention this again, what you need is a static IP address assigned to your DVR or IPCam, and not a Public Static IP (your internet ip address assigned by your ISP).

   That being said, I like to mention that static public IP address that comes with a Web hosting account is not that expensive compared to the ones issued by Home Internet ISPs.

   Let’s continue with this step, first of, login to your DD-WRT router and navigate to SETUP >> DDNS. From the DDNS Service drop-down menu, you’ll see a bunch of Dynamic DNS services like, DynDNS.org, No-IP.com and easyDNS.com. For this guide we’ll be using No-IP.com DDNS service for our Remote DVR Access setup.

   DDNS is also available in most known stand-alone DVRs. Only thing is, they are bundled with a Paid-Subscription service like DynDNS.org or the manufacturer’s own DDNS service.

   You need a No-IP account to follow-on with this guide, so if you don’t have an account yet, head over now to https://www.noip.com/sign-up and create an account. No-IP is a paid service, BUT you may signup for a FREE Account. The FREE account offers 3 hostnames but offers no-phone support and it’s Ads enabled. Plus you have to login every month to re-activate your account so you won’t lose your host name. If you fail to re-activate your account, your hostname will be deactivated. Not that bad for a Free Account.

   To setup a proper Dynamic DNS in DD-WRT using the No-IP account, we need to input your No-IP account username and password in the designated input fields. So if you already have your No-IP account, input it now in the proper fields (username, password and hostname). Hostname is the name you configured during your No-IP account signup or the hostname you’ve created in Manage Host page of the No-IP account dashboard. After doing this click Apply Settings. When everything went smoothly, you’ll see a log status on the same page, under DDNS Status field.

   Note: From the screenshot above, Force Update Interval is set to 1. This setting will check your current public IP address and will update and notify No-IP.com about your IP address change, with an interval of 1 day.

   So everything went smoothly right? The question now is, how to access the DVR or IPCam remotely? Read further below to find out.

1. Time To Test Your Setup For Remote Access. To test your settings, you need another network for this. You have to access your DVR or IPCam remotely using another computer from another network. There are various ways to do this; you may use a pre-paid usb internet, use your data plan with your android or ios phone, ask a friend to access your DVR or IPCam remotely from his network or use web services like http://www.portcheckers.com/ to test your port forwarding configs.

Upon logging in from another network, start a browser and access your DVR remotely by typing your No-IP host-name plus port number combo. In my case, I don’t have a DVR but IPCam and I’ve forwarded port 9001 to my IPCam’s IP address, that is 192.168.100.101 and my No-IP host-name is chubbable-dvr.ddns.net. So this is how I would type in my browser’s address bar;

http://chubbable-dvr.ddns.net:9001

It should take me directly to my IPCam’s view page. In your case if it doesn’t, read back and make sure you have followed the guide correctly.

I’ve mentioned before in the previous steps (Step 1) that you need to assign a different port number for the DVR’s admin page and the view page. Because each port number will be used for specific page. In my example I’ve used port number 9001 for admin page while port number 9002 for the view page.

So this is how you would type in your address bar:

• To access the DVR or IPCam’s admin page remotely, type in http://yourhostname.domain.tld:port. In my case…

  http://chubbable-ipcam2.ddns.net:9001

• To access the DVR or IPCam’s view page remotely, type in http://yourhostname.domain.tld:port. In my case…

  http://chubbable-ipcam2.ddns.net:9002

  Just substitute http://yourhostname.domain.tld:port with whatever you came up with in your No-IP Host Name Settings.

  So there we have it, simple guide to get your setup working.

It’s a Wrap

I hope you successfully configured your own DVR remote access setup with this guide. It’s not that difficult right? It’s just a matter of simple port forwarding plus free Dynamic DNS service. You don’t need an expensive Static Public IP with your Home Internet Plan.

I hope you’ve learned now how to access your DVR or IP-Cam remotely with this easy and step-by-step guide.

In my next set of articles, I will write a guide on how to port forward with various router brands and how to setup bridge-mode with various ADSL Modems.

If you have questions, clarifications, suggestions or additional info with this guide, feel free to put your comments below.

Here is a simplified guide on configuring your DD-WRT flashed WiFi Routers to limit or prioritize bandwidth for specific IP address, MAC Address, Application or Interface. If you’re the boss of your home network and you share your Internet with family members and guests, then you should be doing this on your Router. So jump on in and read the full tutorial.

In order for you to follow the guide properly, you need a properly configured and working local home network. You also need to consider your Internet Speed plan for this and make sure that you have a full administration access to your ISP issued modem or network router. You also need to set your modem in bridged-mode, if you’re on a xDSL connection, and set your DD-WRT router to have a **WAN connection type** of **PPoE**. ## QoS, Bandwidth Prioritization, Traffic Shaping and Speed Limit You most probably searching for these terms when searching for guides to either limit the speed of your shared WiFi, throttle down the speed of downloads, or you need to prioritize on your gaming bandwidth. Bandwidth prioritization, traffic shaping, speed limiter, all falls under the Quality of Service. So if you want to configure a **Quality of Service** (QoS) rules on your DD-WRT network router, you could accomplish that by either bandwidth prioritization or traffic shaping. And that’s what we’re going to do with this guide, using your **DD-WRT flashed network/WiFi routers**. Before you start of with this guide, you should know first that you could actually set a QoS rule to target several aspects of your home network. And these are; – **Service or Application** Set priority rules based on service or application name. For example; VoIP, Skype, or a name of a Game like Dota 2. – **Netmask** Set priority rules to target a Netmask. Your netmask setting is your IP address range. So if you set your netmask to 24-bit, ie `192.168.1.0/24`, this would mean that your netmask covers IP addresses from `192.168.1.0` to `192.168.1.254`. So if your set QoS rules for Netmask with 24-bit, you are targeting a possible 254 hosts. – **MAC Address** This is a unique identifier issued to your network controller like Network Interface card or WiFi adapter. Setting a QoS rule to target this would mean a host or node specific rule. – **Ethernet Port** Setting a Quality of Service rule for this would mean all devices, hosts or nodes connected to a specific Ethernet port shall be affected by the QoS rule. ## Procedures Here are the steps to configure your network router’s Quality of Service. You could actually implement QoS by targeting several aspects of your home network. You could set a rule to target a specific IP address, Netmask, Service, MAC address or by Ethernet port. – **Step 1:** Login to your DD-WRT flashed router as admin. [caption id="attachment_2216" align="aligncenter" width="892"] Quality of Service Page[/caption] The default IP address to reach your Network Router is `192.168.1.1`. – **Step 2:** Navigate to the QoS settings page and enable the service. From the main menu click on **NAT/QoS** menu, then **QoS** just beside **DMZ** menu. On the page, click **Enable** checkbox for **Start QoS** field. For **Port**, should be **WAN**. Packet scheduler, pick **HBT**. From the dropdown menu, you’ll also see HFSC. But for the purpose of demonstration, I will HBT with this guide. Besides, in my experience HBT seems to perform better. For **Uplink** and **Downlink**, you should only enter 80% of your subscribed plan. Why? because not all the time, your ISP serves you their advertised bandwidth plans. So if you subscribed for a 1Mbps plan, you should only enter `800 Kbps` as your **Downlink** speed, as a contingency in case your ISP couldn’t serve their promised bandwidth speed for a certain period of time. – **Step 3:** Choose how you prioritize bandwidth. You could choose to set rules either for a specific service name, MAC address, IP Netmask, or Ethernet port. It’s up to you… you decide. Also, with DD-WRT… you could prioritize and control bandwidth based on five pre-defined priority class names called; Maximum, Premium, Express, Standard, and Bulk. To explain these further, read below. **Exempt** Any rules set to this priority class should not be affected. **Maximum** Any rules set to this priority class shall have maximum priority over others. A minimum of **60%** of total allocated throughput should be reserved for this priority class. **Premium** With this class, bandwidth priority is set to have a minimum of **25%** of the total allocated bandwidth. **Express** A minimum of **10%** of the total allocated bandwidth shall be set for this priority. **Standard** All services that are not set under any priority shall be automatically set under this class. A minimum of **5%** of total allocated bandwidth shall be give to this priority class. **Bulk** **1%** is allocated with this priority. If you’re into downloading, then you should set your apps to this priority class because with this class, if other users and application is using all available bandwidth while your downloader client is on… then this priority class will kick in and limit your download speed to a minimum of 1%. And when there is enough bandwidth, and no other users or applications is using the bandwidth, then it should use all the available bandwidth. > **Note 1:** Bandwidth is allocated based on “minimum” percentages of your allocated download speed from **QoS Settings** you set under **Step 2** above. > > **Note 2:** Minimum means, the least possible bandwidth allocation if most of your bandwidth is used up. To continue with this step, you need to choose which priority mode you would want to use. You could select either of the following: **Services Priority** – Set priority rules based on service or application name. There are pre-configured services already selectable from the **Service Name** drop down menu. If you want to add your own, you need to know what ports or port range your service/application use. For example, you want to **prioritize and control bandwidth for Dota 2**, it’s an online game right? So you need to know the port ranges used with this game and add it to a new service name. Here is a quick video demo for that. **Netmask Priority** – I’ve already mentioned about [this][1]. If you want the rule to target all local IP addresses in your LAN then you should use this. For example, you’re using subnet `192.168.1.0`, then you should enter `192.168.1.0/24`. Click **Add** button then set priority class. **MAC Priority** – Prioritize bandwidth based on your device MAC address, enter your target device MAC address here, then click add. Set priority class after. In case you’re not sure on how to get your device MAC address, then read this guide; “[How To Know Your Device MAC Address][2]” **Ethernet Port Priority** – If you want to set QoS rules for specific ports on your Router, then use this mode. Just select priority class for your chosen port, your can leve **Max Rate** part untouched. Don’t forget to click **Apply Settings** to save and commit your changes. So those are the easy steps in configuring your DD-WRT flashed routers. One thing more that you should know about these configurations. You should also know about **Precedence** ## Precedence or Order of Priority In real-world applications, there are times that you make several rules that may conflict with each other. Some priority rules gets trumped by the others and other rules takes over the others. That’s because of **Precedence** or the order of priority in case of contradicting rules. For instance, you have a computer that has an IP address of `192.168.10.101` and a MAC address of `A1:B1:C1:D1:E1:F1`. Then you set a rule like so; Netmask Priority = 192.168.10.101/24 | Priority = Standard MAC Priority = A1:B1:C1:D1:E1:F1 | Priority = Premium Obviously, this would have a contradicting rules. Because you set a **Netmask Priority** rule that targets IP address `192.168.10.1` onwards up to `192.168.10.254`. and it happens that your IP address is covered in this rule. Plus, you set another rule to target your device using it’s **MAC Address**. So in this scenario, you have set two priority rules that targets the same device or host. Now, the final rule that should take charge would be the **MAC Priority** rule. Here’s how the order of precedence works. No. 1 has the highest precedence and should take over other rules, in case of conflicting rules. – No. 1 – MAC Priority – No. 2 – Netmask Priority – No. 3 – Interface Priority – No. 4 – Services Priority – No. 5 – Ethernet Port Priority **How To check which QoS priority is taking over in my example case?** If you really want to check it, then you should use the command-line for this. If you’re on Windows, you could readily use `telnet` to invoke the command. Login as `root` and use your webgui admin password. You should always use `root` username plus your admin password to successfully login using **telnet**. So open up your command-prompt by going to Windows start menu > `run` > type in `cmd` and enter. A black screen should open, that’s the command-prompt. Now enter `telnet 192.168.1.1` or whatever IP address you configured with your DD-WRT Router. Then type in; `cat /proc/net/ip_conntrack` and press enter key. Output text should be printed on your screen. Now look for your device IP address, then along with it look for a `mark=` text. Take note of the value and compare the result with the following info. – **Mark=100** – means *Maximum* Priority is taking charge – **Mark=10** – means *Premium* Priority is taking charge – **Mark=20** – means *Express* Priority is taking charge – **Mark=30** – means *Standard* Priority is taking charge – **Mark=40** – means *Bulk Priority* is taking charge Moving back to my example above, **MAC Priority** should take charge over the **Netmask** priority. Take note of the *Mark Values* above, and [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=8h9rm5tCWQk&rel=0;autoplay=1 width=768 height=432 anchor=”watch my video proof”]. I should be getting a `mark=10` for **Premium** priority instead of **Standard** priority, which is set under **Netmask** priority. > Note: The MAC address used in the video is not my real MAC. It’s a temporary MAC address to be only used for the demo. But it should function as normal. ## Sample Setup & Scenario Here are some samples and real-world scenarios where you would want to setup QoS or control bandwidth on your DD-WRT-flashed Network Routers. 1. You want to prioritize your device to have the most priority within your local area network while the rest shall be given lower priority regardless of service or application being used. **Sample config:** Set your overall download and upload speed to 80% of your subscribed plan. Put your device to **MAC Priority** and enter your device MAC Address. Then choose **Premium** for *Priority*. Set the rest of the local devices to have a **Netmask Priority** by entering your *Netmask* under Netmask Priority block. Apply changes and that’s it. 2. You want to prioritize your online gaming speed, while letting others use any available bandwidth with video streaming and basic web browsing. Use **Service Priority**, add a configuration for your online game and fill up the service name and necessary port range. Add and save your changes. Set priority to **Express**, yes… that would be enough for online gaming. Configure other hosts/nodes to **Netmask** priority and put a Standard priority. If you have a Dedicated Downloader box, you may put it under **MAC Priority** and assign a *Bulk* priority to it. ## It’s a Wrap I hope you learned from this post and I wish that you followed and applied the guide with positive results. Feel free to experiment and create any priority combination, since there is no exact formula when it comes to this type of things. The most important thing is, you know the basics and you understand most of the labels and functions found in your DD-WRT QoS settings page. So take note of priority classes (premium, standard, etc.), priority modes (MAC address, Netmask, etc.) and mark values. Thank you for reading my guide on **DD-WRT Quality of Service Configuration**. Also check out my guide on *[TP-Link TL-WR720N QoS Configuration][3]*, and don’t forget to post any comments below. [1]: #netmask [2]: /how-to-obtain-static-ip-address-automatically-from-router#get-mac [3]: /limiting-wifi-speed-on-tl-wr720n-routers

Here is a guide on how to setup/configure your very own OpenVPN, Media Streamer, File Server, T0rrent Downloader and a Software Router, all in one Linux server box.

Here is another Linux tutorial on how you would setup/configure your own multiple-in-one Linux home server. This guide will walk you through on how to configure a file server, OpenVPN server, media & streaming server, and a 24/7 t0rrent downloader, all under one Linux server box. This would be a power consumption saver for you, so if you’re interested in following this guide, then read further below.

What Is ClearOS

It is a Linux Distro based on CentOS that you could use as a Network Gateway and Network Server, which is designed for home, home office, small and medium enterprises.

It is a headless server and installable on bare-metals, which has a Web UI.

To find more about ClearOS, visit it’s Wiki page. All important links are listed in there.

Jump Links

• ClearOS Installation
• ClearOS Configuration
• OpenVPN Server Setup
• Plex Media Server Setup
• File Server Setup
• T0rrent Server Setup

Phase 1: ClearOS Installation

For this multiple in one server setup guide, we’ll be using another opensource and free Linux-based distribution called ClearOS Community Edition. It is based on CentOS 6.

The community edition is designed for home users, hobbyists, enthusiast and Linux developers. ClearOS has a Marketplace for Applications and Addons, just like Android Market or Google Play. Using the Marketplace, you could install and uninstall additional applications for your server in just a breeze.

To get started with the installation and setup, read further below.

Basic Installation and Setup Requirements

• ClearOS Installation CD, download the ISO format and burn it to CD/DVD
• A spare PC for the server or build another one for this purpose
• 1 Hard Drive, this will serve as your boot drive and data drive
• CD/DVR ROM drive or USB stick to hold the ClearOS installer
• A working home LAN
• 2 Ethernet Port, 1 for LAN and 1 for Internet access
• 2 Ethernet Cables

Installation Steps

• Step 1: Insert the ClearOS install cd to your CD/DVD ROM drive and set your BIOS to boot from it. Then you should now be ready to boot your server.

• Step 2: If you successfully booted up from the install CD, you should see a screen similar to the image shown below.

  Select Install or upgrade an existing system and press enter to start the installation wizard.

• Step 3: A ClearOS splash screen should be shown now, click next and choose your language setting, click next again and choose your keyboard language settings and click next again.

  Note: Storage Device Warning will pop-up and will prompt you to discard any existing data. This will show if your hard drive is blank or un-partitioned. To automatically partition it, click Yes, discard any data.

• Step 4: Choose your mode for your storage devices, you may select Basic Storage Device or Specialized Storage Devices. But for the purpose of this guide, select the Basic Storage Devices mode.

  Note: Specialized Storage Devices is used for more complex setup for your storage devices like SAN or iSCSI.

  For now, we should be good using the Basic mode, so choose "Basic Storage Device" and click next.

• Step 5: Enter the hostname for the server, including the domain part. In my case, I entered myserver.chubbable.lan. Once you entered your desired hostname, click next to continue with the next step.

• Step 6: Choose your timezone, you may click on the map or select from the drop-down menu. Click next after choosing one.

• Step 7: Enter your desired admin/root password and click next.

• Step 8: Choose installation type, since this is a new installation on a blank hard drive, choose Use All Space and click next two times and finally click format, then finally click Write changes to disk.

  Click next again when already in the bootloader install screen. Make sure "Install boot loader" is checked then click the "Next" button to start the installation process. It will take several minutes to complete the process.

• Step 9: Reboot, after a successful install. Click the "Reboot" button to do a reboot. After you reboot, a login screen should prompt you. That’s it for the installation part, next part will be the configuration of ClearOS from the admin dashboard.

ClearOS Configuration Guide

Before you can use your ClearOS server within your network, you need first to configure it and install the necessary add-ons/apps to setup a multiple-in-one Linux home server.

After you reboot your machine after installation, you should see a screen similar to the image shown below.

Reference Image Here:

• Step 1: Choose Network Mode. For this guide we’re going to use Gateway mode, so ClearOS will be hosting your internet connection as well as the firewall between your internal network and the Internet.

  Under "Settings" click on Edit button, then a new screen should open. Select Gateway Mode from the drop-down menu for "Network Mode". Then click on Update button.

• Step 2: Configure the network settings. Click on the Configure network now button and you should be presented with a login screen. Login using the user-name root and the password you entered during the ClearOS server installation.

  Then you should see a screen with a Network Interface titled block. You should see your two ethernet ports here. In my case, eth0 is my on-board Ethernet Card and eth1 is my add-on ethernet card. For this guide, I’m going to use the add-on Ethernet card (10/100 Mbps) as my Internet connection, the port that will connect to the modem (which is in bridged-mode), while eth0 shall be my LAN port.

  To continue, click on Edit button that corresponds to the eth0 port. A new screen should appear, under Settings click the drop-down menu for Role, then select LAN.

  Next, click the drop-down menu for Connection Type then choose Static.

  Now fill-up the "IP Address" and "Netmask" matching your currently working network configuration, then click on Update button. The IP address that you set here will be the address of the Admin Web-UI, so take note of it.

  You should be back on the "Network Interfaces" screen, now edit "eth1" and setup your Internet connection type. Click the Add button to edit the role for this ethernet port. Under "Role" drop-down menu, select External, then under "Connection Type" drop-down menu, select PPoE if you’re on DSL connection while DHCP if you’re on a Cable Internet connection. Fill-up user-name and password if you set it to PPoE. Your DSL modem should be in bridged-mode to make "PPoE" connection work.

  Finally, click the Add button to finish the setup for this part.

  You can now continue editing the configuration from the ClearOS Admin Web-UI by accessing https://clearosip-you-set:81 using a browser from another machine.

  Note: You should use https and take note of the port number, it should be 81.

• Step 3: Continue with the ClearOS configuration. Using a browser from another machine, access the ClearOS server’s IP address by typing https://clearos-ip:81 in the address bar.

  You should see a login screen. Now login as root then enter your user-password.

  You should now be at the Admin Dashboard.

• Step 4: Continue and finish the configuration wizard. Using the Admin Web-UI, continue with the wizard and click on Next button found on the left-side of the screen. Click on it repeatedly until you reach the "Software Update" screen.

  You should see some available updates from this screen. If you’re not seeing anything, then you probably didn’t setup your network properly. Troubleshoot it first then go back to this point to continue with the setup.

  If you see available updates, install them by clicking Next button again. Then click Nextagain when you see "Installation complete" dialogue.

• Step 5: System registration. After the above step, click "Next" again to go to the "System registration" screen of ClearOS configuration wizard.

  To complete the registration process of your system, you must have already a ClearOS account. If you don’t have it yet, then create a new one by clicking on the Create Account button. Then fill-up the required fields and click the Create Account button again. When done creating your account, go back to "System Registration" screen and input your registered account details.

  You need to enter details for "Account", "Password", "Type", "System Name", and "Environment".

  For the "Account" and "Password", enter your registered account name and password. For "Type", select New Install or Upgrade/ Re-install if you’re doing a re-install. For "Environment", you may select Home or Home Office since you’ll be using this server only as a Linux home server.

  Click "Register System" after filling those required fields.

  Once your system has been registered, you’ll gain access to ClearOS marketplace and you’ll be able to select several add-ons/application that you’d wanted to install in your ClearOS Linux home server.

  Click "Next" to go to the next step.

• Step 6: Internet domain setup. Just enter your desired domain here, simply enter the domain name that you’ve entered during the ClearOS install process. In my case, I’ve entered chubbable.lan.

  Click "Next" to continue with the next step.

• Step 7: Hostname setting. You need to name your system by giving it a proper hostname. On this page, you need to configure both "Hostname" and "Internet Hostname". You could enter the same name in "Hostname" and "Internet Hostname".

  So you could enter it like so: Hostname – clearos.chubbable.lan Internet Hostname – clearos.chubbable.lan

  Note: If you have services hosted on this server and you want to access it from outside of your local network, like OpenVPN service, you need to set "Internet Hostname" and give it a proper hostname with domain name or a fully qualified domain name (FQDN). For instance, clearos.chubbable.com instead of clearos.chubbable.lan. You can use a Dynamic DNS service for this, so you can get your own FQDN and you’ll be able to access your server from the internet using your server’s FQDN. DDNS service shall be first configured before you could make that hapen. More about this on my next blog post.

  Click "Next" to continue.

• Step 8: Setup your server’s timezone. Simply select your timezone from the drop-down menu, click "Synchronize Now" and then click "Next" button to continue.

• Step 9: Marketplace Apps Installation. This is the part where you could install whatever apps you might need to use with your server. The is the step where we install the File Server app, the OpenVPN server app, Plex app and other apps that are available in ClearOS Marketplace.

  While on the "Welcome to Marketplace" screen, click "Install apps by category" button and click "Next". Now, depending on your Internet speed, it will take some moments to retrieve the list of available Marketplace Apps.

  You could install a lot of apps from this page of the configuration wizard, but for this guide we’ll just choose some of the apps:

  • Under the "Cloud" tab, choose Dynamic DNS
  • Now click on "Gateway" tab and choose Intrusion Detection and Intrusion Prevention.
  • Switch to "Server" tab and choose Flexshare, Plex Media Server, and Transmission BT Client.
  • Switch to "Network" tab and choose OpenVPN, and Port Forwarding.

  Then click "Next" to go to the "App Review" screen and then finally click "Download and Install" button (left of Delete All button) to start the app download and installation. This will download and install all your selected apps.

  You will know that download and installation is finished once the overall progress bar is filled up. Click "Finish and Installation Wizard" button to finish the wizard.

  You should be now at the ClearOS Admin Dashboard and congratulation! You have now setup and configured ClearOS on your sytem.

  Next task would be to configure each app that we’ve installed to work within our local network.

OpenVPN Setup

OpenVPN is a free and opensource software that you could use to implement a Virtual Private Network. It uses SSL/TLS for it’s security protocol. You can use this to create a site-to-site or point-to-point secure connecttion.

You could also use and implement OpenVPN as a stand-alone access server by installing it on a Linux distribution like Ubuntu or CentOS. It is also available as a software package in pfSense. Pfsense stylized as "pfSense" is another opensource application which is a FreeBSD-based software firewall. Checkout this guide if you want to use pfSense with OpenVPN.

Procedures

• Step 1: Allow Incoming Connection For OpenVPN Clients – You need to setup the firewall to accept incoming connection to your OpenVPN server, to do this navigate to Network > Firewall > Incoming Firewall. Click the "Add" button and select OpenVPN from the drop-down menu labeled "Service", then click "Add" button.

  Reference Image:

• Step 2: Create Internal Certificate Authority – This shall be used in all and future user certificate and other internal certificate like the certificate for your OpenVPN server.

  To start off with this procedure, navigate to System > Security > Certificate Manager tab from the admin dashboard. Then fill-up the required fields.

  In my case, I did it like so: Internet Hostname – clearos.chubbable.lan Organization – Chubbable Unit – Tech City – New York State – New York Country – United States

  Then click the button "Create Certificate". Upon clicking on the button, you should be taken to another screen with a warning that mentions about "The web interface is restarting with the new security certificates.". Just click the "Continue" button to proceed. You’ll see a warning page after clicking the button, go ahead and continue, the warning just warns you about the SSL certificate. It’s safe to proceed, the warning just pops up since the certificate you’ve just created is a self-signed one. That means, it’s not signed by Certificate Authorities or providers like Symantec or Comodo.

  Two certificates in .pem format shall appear under "Certificates Manager", one for Certificate Authority and one for your server.

  Reference Image:

  

• Step 3: Enable User Management – You must enable this feature first before you can create a new user account for OpenVPN. Go to System > User menu, and click Initialize Built-in Directory. Wait for it to initialize until you see the "Add" button.

  Click the "Add" button to create a new user account for OpenVPN, a new screen should be shown, now fill-up the necessary fields and then click the "Add" button below those fields.

  This is how I filled-up mine: Username – userone First Name – Rolling Last Name – Pin Password – ** OpenVPN User – Enabled Security Certificates User – Enabled

• Step 4: Create A User Certificate and Download the Configuration File – After creating your user account, log off from the admin dashboard ang login as the user you just created. So in my case, I would login as "userone" instead of "Admin".

  On the left side of your dashboard, click on "User Certificates" under "Accounts" and fill-up the Password field. This password will be use to protect the certificate, it’s a different password from your user-account password. So enter your password and click Create Certificate button.

  After clicking the button, download the OpenVPN configuration file for your platform, choose from the drop-down menu for OpenVPN "Configuration File" and click the download button. You may choose from Linux, Windows and Mac.

  Also, don’t forget to download the certificate files; Certificate (useraccountname-cert.pem), Certificate Authority (ca-cert.pem), PKCS12, Private Key (useraccountname-key.pem).

  Put the files in the same folder where .ovpn file is where at.

• Step 5: How To Connect To The OpenVPN Server?

  Connecting to the OpenVPN server is fairly easy. You can connect from Linux, Mac, Windows or Android.

  Note: You can actually edit your .ovpn file and use your server’s IP address instead of a HOSTNAME. Open .ovpn file using a text editor and look for the line starting with remote. Change remote your-server-hostname 1191 to remote your-server-ipaddress 1194.

  Windows – First download the client software from this page. Download the appropriate version for your Windows. Then install the software by double-clicking on the .exe file. After you install it, open the GUI by double-clicking on "OpenVPN GUI" desktop shortcut. The GUI icon should now appear in your system tray. If you right-click on it, you’ll notice that there is no "Connect" menu yet, that’s because you haven’t added your VPN config file yet.

  To add your OpenVPN config files and certificate, go to the OpenVPN installation folder and look for config folder. Put your .ovpn config and certificate files there. Now, right click on your OpenVPN system tray icon, you should now see a "Connect" menu. Click "Connect" and enter your OpenVPN user-name and user-password, then click OK to make the connection.

  Linux – Download the .ovpn file for Linux and also don’t forget to download the certificate files. Place the files in the same folder and store it in a permanent location.

  Install network-manager-openvpn-gnome and openvpnfrom command-line, if it’s not installed yet.

  sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn-gnome openvpn

  If you’re on Linux Mint – Go to Menu > Preferences > Network Connections > Add. Then click on the drop-down menu and scroll further down until you see Import a saved VPN configuration, click on it and then click the "Create" button. Now browse to where your .ovpn config file is. Then enter your user-name, user-password and Private key password. User Certificate, CA Certificate, Private key should be auto populated. Click "Save" button. You can now click on the networking icon from your system tray and your VPN account should be available. Click on it to make the connection.

Plex Media Server Setup

Plex software is a great software to organizer your media files. You can put them in libraries, categories and stream them to various UPnP and DLNA clients like Android devices, Windows, MaC, Linux, SmartTV and few more others.

Procedure

• Step 1: To configure Plex for the first time, login as "root" to your ClearOS admin dashboard.

• Step 2: Navigate to "Server" tab and click on Plex Media Server, then Go To MyPlex. Plex dashboard should now open and you’ll be greeted by "Plex Terms of Service" window, click "Agree" button to continue accessing the dashboard.

Now you might ask "how to add files to my plex media server?", well there are various ways on how to add your media files. It depends on your situation or media source. Your media source could be in a single drive, in a raided drives inside a server, or maybe a NAS.

If you stored your media files in a single big drive or raid box with SATA connection, you could simply attach it to your ClearOS server, then create a directory for the files and use rsync or similar tools to copy or sync your media files. After you transfer your files to your ClearOS server, login to your Plex admin gui and create a new media library and set the path to your media directory you’ve created. To learn more about this, read my post about adding files to a Linux media server.

If you stored your files in another file or media server, but you are not able to detach your drives because it’s raided (either software or hardware raided), you can use flexshare and Windows networking for that to copy files from your existing media/file server to your new ClearOS server. You need to have a running home network for this. You need to create a mount point inside your ClearOS server and mount the shard folder from your existing file server. More instruction on this later in another post.

File Server Setup

Setting this feature in ClearOS will let you share folders and files to client machines like Windows, Mac or Linux. For this to work, you must first install "Windows Networking" from the ClearOS Marketplace, then create a group and users for the folder share.

Procedure

Step 1: Install "Windows Networking" module. Login as "root" to ClearOS admin dashboard and click on the marketplace icon. It’s the cloud icon with down-arrow that sits on the top-right corner of your dashboard. Use the search function on the left-side of the screen and search for "Windows Networking". Then look for the "Windows Networking" button and click on it, then click "Install/Upgrade Selected Apps". That should install the module.

Step 2: Initialize built-in directory by clicking on Server > Windows Networking > Initialize Built-in directory. Once initialized, go to the next step below and configure "Windows Networking".

Step 3: Configure Windows Networking by entering your desired Sever Name and Windows Domain. Also enter your admin password, winadmin shall be the default user-name for the administrator. Then click Initialize to start the service. You should be taken to another configuration screen.

Step 4: Edit Windows Networking Mode. You can choose between two modes, Primary Domain Controller and Simple Server. In simple server, you can use the login user-name and user-password of a Windows user as the user-credentials for a shared directory. This is the mode that we would want to use. This mode makes use of "Workgroup" name instead of a "Domain" name.

Click on the "Edit" button under the "Mode" block and click on the drop-down menu labeld "Mode", then choose "Simple Server’. Click "Update" button to save the changes.

Step 5: Create Group. Navigate to System > Accounts > Groups and click the "Add" button to create a new group for your file server service. In my case, I named my group fileshare.

Step 6: Create User. Create a new user-account and assign it to the group fileshare or the whatever group name you came up with. Navigate to System > Accounts > Users and click the "Add" button to create a new user-account. The user-account could be an existing user-account on your Windows-based machine, let’s say UserXP. But you don’t need need to follow the character case of the name, you could enter it in all lower-case, like userxp. You could also add additional user-account that does not exist yet on any of your Windows machine. You could create a user-account for your Linux-based machine which is not actually a user on your Linux machine.

Fill-up the all the necessary fields and don’t forget to enable OpenVPN User and Security Certificates User, as well as ticking the group name for the user-account. Click "Add" button to save the your changes.

Step 7: Create the folder to share via FlexShare menu. Navigate to Server > FlexShare > Click ADD button. For the purpose of illustration, I’d name my folder Shared. So I’d type that in under Share Name field. Enter description for the folder and assign it to group fileshare or the name you came up with. Set "Third Party App Access" to disabled for now. Finally click the "Add" button.

Your dashboard will reload and you should see the "Windows File Share" block. You can see that the "Status" is set to "Disabled". To enable the folder share, click the "Edit" button and set "Status" to Enabled. You decide whether you allow read and write permission for the shared folder. Click "Update" to save your changes.

Step 8: Accessing your shared folder. Test your configuration and see if you can access your ClearOS shared folder.

For this guide, I’ve configured the FlexShare/Windows Networking configs like so:

Server Name - MyServer
Workgroup - MyLAN
Shared Folder Name - Shared
User Group - FileShare
User Name - UserXP

If you’re on Windows, you can access the shared folder name Shared under the server name MyServer by typing \\MyServer\shared. Alternately, you could browse your network location and you should be able to find your workgroup name and servername. Click on it to access your shared folder. Just make sure that the user account that is currently logged-in in Windows actually exists in ClearOS user accounts.

If you’re on Linux with desktop environment, you could type in smb://myserver/shared/ in your file explorer’s address bar.

You could further customize your settings by creating a read-only group and a group with read and write permission enabled.

T0rrent Server Setup

Transmission comes with ClearOS installation. It is very easy to install using ClearOS Dashboard by accessing the App Market Place.

Installation Steps

• Step 1 – Installing Transmission on ClearOS is fairly easy. Just login to your Web Console and access the Marketplace.

  To do that, do the following:

  Fire up your browser and navigate to

  https://your.clearos.ipaddress:81/app/marketplace

  Then login with your username and password.

• Step 2 – On your left navigation menu, search for transmission and hit ENTER key.

  You should see the Transmission BitT0rrent Client icon, click to highlight it, then click Install/Upgrade Selected Apps button to initiate the installation.

  On the next screen, click on Download and Install button.

  Transmission should start installing, watch for the progress bar.

• Step 3 – After successful installation, click on the Update Navigation Menu button and then hover your mouse on the Server button on the top of your Dashboard then click on Transmission.

  Now, start the service by clicking on the Start button from the right menu. It’s the button that corresponds to Action label.

• Step 4 – Setup a password for your Transmission WebUI. Enter your desired password under the Password dialogue box. Then click Update button to save the changes.

• Step 5 – Login to Transmission Web UI by clicking on Go To Transmission Management Tool button.

  Login prompt should pop-up, the default username for Transmission is admin, while password is the one you enrolled in Step 4 above.

  Then that’s it! You now setup and configured Transmission on ClearOS.

  Note: If you didn’t update the password, then just login to Transmission Web UI without entering any. Jut hit Login button.

Software Router Setup

This is very straight-forward to setup, especially when you have lots of experience tinkering with your home routers.

To access the app page, go to: https://your.server.ipaddress:81/app/dhcp

I will expand on this topic in the future, whenever I get time.

Apps Related To This Service:

• Bandwidth Manager
• Port Forwarding
• 1-to-1 NAT
• Multi WAN
• DMZ

That’s a Wrap

I hope you found this guide useful and applicable in your case, be it in an office or home use.

Using ClearOS, you could setup a multi-in-one Linux Server. You could still add features and services to your server by installing additional apps using ClearOS Market Place. There are lots of Free or Paid application that you might find useful for your mode of operation.

If you have something to share about Clear OS setups and configurations, or some clarifications or corrections, please feel free to post them below.

Thanks for taking time reading this post.

I decided to write a tutorial today for another Ubuntu 14.04 Server based HTPC and media server setup guide. I’ve read a forum thread where the original poster is asking if there is some way to setup an HTPC File Server Combo on his machine.

Related Topic: How to Build Your Own Cloud Server Using Nextcloud

Some of the respondents answered by suggesting to setup a Samba server or NFS connection, but the post author isn’t skillful enough to setup the thing on his own. So I decided to wrtie this guide on how you would exactly do this, the easy way, using a FREE-AND-OPEN-SOURCE-SOFTWARE (FOSS) called Owncloud. I’ll share this guide later on the forum site. So with Owncloud, XBMC (KODI in next release) plus Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS, we could put up a configuration that will serve as an HTPC, DLNA server, streaming media server, file server, that has a file sync feature like the one offered by Dropbox or Goostepgle Drive.

But what the heck is Owncloud anyway?

Stylized as ownCloud, it is generally free and OpenSource software that functions like a Dropbox (for the file Sync part). Almost all of us know that Dropbox is a free cloud-based file hosting service with file synchronization feature. It’s a free (up to 2GB) personal cloud storage service. It’s very similar with Owncloud, the difference is, you have to provide your own hardware/infrastructure where you could install Owncloud and configure it as your privately-owned cloud server or cloud storage, and file server solution. You could install and use Owncloud within your own internal network, as well as, to a cloud VPS (Virtual Private Server) like the ones offered by Amazon AWS and DigitalOcean.

Owncloud, like any other software, you need to install and configure it afterwards to match your intended mode of operation. Like Dropbox, Owncloud has a client connection software that automatically syncs your local file/folder to your private cloud folder. It also has a WebDAV feature that you could connect to, from various clients (Smartphones and Desktops) by just accessing your webdav server address. Connecting to your account using webdav is simple and easy, just take note of your user account and your webdav address.

ownCloud WebDAV address uses the following format:

name-of-server/remote.php/webdav/your-personal-folder

or

ip-address/remote.php/webdav/

Purpose of This Guide

The main purpose of this guide, is to setup an Linux-based media server, a file server, a DLNA server, a streaming media server, and at the same time an HTPC, all under one machine. This build is going to be a power-saving machine that you could power-on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You also call this as a multi-in-one htpc media server.

Setup Requirements

For this guide, you need a machine powerful enough to serve your desired services and mode of operation. I’m not going to run through the details, but to give you an idea, you at least a 4GB RAM, Quad-core CPU, ATI Radeon HD5400 or newer/Intel GMA X4500HD or newer, large hard-drive (or RAIDED drives) and most of all, a high-quality Gigabit Ethernet Card. You also need to have XBMC (or Kodi) and Plex already installed on your system. If you have not done this yet, then you need to follow my

Linux-based media server guide on how to install XBMC and Plex.

For the Owncloud Installation Part

Since this tutorial involves Owncloud manual installation on a Linux-based machine (Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS), it requires command-line typing using Linux terminal or Windows putty.exe. Don’t be discourage by this because I will make it very easy for you. You may copy-and-paste most of the commands and you just need to substitute the values applicable to your installation.

For this guide, we need to do the following:

• Connect to the target machine remotely via SSH
• Install Apache 2 Web Server
• Install MySQL Server
• PHP5
• Install Owncloud dependency packages
• Create a new VirtualHost
• Download Owncloud manual installation package
• Enable VirtualHost & Install Owncloud (keep in mind that Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is the Host-OS)
• Configure Owncloud
• Test connect a client device/machine

• You must be comfortable with command-line

  Note: You need putty.exe if you’re on Windows.

The details and values used in this guide are:

• Hostname => htpc
• FQDN or Fully Qualified Domain Name => htpc.chubbable.local
• User Account used from the HTPC => chubbable
• VirtualHost or Domain Name for the Owncloud instance => cloud.loc
• Database name used for Owncloud => owncloud
• Database user-name used for Owncloud => owncloud
• Database password used for Owncloud => owncloud
• MySQL Root user-password => root
• Admin user-name & user-password for Owncloud => admin/admin These are the values I’ve used in this guide. You should use your own values.

Procedures

• Step 1: Connect to your HTPC remotely via SSH.

  You could actually install Owncloud directly from your XBMC or HTPC machine, but the advantage of using SSH is that, you could easily copy and paste codes in your command-line and you don’t have to manually type in the long syntaxes for the installation. To connect to your target machine using SSH, open up putty.exe or a terminal in Linux (ctrl + t), then type in ssh [email protected]. chubbable is my user-name on my HTPC machine with a static IP address of 192.168.1.252 If it’s your first time to connect, you’ll be greeted with a message The authenticity of the blah... blah..., make sure that you’re connecting to your target machine, type yes and press enter to continue. You should be now logged-in remotely to your HTPC machine.

• Step 2: Download the latest version of ownCloud.

  To do this, head over to https://owncloud.org/install/ and click the button labeled Archive Files For Server Owners. A new mini-window should pop-up. Reference Image: [jig ids="1754"] From the pop-up window, you should see a list of available choices. In this case, you need to download the Unix package for ownCloud in an archived file. From the number one entry, right click Unix link and choose Copy link address from the context menu.

  Reference Image:

• Step 3: Install Apache2 web server and other dependency packages.

  Since ownCloud is a web-based application, it needs to have a web server to run on. Just like any other web-script (ie. Wordpress), it requires a web host to be installed on. So for this step, we need to install Owncloud’s dependency packages and at the same time install Apache 2 web server, MySQL Database server and PHP (plus important modules). You could just copy and paste the codes used in this step. You just have to substitute the values that are most applicable to your case. To continue with this step, copy the following code and paste it in your command-line, then press ENTER key. Input your user-password when asked.

  sudo apt-get install lamp-server^ php5-gd php5-json php5-curl php5-intl php5-mcrypt php5-imagick -y

  It’ll take around 10 minutes for this to finish. It depends on your Internet and system-drive’s speed. During the installation process, a new screen should pop up similar to the image shown below.

  Reference Image:

  Nominate a password for the MySQL Database root user account. So input your password, then hit ENTER key. You’ll be asked to enter it twice for confirmation and double-checking. Installation should continue.

  After the install process, you should be back to your command-line. chubbable@htpc:~$

  Now, you’re ready for the next step.

• Step 4: Create the document root folder for cloud.loc. To do this, copy and paste the following code and press ENTER key:

  sudo mkdir /var/www/cloud.loc

  Create ssl folder to hold your SSL Certificate files:

  sudo mkdir /var/www/cloud.loc/ssl

  Create logs folder to store your log files:

  sudo mkdir /var/www/cloud.loc/logs

• Step 5: Copy the owncloud folder or better yet move it to your virtualhost’s document root by typing the following command.

  sudo mv owncloud /var/www/cloud.loc/

  To confirm that you actually move the whole folder, type

  cd && ls /var/www/cloud.loc

  You should see the folders owncloud, ssl and logs.

• Step 6: After the above step, set permission to your ownCloud document root by copy-pasting the following command:

  sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/cloud.loc/owncloud

  sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/cloud.loc/owncloud

  Open and edit the hosts file and insert cloud.loc:

  sudo nano /etc/hosts

  add cloud.loc beside 127.0.0.1

  Note: You may change cloud.loc to anything you want.
  Add your domain name to your client machine’s hosts file. If you’re on Linux, you could do this by typing this in your commandline: sudo nano /etc/hosts Then write a new line of text and add the IP address of your XBMC or HTPC machine and then your domain name.

  This requirement should be done on your client machine,

  not your XBMC or HTPC machine. In my case, I did it like so:

  192.168.1.252 cloud.loc

  Save the file by pressing

  ctrl + o -> Enter -> ctrl + x.

  To do this in windows XP/7/8, navigate to system-folder\system32\drivers\etc</code> and edit the file hosts. It's a hidden file, so you need first to enable Show hidden files option in Windows EXplorer.

• Step 7: Create a Self-signed SSL Certificate For your ownCloud instance.

  You need a self-signed certificate to be used with your SSL virtualhost in Apache. Creating this certificate is simple, you may just copy and paste the commands below. This step should enable https connection in ownCloud.

  Create the SSL Certificate. Copy-paste the command to create the certificate:

  sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /var/www/cloud.loc/ssl/owncloud-ssl.key -out /var/www/cloud.loc/ssl/owncloud-ssl.crt

  A new screen should open and will ask for various details like Country and State. This is how I entered my data:

  • Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]: US
  • State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]: New York
  • Locality Name (eg, city): New York City
  • Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]: Chubbable
  • Organizational Unit Name (eg, section): Tech
  • Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name): cloud.loc
  • Email Address: [email protected]

  You can now check for the files from the ssl folder inside /var/www/cloud.loc

  cd && ls -l /var/www/cloud.loc/ssl

  You should see owncloud-ssl.crt and owncloud-ssl.key file.

  Now you might wanna ask your self, how to use SSL in ownCloud?

  The answer can be found in the next step below.

• Step 8: Create an SSL VirtualHost.

  This is the part where you will use the SSL files you've generated from the previous step above. After successfully creating the certificate files, you now need to create the SSL virtual host for your domain. To do this, copy the file default-ssl.conf from /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl.conf and paste it to a new file called ssl-cloud.loc.conf.

  To do that, type the following and press Enter key.

  sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/ssl-cloud.loc.conf

  Add the path to your SSL certificate files, open the file by typing:

  sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/ssl-cloud.loc.conf

  Edit the file to look something like this:

  <ifmodule mod_ssl.c>
  <virtualhost _default_:443>
      ServerAdmin [email protected]
      ServerName cloud.loc
      ServerAlias www.cloud.loc
      DocumentRoot /var/www/cloud.loc/owncloud
      ErrorLog /var/www/cloud.loc/error.log
      CustomLog /var/www/cloud.loc/access.log combined
  
      SSLEngine on
      SSLCertificateFile /var/www/cloud.loc/ssl/owncloud-ssl.crt
      SSLCertificateKeyFile /var/www/cloud.loc/ssl/owncloud-ssl.key
  
      <filesmatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
      SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
      </filesmatch>
  
      <directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
      SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
      </directory>
  
      BrowserMatch "MSIE [2-6]" \
      nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
      downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
      BrowserMatch "MSIE [17-9]" ssl-unclean-shutdown
  
      <directory /var/www/cloud.loc/owncloud>
      Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
      AllowOverride All
      Require all granted
      </directory>
  </virtualhost>
  </ifmodule>
  

  Save the file, and enable the SSL virtualhost.

  To do this:

  sudo a2ensite ssl-cloud.loc.conf && sudo service apache2 restart

  If there is no error upon Apache restarts, then you've successfully enabled your SSL VirtualHost.

• Step 9: Create a Virtualhost for your ownCloud instance.

  This virtual host will host your domain for your Owncloud instance. In my case, I named my domain like so, cloud.loc. For this step, you need to create a new virtualhost and set the document root to be used by Owncloud. To do this, create a new .conf file for your Owncloud virtualhost. It's better to use a file name that reflects your domain name. In my case my local domain name is cloud.loc, so I would name my .conf file like so, cloud.loc.conf.

  To create the file, type or copy this:

  sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/cloud.loc.conf

  A new black screens should pop up. Copy and paste the block of codes and the save the file by pressing

  ctrl + o -> ENTER -> ctrl + x.

  <virtualhost *:80>
  ServerName cloud.loc
  ServerAdmin [email protected]
  DocumentRoot /var/www/cloud.loc/owncloud
  ErrorLog /var/www/cloud.loc/logs/error.log
  CustomLog /var/www/cloud.loc/logs/access.log combined
  <directory /var/www/cloud.loc/owncloud>
      Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
      AllowOverride All
      Require all granted
  </directory>
  </virtualhost>
  

  Note: Substitue the correct path in your case. Save the file and exit. Then enable your newly created virtualhost by invoking the following command:

  sudo a2ensite cloud.loc.conf && sudo service apache2 restart

• Step 10: Enable Apache Mods for ownCloud.

  sudo a2enmod rewrite ssl headers && sudo service apache2 restart

• Step 11: Check your ownCloud domain and see if it'll connect via HTTPS connection.

  Access your ownCloud domain using https://cloud.loc If you see a splash page saying This Connection Is Untrusted using Firefox, then that's a good indication that you've configured SSL in ownCloud correctly.

  To continue, click I Understand the Risk and then Add Exception -> Confirm Security Exception.

  You should be then redirected to the Admin Web-GUI.

  In Google Chrome, you'll see a page like this:

  You just need to click Proceed Anyway button to continue logging in.

  • Step 12: Create a new database for ownCloud installation.

  First login as root to MySQL server via commandline.

  Type-in the below code and hit ENTER key.

  mysql -u root -p

  You'll be prompted to enter your MySQL root password (the you entered during Step 3), enter it and press enter key.

  You should now see a new command-line starting with mysql>

  Create the new database by typing the following command and press ENTER key.

  CREATE DATABASE owncloud;

  Create new user and grant privileges to the new database.

  GRANT ALL ON owncloud.* TO 'owncloud'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'owncloud';

  Then reload user privileges to set the privileges for the user.

  FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

  Done! Exit the prompt by typing exit + enter key.

  Switch to your browser and access your domain name. Then proceed to the next step.

  Note: owncloud and admin are for illustration purpose only. Use your own values.

• Step 13: Install ownCloud by initiating the installation wizard.

  Browse to cloud.loc and fill up the necessary fields on that page.

  In my case, I've filled up the fields like so:

  • admin user-name => admin
  • admin user-password => admin
  • database user => owncloud
  • database password => owncloud
  • database name => owncloud

  After filling the necessary fields, click Finish setup button and you should be taken to the ownCloud admin page.

  If you reached the page similar to the image shown above, then you've successfully installed ownCloud on Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS.

  To configure it as a file server with XBMC/HTPC, follow the post-install guide and configure ownCloud from it's Web-GUI.

Post Install Configuration

The next task that you need to do is to enforce https connection to your ownCloud server. This settings will always redirect a user to the secure side of your server.

If a user just typed cloud.loc in the address bar, owncloud will redirect it to https://cloud.loc

So how to always enable HTTPS in ownCloud?

To enable HTTPS connection to your ownCloud-based file server, you need to login in again using the https protocol. So if you're logged in right now, logout first and then login again using https://cloud.loc. Then navigate to main admin menu from the top-right corner of the page, then hover your mouse to Admin and click it, scroll down a little further till you see the Enforce HTTPS check-box. Tick the box and you're done.

Using The File Sync Feature

To use this feature, first create a client user account from the administration page. You may assign a group for this account and also provide disk quota. Doing this is very straight forward, thanks to ownCloud's simple, clean but feature rich web-ui. After creating the account, install the client software which can be downloaded from

this page. You may choose and download the client software for either desktop clients or mobile devices. After downloading the client app, install and run it from your device. Installing it is fairly easy, especially on Windows and Mac.

To connect from Windows machines, run the app and fill up the Server Address in the following format:

https://ipaddress/

or

https://domain-name

Then click next, a new window should pop-up warning you about SSL connection, double check the certificate and tick Trust this certificate and finally click ok.

You should be then taken to the login windows. Now fill up the user-name and password field and click next.

The next dialog will let you choose your local folder, you may choose another folder or just accept the default folder path, which is profile-name\owncloud.

Click Connect then FINISH.

ownCloud should be running now already and minimized in your system tray like Dropbox does. Now you're ready to make the sync.

Connecting from Mac or Linux is very similar, so you may just use this Windows guide as a reference.

Connecting To WebDAV

After a successful installation, you got really excited and you wanted to test the server straight away. So you might ask, how to connect to ownCloud?

Connecting to ownCloud is fairly easy, you just need to get your WebDAV server address. In this case, my server address is https://cloud.loc/remote.php/webdav/. You could use an IP address instead of a domain name.

How to connect using Linux Mint? Connecting to ownCloud from a Linux Mint desktop is fairly easy, just open up your file explorer (ie. nemo) then go to main menu then:

Click File -> Connect To Server

A new pop-up mini-window should open. Fill up:

• Click Type drop-down menu and select Secure WebDAV (HTTPS)
• Fill up Server: with cloud.loc/remote.php/webdav/
• User Name and Password

Note: Do not include the https or http when filling up the Server field, else it will throw an error saying, HTTP Error: Cannot resolve hostname (https). Finally, click connect to make the connection.

Connecting from Mac is fairly easy too and very similar. Just open up your explorer then go to main menu -> Go -> Connect to Server. How to connect from XBMC? To connect to ownCloud using XBMC, go to Video -> File -> Files -> Add Videos. Then click Browse -> Add Network Location.

A new mini-window should pop-up. The fill up the fields like so:

• From the Protocol option menu, select WebDAV server (HTTPS)
• Fill up Server address with cloud.loc or just an IP address
• Fill up Remote path with remote.php/webdav
• Fill up user-name and user-password
• Finally, click OK to make the connection Then continue adding media files the usual way. Thats it! Reference Image:

Conclusion

With the power of Open Source projects, you can accomplish many things on top of ordinary. As you have witnessed in this guide, we've installed a web-server plus ownCloud in addition to your existing XBMC-based HTPC and Plex media server. This is made possible by our Host-OS, which is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS server. In this guide, you've learned how to install owncloud in Ubuntu 14.04, and also, you've build yourself an HTPC-File-Server combo from scratch using free downloadable software. So if you've completed this guide successfully, pat yourself on the back. For those who need further help or anyone who wants to improve this post, feel free to make a comment below. Thank you all for taking your time in reading this setup guide.