Status of last good stable Bubba Server image?

[dsp76]

Hi,
I tried to get an overview and status of whats the current last good image for Bubba Server (ONE) and was confused by several different threads about initial releases of Lenny and announced to be finished releases, followed by several bug discussions....
I really look for a stable image with only few bugs as I don't want to spend too much time with my home server I could imagine other ones lost track too?

1) Could you please name the suggested release?
2) Is any further development / updates planned to Bubba Server (I was waiting, as I got the impression something is in the queue still)?

[spiff_man]

I'm also interested in that info...

[GaryL]

Also interested, have been putting off a reinstall for months.

[dsp76]

Hello Excito,
please give us an answer, (my) Bubba is not even 3 years old - I decided for Excito and to pay a little extra because I liked the product and the proposed quality.
Now that Bubba Two is the current product, I think its a little too early to forget about your first Bubba. There should be an update to a current OS level - also for security reasons I guess.

Its really to early to declare Bubba out of support, as it currently appears to me...

Dirk

[HerrJanzon]

Perhaps mailto:support@excito.com works better? If so, post the result here. I am interested too (although I have actually kind of given up on the Bubba server and just keeps it as a second file store, for which purpose it works fine).

[dsp76]

I definitely will - did you know that by 15th of february there are no security updates anymore for Debian Etch?

I would like to know if anyone else of the Bubba owners is interested in an updated image. A lot of people read this thread, but only a few participated yet... If you are interested as well - please raise your voice!

[Boy]

Of course, I am interested.
I am mainly interested in an image which separates the system and user data, so you don´t have backup all your user data, when reinstalling the system.
But you are correct, I think, eXcito is gorgetting the Bubba One users.....

[osa]

I'm running 'raw' Lenny for 8 months with 2 or 3 reboots (it never crashed). My current uptime is 169 days, so i think this images may be considered as stable.

[seil_or]

I agree that it would be appropriate if Excito kept posting upgrades for the Bubba Server product. Well-known manufacturers of comparable products will supply software upgrades for their hardware, several years after a certain product has gone out of production.

But in the meantime, here is what I did to get my Bubba up and running with the Lenny software. I just want to add that I still consider myself to be a linux novice, though I am not afraid to use the command line if that gets things working. Therefor, I cannot guarantee that my suggestions will work for you...

After installing the image, I used the update function in the adminstation webpage to update the software. My software version is now 1.0.3.

To get access to the Bubba I needed to use SSH as described in the manual. So I checked that option for the main user (allow SSH login). After login, I used su to get root access as described in the manual.

Files can be edited by means of the nano editor

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nano -w filename

All the remedies I describe below are mentioned elsewhere in this site. I just thought it would be a help to gather them in one place. I don't use the mediatomb video server and the mail facilities, so I don't know if those will work after implementing the changes below.

First problem I encountered was the fact that the administration webpage does not allow setting a static IP address. It gets its address from the DHCP server on my home network. To get a static IP address I changed the /etc/network/interfaces file. At the same time I added a post-up statement (allmulti) to get my firefly media server to announce itself. So here is my /etc/network/interfaces file:

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# The loopback interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

#The first network card - this entry was created during the Debian installation
# (network, broadcast and gateway are optional)
auto eth0

iface eth0 inet static
     #set your static IP below
     address 10.0.0.10

     #set your default gateway IP here
     gateway 10.0.0.1

     netmask 255.255.255.0
     #network 10.0.0.0
     #broadcast 10.0.0.255

     post-up ifconfig eth0 allmulti

I restarted my Bubba to make these changes take effect.

Second set of changes I had to make were in the /etc/samba/smb.conf file. First I made sure that the correct workgroup is specified under [global]. Thereafter, I went to the section ###Authentication### and found the statement

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 interfaces = eth1 

and changed that to

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 interfaces = eth0 

.

Next, I found the [homes] section (in the process, I changed [homes] to [home]) and set

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 read only = yes 

to

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 read only = no 

in order to allow writing to my home share.

That's it. At this point I again restarted my Bubba and could see that everything was working as intended.

Hope this can help some of you that still hesitate to upgrade to Lenny.

[dsp76]

Thanks for all the good hints...
I wrote to Excito a couple of days ago and sent a reminder today. No answer so far. I still hope we will receive some official answer and a working "final" update for the box. It would leave me pretty disappointed otherwise.

I was a big fan initially and over time. But I get more concerns now and would probably not buy any newer bubba server again

[tor]

Let me start by apologizing for the late reply on Excitos behalf.

Regarding firmware on Bubba. The plan here is to try finalizing the Lenny image and repository. This is however the last upgrade, apart from possible security updates, that Excito will do for Bubba|Server. It is already EOL and not for sale any more Regarding long time support, Excito is a very small company and can unfortunately not keep developing all our products.

What might be worse is that we unfortunately have no ETA on this and we most likely wont _officially_ support a dist-upgrade, only re-installs (It will most likely work however)

As a final note, we really want to support any efforts on tweaking the old Bubba Server, which turned out to be a really good piece of hardware, and we will try providing better means for this. A wiki is on the todo list. And we always try answering technical questions on how to tweak/modify Bubba.

Sorry for not being able to give any more positive answers.

/Tor

[asparak]

For a product that was first being reviewed in the press 3 years ago, I think Excito have done a pretty good job of supporting it so far. Not many large companies would support a product for that long. You buy a laptop for example from any main manufacturer and try getting a good level of support after that length of time. They would laugh you out of the building.

[pero]

Hi

Here is the patch for /usr/lib/web-admin/backend.pl for fixing web interface and setting static network for bubba server. Enjoy.

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287c287
<    $pref2=~s/'/'\\''/g;
---
>    $pref2=~s/'/'\\''/g; #' put here just to make code more readable
666,667c666,667
< 	my ($iface,$ip,$nm,$gw)=@_;
< 	
---
> 	my ($ip,$nw,$nm,$gw,$ns)=@_;
> 	$iface="eth0";
681a682,683
> 	set_nameserver($ns);
> 	
688c690,691
< 	my ($iface)=@_;
---
> #	my ($iface)=@_;
> 	$iface="eth0";
705a709,730
> 
> # Get networkconfig by pero
> 
> sub get_networkconfig{
> 	$iface="eth0";
> 	my %ifs=read_interfaces();
> 	if ($ifs{$iface}{"adressing"}=="static"){
> 	    print $ifs{$iface}{"options"}{"address"}."\n";
> 	    print $ifs{$iface}{"options"}{"netmask"}."\n";
> 	    print $ifs{$iface}{"options"}{"gateway"}."\n";
> 	
> 	    open(RESOLV,"/etc/resolv.conf");
> 	    @data=<RESOLV>;
> 	    close(RESOLV);
> 	    foreach (@data){
> 	        if (/^nameserver (.+)$/){
> 		    print "$1\n";
> 	        }
> 	    }
> 	}
> }
> 
719c744
<    }
---
> 	}
1472,1473c1497,1498
< 	"set_static_netcfg"		=> [\&set_static_netcfg ,4],
< 	"set_dynamic_netcfg"	=> [\&set_dynamic_netcfg ,1],
---
> 	"set_static_networkcfg"		=> [\&set_static_netcfg ,5],
> 	"set_dynamic_networkcfg"	=> [\&set_dynamic_netcfg ,0],
1509a1535
> 	"get_networkconfig"			=> [\&get_networkconfig ,0],

One last piece of advice : if you want support for this device do it yourself.

[dsp76]

@Tor, thanks for the update about the issue, looking forward to this final image. It should be upgraded at least this one time. A reinstall would be fine. I'd rather pay for a software upgrade than for a new box. I guess others would do so as well.

@asparek, I didn't buy a laptop - I bought a server. Typically they are not thought to be replaced after two years. My laptop also runs now 3,5 years...
I decided to spend more money for Bubba than for the other typical boxes at that time - because the box made a very sustainable impression to me....

@pero, thanks a lot for this advice. I wouldn't ask here, if I could do it. I'm fine with maintaining a desktop linux system, with the available tools. But the bubba is very much dependent on Excito as far as I understand? Or would 3rd party developers be able to build updated images?

[dsp76]

Regarding firmware on Bubba. The plan here is to try finalizing the Lenny image and repository. This is however the last upgrade, apart from possible security updates, that Excito will do for Bubba|Server.
/Tor

Hello Tor,
how about the last upgrade... its now 2,5 month ago.
Please - do it for your initial buyers.