I’m currently in the process of migrating my server from Windows Server 2008 R2 to a headless Ubuntu Server for better performance and the advantages of the ext filesystem over ntfs.
As of now, I have my test environment in a virtual machine to play around and make sure, I know how everything works (I’m not big on Linux) before actually making the final step and formatting my physical server (and re-formatting all drives from ntfs to ext4, which will be a pain, I’m sure).
In the update logs of my Windows server running the “develop” branch, I read that as of 16 May, the Linux version supports updating as well.
I read up on the wiki: https://github.com/NzbDrone/NzbDrone/wiki/Updating
and don’t quite understand what this means.
I installed my test environment prior to this announcement and it is currently running 2.0.0.1397. I switched to the “develop” branch and it now offers me the 1505 version, but when I click on Install (which in Windows would do everything automatically), it takes me to the Installation Guide (https://github.com/NzbDrone/NzbDrone/wiki/Installation). Does that mean that to update I have to clone the git again?
What is necessary to get ND to update itself and restart automatically after an update (like it does on Windows)?
I currently run ND under my server’s primary user account “administrator”.
Are root privileges (i.e. manual intervention and confirmation) necessary for updating?
The general installation guide is so nice and foolproof, but it seems that currently, the updating guide kind of lacks in that department in my opinion.
You need to update to a version that includes updating on Linux before you can update from the UI. To update manually just follow the same steps you did to install (minus adding the repo).
What permissions you need to configure for updating to work depend on where drone is installed and how it is run, running via upstart will have some issues with restarting from the UI because of how it works, which will likely cause issues with the updater as well.
not that this has anything to do with your question but just curious is moving to ubuntu server really that much of a performance increase i mean with ram so readily available and at affordable prices unless you have a super old machine or some specific requirements that may you need to use linux is it really worth it
i have found testing both that NzbDrone runs so much better in a windows environment mine hardly ever crashes yet i hear of it doing some issue on linux quite often maybe i am just biased but running a Windows Server to me is so much easier and can be just as reliable as a linux server if setup correctly but with the added benefit of ease of use i have been running a server using Windows 7 Ultimate x64 for months now and no issues at all everything runs fine i can download stream content back it up everything that i would be doing if on linux i don’t get any viruses because i don’t use the browser and only install maybe 5 or 6 programs all of which are safe to use the only internet connection is for files downloaded in sabnzbd
I am building a new server when i can afford all the hardware and i plan to install either Server 2012 or Win 8 as the OS
and plan to have it on a SSD so yeah you have to reboot more often with windows but it is not a production server just a basic home server and with the SSD it is like 1 minute tops i think i can wait 1 minute for a server to restart once a month especially when it is schedule for early morning when i am asleep
@markus101: For the default installation I just did sudo apt-get install nzbdrone, after switching branches from master to develop in the webif, it doesn’t offer any updates when doing sudo apt-get update and upgrade. Don’t I need some kind of different repo for the develop branch? I set up a new test server yesterday, and it still installed the master version from 07 may through the repo and only shows updates, when switching to develop, which, in turn, don’t install automatically.
@protocol77: I’m using an HP N40L microserver. It runs okay with Windows Server 2008 R2, but from time to time with heavy work loads (lots of post processing in sab for example), ram gets a little short, I even get timeouts loading ND then, which is annoying. The other thing is, while there are ample options for free anti virus software for Windows desktop distros, none of them work on windows server, which leaves just paid options or microsoft’s own security thingy, which hardly works but swallows a lot of resources as well. With so many fake releases lately, virus protection has become important for me for my usenet machine.
The server is also a bit picky when it comes to ram, as it is built as a server and does not run regular pc components.
But besides ram, I just find it wasteful to have the OS run a gui constantly on a headless server without a screen or anything connected and Windows Server, much like the desktop counterparts, take upwards of 20GB of hdd space, for tons of features I don’t even use.
The other thing is, using Kubuntu, Android, OpenElec, etc. I’ve really gotten used to the comfort of ext-based file systems, their permission systems, symlinks, custom mount points instead of a drive structure, lack of fragmentation issues, etc.
Also, I don’t quite like having 3 different recycle bins on my disks for the Host OS, ND and the linux clients, reducing and unifying that might be easier to oversee.
Still, Windows Server is a great operating system. If you choose to go with it, you could use Windows Server 2012 R2 (the server equivalent of Windows 8.1) or 2008 R2 (the equivalent of Windows 7). Personally, I wouldn’t go with Server 2012 (the equivalent of Windows 8). The focus on the metro interface seems pointless for a server in my opinion and R2 reduced that a bit.
Changing it in the UI only changes what drone will look for not what apt-get will look for. You will need to edit your apt-get sources and change master to develop for the NzbDrone repo. You may run into permissions issues this way, not sure if /opt/NzbDrone is writable as a non-root user. Once youre on the latest develop you’ll need to wait for a new version to come out before you can test the update process though.
Thanks, I’ll be starting the entire migrating process tonight. This was pretty much the last puzzle piece to hold me up.
I am fairly certain that /opt/NzbDrone by default wouldn’t be user-writable without root privileges, not entirely sure, whether a change in ownership with sudo chown would do the trick, but that seems to work for CouchPotato, I’ll let you know, if it works, so maybe that can be added to the Installation or Updating guide.
@MirandaU
That makes sense if it is causing performance issue then i see where you are coming from perhaps i was a bit biased because my server is not one of those pre-built HP ones i built it myself from scratch so was able to have more freedom with the power of it and the ability to make it beefier to handle those processes a lot easier
you are right with those HP Microserver’s whilst they are good they are limited being an OEM product which is why i chose to build my own yeah may have cost more and took more time but i enjoy the build process and chose to spend a bit more to have that freedom i mentioned i find my server runs just as well on a Windows OS as it does on Linux so for ease of use and familiarity and the ability to fix something easily if it goes wrong that is why i chose the Windows Option I might be looking into either Server 2012 R2 or Win 8.1 Pro as my OS the Metro UI doesnt really bother me as it can be avoided fairly easily
Why not just convert your Windows Server to Windows Server Core. Works great with NZBdrone (as well as SAB, Sickbeard and Couchpotato). I have it running in a VM with 1gb RAM and those above apps running on it and currently it’s only using 600ish MB of that RAM
yeah that is definately an option and when they released that i though Well there you go all those linux fans saying about the issues running a GUI on a Server and the extra resources it consumes now windows has the option to run in in a Terminal type thing
the only thing that would prevent me is two things firstly i don’t really no much of windows commands to get around the core or powershell terminal (I know that it allows you to use it to enable/disable the gui on command) also To be honest even with the GUI enable i am not being stretched thing on usage it sits around 1GB on idle which is fine and i don’t think i have seen it go above 2GB when the drives are active so i am very impressed witth the reasource usage on the latest versions of windows (server and desktop)
even right now my server is just running Windows 7 Ultimate and the ram is about 1.8Gb so even at that with at least 4gb Ram you should be fine maybe if you are transcoding on the fly it might be another story but for me i a simply file sharing over the network and the media gets transcoded at the client end with XBMC
I will say NzbDrone is Rock stable for me on Windows my Server has been running for about 2 Weeks straight and it hasn’t crashed once even going through updates on the develop branch still sits there ticking away I can’t even remember the last time that it did have a major crash @markus101 has done a fantastic job with constant improvments which have also improved the stability so mine runs like a dream compare that to the poor linux users on here constantly having trouble to me less troubleshooting and more stability is worth more than anything else there is nothing on the server that is Top Secret or will do any legal or financial damage so if it gets hacked it gets hacked unlikely but hey 
Yeah, Server Core has it’s place. My use case is a prime example - all it’s running is NZBdrone and associated programs in its own VM on a host so ideally, I want to keep the VM as low on resources as I can. I could run the programs on the host itself (which is Server 2012 R2 running Hyper-V) but this way, I can upgrade the physical hardware and reinstall the OS and I can have NZBdrone and such all working again fairly instantly after the rebuild just the way it was with no configuration needed.
I use PowerShell and Command line fairly routinely with my work so it’s fairly painless for me. However, a lot of the GUI stuff you would need to do can be done with the GUI tools on your workstation machine through Server Manager.