OpenMediaVault is an open source project that provides users with a free NAS (Network-attached storage) solution based on the award winning Debian GNU/Linux operating system. It is oriented towards small home offices and home environments, allowing anyone to create their own network storage server.
Features at a glance
Key features include a stable and reliable Debian GNU/Linux (Squeeze) base, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring and email notification, watchdog, web-based administration, hard disk power management (APM/AAM), as well as support for the EXT3, EXT4, XFS and JFS file systems.
In addition, the project supports software RAID JBOD/0/1/5/6 (mdadm) and email notification, LVM (Logical Volume Management), share management, ACL support, SNMP 1/2c/3 (read-only), SSH, FTP, TFTP, NFS, SMB/CIFS, NTP, UPS, RSync, BitTorrent and DAAP client.
An easy-to-install NAS solution
The project is distributed as CD-size ISO images for the 64-bit (amd64) and 32-bit (i386) instruction set architectures, which can be burned onto CD discs or written on USB flash drives of 512MB or higher capacity in order to boot them from the BIOS of the PC.
These are not Live CDs, which means that the user must install the operating system from the get-go. Therefore, the boot loader provides them with two installation methods, one with support for serial console and a normal one.
The entire installation process is text-based, requiring the user to select a language, location and keyboard layout, configure the network, set a root password, configure the clock and package manager, as well as to configure the resolvconf.
Basically, just pressing Enter a few times and selecting some items on the text-mode installer interface. Nothing fancy! After restart, the user must login with the root username and the password set during the installation.
Bottom line
Summing up, OpenMediaVault is an easy-to-use and great product for turning an old or semi-old computer into a powerful network-attached storage (NAS) with minimum effort and without paying for expensive solutions. Maybe a graphical installer will make even more users aware of this product!
