“There is not enough disk space to create the volume shadow copy on the storage location. Make sure that, for all volumes to be backed up, the minimum required disk space for shadow copy creation is available. This applies to both the backup storage destination and the volumes included in the backup.

Minimum Requirement: For volumes less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabytes of free space. For volumes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space.

Recommended: At least 1 gigabyte of free disk space on each volume if volume size is more than 1 gigabyte.

Detailed error: Insufficient storage available to create either the shadow copy storage file or other shadow copy data.”

This doesn’t really explain the issue, as setting up a schedule with Windows Server Backup in 2012 involves the utility checking available storage before creating the backup task, and a manual check showed there was ample storage on the destination volume, with the source volume having 86% free space.

Delving into the Event Viewer for more detailed error message, I get this:

“The backup operation that started at ‘‎2016‎-‎12‎-‎09T06:00:14.502000000Z’ has failed because the Volume Shadow Copy Service operation to create a shadow copy of the volumes being backed up failed with following error code ‘0x80780119’. Please review the event details for a solution, and then rerun the backup operation once the issue is resolved.”

The internet has a lot of theories and solutions, with the most common workaround being disabling security to perform a backup. This can be incorporated into a batch file and triggered by task scheduler, but its fiddly and leaves the system open while backups take place, lucky I discovered a simpler and more secure solution.

It seems the error is being generated due to Volume Shadow Copy service (VSS) being assigned a drive volume that does not have enough free space, on a default install of Server 2012, that volume is the System Reserved partition.

To complicate matters, the Disk Management utility does not report the amount of free space.

To find out, open a PowerShell window and enter Get-Volumes to see the below:

Here the Recovery partition only has 30MB of free space, below the required amount specified in the original error message.

To fix, go to the drive properties in My PC, and choose the Shadow Copy tab, then in the Select Volume box, choose a volume that has enough free space, in this example the C drive.

Once applied, the backup will complete:

Where a home server can differentiate greatly from hosted solutions is the speed and relative location on the net. Visitors who view a website relies on the upstream connection at the server end to receive the content, and when this is via domestic internet connection the upstream can much smaller than the heavily advertised downstream connection. So it’s worth checking the theoretical upload speed to establish what kind of service and content can be served.

In terms of location, hosting companies are as close to the internet backbone as feasibly possible to get the best speeds and lower latency. The backbone of the net is handled by major operation companies that handle the bulk of all internet traffic between countries and continents, these in turn have datacentres where the traffic from countries are trunked to the different internet providers and down to the end user. As data makes its way from the backbone to the end user, it can hop between different servers as it meanders towards the final destination. For each hop the networking equipment has to read where to send it on, and route it on the right path. This all takes time, even though it is measured in milliseconds, an extended number of hops and the volume of data packets needed may produce a noticeable wait for a user to see the desired page.

All home user’s computers need deal with negotiating its way through the service providers’ local infrastructure to get to most sites, but when visiting a site hosted on a home server, data may need to navigate another service providers’ network to reach the site. This is where visitors may experience slower loading times compared to mainstream sites.
So how to tell if your home hosted website will be speedy when out in the wild? There’s a few different ways to check:

DIY Simulation

Firstly, let’s address if the upstream connection may be a cause of concern. Start by finding out the true upstream connection speed, this can be achieved by both running an online speed check and noting down the upload/upstream speed. Alternatively look around the modem’s setting pages to establish the theoretical maximum upload speed.
Then use the developer tools that come with most popular web browsers to simulate loading the site with the upstream bandwidth that may be available to visitors. In the browser, using Chrome for this example, press F12 to bring up the developer tools. Then click on the Network tab and choose the No Throttling button. There are a number of pre-sets available but to get the best scenario, create a custom profile.

For the new profile, your upload speed will become the profiles downstream speed, and your downstream speed can be the upload speed, latency is also important, and where the use of Dynamic DNS can really slow a connection down. To find out a realistic latency value, perform an online ping test to your own domain, and choose a latency value based on the results.

Hit F5 to refresh the page and watch how the site loads from an outside visitor’s perspective. The graph created in the developer tools gives insight into what elements of the page loaded and when. Interesting to note is the top row entry with the URL to the chosen page, as this is the time the visitor would have waited before seeing any text or loading action on their screen. It’s critical to get this quickly as with the increasing speeds of the internet, end users will quickly dismiss a site as being not available within a single second of not seeing any new content on screen.
This method is great when updating a site as it gives instant insight to how the page will load for visitors with any page change impacts can be viewed on the fly.

Third Party

The second option is to use a third party, a service that is already out in the internet wilderness and able to provide detailed insight to website loading times. This gives advantages over browser simulation as the virtual visitor is an actual machine on the internet, so any delays that a real visitor will have can be observed. But be aware that these services are servers themselves, and therefore may be closer to the internet backbone than the typical home visitor. Even though it’s a great tool to use periodically to gauge how the site is performing.
I prefer to use webpagetest.org to check my site, as along with bar graphs that display loading times for individual elements, it also gives the option to view a video that visually simulates the loading times just like a real visitor to the site would.

Get Mobile

A third and simpler option is to just find another computer away from the local network and visit the website to get a feel for loading times. I’ve used this in the past and it does indeed give a good indication of speed of load. However, be aware that the biggest skew point of this method is the choice of internet service provider, if the internet connection of your test computer and home server is via the same provider then the data would need only travel through its infrastructure creating a false speed advantage, not to say that it’s incorrect. If a site was to target users of the same ISP in the same locale then this would be considered an advantage, but does not provide an accurate sample of the wider user base. If the test computer was on a different ISP infrastructure, this is a better simulation as packets would still need to go to a datacentre to transfer between companies, much like it would for users over a country regardless of location. But be aware that this method is based on best case scenario.

And thanks to the steer to mobile devices, a public Wi-Fi or mobile data can be used to test a website. Cellular networks will definitely use a different infrastructure to the one the home server resides on, but less chance on public Wi-Fi. But with all networks and especially with public ones your test data may be competing with many other users locally, that can negatively affect the results.

For this project I recommend a RPi 2, as its powerful enough to perform the transfers up to its maximum 100Mbps network speed, and is a cheaper choice since the RPi 3 superseded it last year. To get started, you need the following hardware:

• Raspberry Pi 2 board.
• Micro USB wall adaptor – Needs to be capable of 2Amp output.
• Micro SD card – Minimum of 8GB, class 6 or above, plus SD adaptor for connecting to a PC.
• USB Portable Hard drive – USB powered is preferred, I use a Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB.
• Ethernet Cable – And spare port on the modem/router for internet connection.
• A PC – On the same network as the Pi for connection and configuring.

The Pi was designed to as low cost as possible to the user, so apart from the Pi board you may already have everything to run a Pi, and if not these are cheap and easily available online.

With a RPi 2 at hand, let’s get started…

Setup

Before powering on, an operating system is needed on the micro SD card.

Download the latest version of Debian onto a PC and extract the ISO from the Zip file, then download Win32Imager that will transfer the image to a SD card.

Run Win32Imager as an Administrator by right clicking the icon, browse and choose the Debain ISO for the image, select the drive letter for the micro SD card, and click write. When complete, move the micro SD card to the Pi and its ready to boot for the first time.

Connecting

To make the Pi less obtrusive in the home, it will be configured and run as a headless server, therefore no monitor or Human Interface Devices needed.

Follow this guide I created earlier to get connected and into a terminal window.

Housekeeping

Once connected it’s a fully functional computer, but it’s worth the extra effort to perform some housekeeping to make it easier to connect to by assigning it a static IP, and changing the password for that extra layer of security.

First the essentials, after a fresh install of Debian the filesystem has to be expanded so it can make full use of the micro SD card’s capacity:

In the terminal window, type raspberrypi-config. Then from the menu choose expand filesystem. Reboot the Pi and connect again, now the full capacity is useable.

Next, and optionally, change the default password:

From the terminal, type sudo passwd, then follow the prompts to change it. No need to reboot.

Next is to assign the Pi a static IP address, allowing it to be found at the same location on the network every time, handy as connecting to the torrent client requires knowing the Pi’s IP address:

From the terminal, type sudonano /etc/network/interfaces to bring up the network config file. In the text editor that opens, find the string beginning eth0, and edit it to look like the following:

Where the gateway is the IP address of your router and the address will be the new home of the Pi, for those not familiar with IP addresses, copy the first three numbers from the routers IP address, and for the final number use a number between 150 and 253, this is usually high enough not to interfere with other devices on the network.

Use Ctrl + O to save the file, then Ctrl + X to exit.

Then type sudo reboot to restart the Pi, and now it can be found on the new chosen IP.

Connecting USB Hard Drive

By default the Pi does not supply enough power to the USB ports to power and mechanical drive, but with a little tweak of the settings it can deliver enough to fully power a USB hard drive.

In a terminal, type sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Scroll to the bottom of the file using the F8 key, then add the following new line:

Max_usb_current=1

Use Ctrl + O to save the file, then Ctrl + X to exit.

Reboot the Pi by typing sudo reboot.

From a new terminal window, check the drive is connected by typing
sudo blkid, it will appear as dev/sda1

With it recognised, use sudo mkdir /media/HDD to create a folder that will be used as a gateway to the new drive.

Then mount the drive by typing
sudo mount –t auto /dev/sda1  /media/HDD

The Pi can now write to the USB drive for the duration the Pi is powered on, but for simplicity it needs to be available if the Pi reboots…

Configuring & Sharing USB Hard Drive

To allow the drive to automatically mount upon startup, type
sudo nano /etc/fstab to open the file system config file.

Add the following line under the existing entries:

/dev/sda1 /media/USBHDD1 auto noatime 0 0

Use Ctrl + O to save the file, then Ctrl + X to exit.

Next up is to install samba, it allows the Pi to communicate with windows computers on the network, allowing easy access to downloaded files.

Type sudo apt-get install samba

When installed, open the config file by typing sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Enter the following information at the bottom of the file:

[Media]
comment = Mass Storage Share
path = /media/HDD
browsable = yes
read only = no
force user = root

Ctrl + O to save the file, then Ctrl + X to exit, then reboot with sudo reboot. When restart completes the Pi can be accessed by typing \\raspberrypi in a folder address bar, or will show as a network device in Windows explorer.

Installing Transmission

For torrent sharing, Transmission is used as a simple and quick program.

Update the Pi by using sudo apt-get update, followed by sudo apt-get upgrade. These may take a while to complete but ensures the latest software is running, including the latest version of Transmission.

Then type sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon and install the program, pressing Y when prompted.

Configuring Transmission

As you may have guessed, configuring anything in Linux means editing a text file, but first the Transmission service must be stopped to allow changes, by typing sudo server transmission-daemon stop.

Now open the settings by using
sudo nano /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

Here are all the settings, but for now scroll (F7&F8 keys) to locate rpc-whitelist, and edit it to include your local ip address range, like below:

Then change download-dir and incomplete-dir to point to a folder on the USB hard drive, using /media/HDD/Complete and /media/HDD/Downloading respectively. Be sure to create a Complete and Downloading folder on the hard drive before setting these, this can be done in Windows explorer by navigating to \\raspberrypi .

Also for convenience the password can be switched off by changing
rpc-authentication-required from true to false.

As always, Ctrl + O to save the file, then Ctrl + X to exit.

Using Transmission

The great feature of Transmission is its own web server and that all control is done via a webpage, allowing the Pi to function headless and the torrents managed by any internet capable device.

On another PC, open your favourite browser and navigate to
http://PI-IP:9091 replacing PI-IP with the static address you chose earlier.

From here it’s a fully functional, low cost, low power torrent box. An easy test is to revisit the RPi foundation’s website and download Debian via torrent, then seed it help others discover the wonderful world of Pi.

But doing the same with Windows Server 2012 is much more difficult, since Microsoft decided to remove the ability to run a program on a low battery event from its power management settings. To make things worse I discovered that a bug in Server 2008 and later meant that issuing a Shutdown command from the native power settings would not perform a clean shut down, instead killing the power in a few seconds. This is not good news for RAID arrays and data integrity.

Time for a new solution, and since Microsoft are of no use, help would need to come from a 3^rd party. After research and testing answer came from Shutter, a small program that runs as a trigger and event type program for a variety of different scenarios, with battery discharging status being one. Luckily two instances of the program could be run, one to shut down the remote servers and another for the host machine. Importantly the program can also be run as a Windows service, but more on this in the walk through.  here is how it is done:

Download the portable version of Shutter from den4b.com.

In the Windows directory, create a new folder, here it will be named ups.

In that folder create another 2 folders, one will handle the local server shutdown and the other for remote servers.

Copy the contents of the downloaded Shutter zip to both of the folders.

Before opening the program for the first time, create a .bat that will issue commands to shut down servers. Open Notepad and enter the following text:

shutdown /s /f /t 10 /c “Battery Backup Low”

This is for shutting down the host server. To save, select the folder to be used for host shutdown, in the file type menu select All files, and create a file name with it ending in .bat

Do the same for remote server shutdown using this script, and save to the remote folder:

shutdown /s /f /m \\SERVER /t 10 /c “Battery Backup Low”

Replace SERVER with the name or IP address of the other server running on the UPS.

Now go to the local shutdown folder and open Shutter.

In the events box, add battery and choose a trigger percentage and add. In the action box, choose run a program, and locate the .bat file you created for shutting down the host server.

Important: Go to the settings window and copy the following options:

Save settings and the program can now be closed. Repeat these steps to shut down the remote server, it’s essential to set the battery percentage trigger higher for remote server as they will not get the signal if the host server has already shut down, I recommend at least 5% higher as a safety net especially if the UPS battery drains quickly.

As a power outage is an unpredictable event, Shutter needs to be running at all times on the host server, therefore it needs to be ran as a system service. Microsoft did release a tool that could allow any program to run as a service, however it is very basic and will not restart a program if it happened to crash. Lucky a superior utility by the name of NSSM is available that takes this into account, it also has a more user friendly interface to set up services.

Download the latest release of NSSM and place in the main folder created previously, as it needs to be run alongside the Shutter instances.

From a Command Prompt, navigate to the folder holding the program, by using cd, then a space and the full path to the folder, e.g: cd C:\Windows\ups

Type nssm install and enter, and the new service setup screen will appear.

Choose the Shutter program to run, and create a name to the process, additional details can be made in the Description tab.

Move to the login tab and select Log on as, then use an account capable of administrator access and password details.

Click create service and its installed, repeat the process for the other shutter program, giving it a different service name.

By default, these newly created services will start when Windows starts, but need to be started manually when first installed. To start them, the simple option is to restart the machine, but much better would be to press the Windows key & R, then type services.msc and click Run. Scroll down the list to the created services, right click on each and choose start.

Testing

It’s worth testing to see if it works rather than just hoping it does. And to save the wait for the batteries to discharge its worth raising the trigger values on Shutter to shut down the machines earlier, this also gives the benefit more charge left if the shutdown does not work.

Before opening Shutter to change values, the services need to be stopped. Open services.msc like before and chose stop against the service.

Make the changes in the action box, its recommended to choose somewhere between 70 and 90 percent. Close the programs and start the services back up. Then testing is as simple as unplugging the UPS from the wall, for security the host machine can be left logged on to monitor the remaining battery percentage so you know when the trigger points are happening.

Unfortunately, the UPS in use only has one monitoring port which is connected to my original server, meaning during a spell of prolonged power outage, the new server will not know when to shut down safely and will continue to run until the UPS runs out of battery supply, leaving it vulnerable to data corruption that affected the original server prior to battery backup.

But with a simple script and some setup both servers can shut down safely before the batteries run out.

The Idea is to have a script sent from the host server with instructions to shut down the other server when the battery level runs low, luckily Windows gives the ability to run a program on low and critical power level notifications, with adjustable power level triggers.

The most important factor with this idea is that the host server is able to communicate and send the script to the other server, in my current setup both servers are connected to the main network switch that does not have battery backup, meaning that during a power outage the servers will be unable to communicate and therefore unable to shut down safely.

The simple solution was to introduce another switch close to the servers that has power provided by the UPS, for this I chose a NetgearProsafe GS105 and connected both servers to it, with an uplink to the main switch. This also has the advantage of removing traffic away from the main hub when backups between servers take place.

With the servers connected via a backed up power source, it is time to create the shutdown command. On the host server connected to the signal of the UPS, create a .bat file using Notepad with the following line:

shutdown /s /f /m \\MACHINENAME /t 10 /c “Battery Backup Low”

This script tells the computer MACHINENAME to force a shut down in 10 seconds regardless of who is logged in, for those that are the message “Battery Backup Low” will be displayed. The script was then saved to the Windows directory to help avoid accidental deletion.

From the host server, open the power settings from the Control Panel, on the Alarms tab choose Alarm Action on the Low battery alarm field. Check the Run program box and choose the .bat file created to run on the low battery alarm. I chose the Low power instead of Critical to allow the other server to shut down as the Critical would be reserved for the host server itself to shut down.

For testing I chose to put the alarm settings pretty high, which makes the process quicker and also allows more time for a safe shutdown when on battery power. Apart from that the only way to test is to kill the power from the wall and see what happens, look for the other server setting down first as it will hit the Low battery first, then wait for the host server to shut down later. Expect the host server to last a little longer than expected as with the other server shut down, the battery life doubles on two identical machines when one is off.

Recently I have been using Amazon EC2 cloud services for all my website hosting, new customers to the service get a 12 months free teir1.micro instance with myself opting for Windows Server 2012 R2 as my OS, and I’ve taken up this offer since October last year when an extended spell of server woes left me unable to serve websites.

A caveat with the free EC2 instance is the billing process, while the instance is free you have to pay attention to what is included as part of the offer, network usage, hard drive capacities and security keys are subject to charge over certain thresholds, so be aware.

With the trail due to expire in a few months I preferred to avoid an ongoing monthly cost and bring website hosting back to my own server, but not my current server as I didn’t want a box that served the web as well as store all my personal files. The logical conclusion was to get a new server.

HP has just launched the Gen 9 series servers so the Gen 8 are being offered with hefty cash back offers, tempting but the entry level Gen 8 moved to using Intel Celeron processors, while having slightly better performance, the power consumption also increased. Combine that with the expense on upgrading the basic offering with more memory and storage the cheapest solution was to go for a second hand “Gen 7”, something I’m familiar with.

I settled on a used HP Microserver N54L, ready kitted out with 4GB EEC RAM, 2 x 2TB Seagate Barracuda drives, DVD-RW drive and an extra gigabit Ethernet port, plus I can add 2 x 1TB WD Green drives spare from an earlier upgrade. Experience from a micro EC2 instance showed that this server would not be the bottleneck for a website, that would be firmly in my internet connections court.

Going forward the plan is to mothball the N36L server running Win 2003, keeping it essentially as a NAS device and closing incoming connections from the net, with the newer N54L replacing it in everyday tasks . But until then the EC2 instance is free until October, giving me chance to experiment with the best setup before going live, virtualisation will get a look in too.

Once I got down there and started to fathom out what cables were in use and what could be safely isolated without stopping operations, the small wafts of smoke could be seen drifting up from under the desk. At this point it was obvious that any timescales for diagnosing the issue was getting smaller along with the grace period before the smoke detectors trigger the fire alarms and clears the store.

On the initial look, I noticed that one of the Proliant servers had a flashing LED next to a power symbol, two and two went together and thought that a power supply had failed spectacularly, so chose to switch it off, knowing the server was just for redundancy.

A minute passed and no let up of the smoke, by this time a CO2 extinguisher, pin pulled, was close at hand. Out of ideas I pulled all plugs from the wall, the RS6000 UPS failed immediately, the Proliants carried on under battery juice with 105mins left according to their UPS display (1 was still powered off). I left it another minute to rule out a problem with an input to the UPS, and with nervous relief the smoke subsided, a few back office systems went down with the RS6000 but the customer end Proliant stayed online.

With the batteries keeping customer facing systems online for a further hour or so, it was a safe time to find the culprit. An extensive sniff test and the UPS for the RS6000 was pointed out as the source of the incident, possibly why it failed as soon as power was cut. It was taken out of commission and bypassed to get the IBM machine back online.

A rather eventful day compared to the normal, mundane non-IT job. I haven’t opened up the failed UPS to see what went wrong, nor would I want to thinking about what state the (probably) lead cells are in.

Apart from the almost impossible-to-use spreadsheets, I kept referring to the laptop when I needed to Remote Desktop into my server. Luckily there is an iOS solution for this in the guise of the Desktop RDP app.

I had the free version on my iPhone, but due to the small screen being productive was impossibly tedious, and so was left on my phone for server emergencies.

The iPad version however, is a lot more feasible, setting it to connect to my Win 2003 server with a screen resolution of 1024×768 means that the desktop can be controlled with all the desktop in view.

The paid version of Desktop RDP includes the full keyboard, and the ability to drag and right click, something of a necessity for windows, but the more clever users the get along in the free versions without these “perks”, although I wonder if it is not worth the £3.99 for these.

Looking for apps that allow you do what on a PC would be easy is a perilous journey, and in the case if trying to find a suitable office app, an expensive one. But I am glad, if not relieved that this purchase turned our to be a good one.

If I’m out on the wilderness armed only with an iPad and need the features of a PC, I can now just RDP into my server to get the best of both worlds, a lot better than lugging around my desktop replacement notebook.

I took delivery of a Netgear FVS318N router to replace a basic hub, installed it and did a bit of cable management which involved unplugging my Sagem F@st 2504 that I use as a modem.

However upon powering up the Sagem after tidying cables, it has no life, apart from this strange arrangement of light on the front:

I called Sky (my ISP) support who happily informed me that there is a common issue with the power supply to the Sagem router that caused them to fail. Wanting to get back on the net immediately and conversation about a replacement power supply giving vague delivery lead times, I opted to purchase the new Sky branded router (dubbed the Sky Hub):

The outage lasted 5 days as I waited for delivery of the new modem. An annoyance of this is that I had a spare, working ADSL modem but this could not be used as Sky does not give out the credentials to log on to their network, instead choosing to pre-load them on the modem before shipping.

Overall its an example of the unexpected issues that can arise when running a home server on a budget.

BOOTNOTE:

It has been mentioned in many Sky internet forums that using an unapproved Sky router, i.e. one not supplied by Sky, will be in breach of the Terms & Conditions. However whilst on the phone to Sky broadband technical support the representative told me that it was acceptable to use a 3rd party router if the user was confident and acknowledged that no support would be given unless a Sky provided router was used.

The case may be that you still need to hand over the cash to Sky for one of their routers and keep it to hand, but after that the choice is yours!

Step 1: Start by downloading the basic version of the drivers from the HP website, choose Windows XP drivers if there are none for Windows 2003

Step 2: Open the executable file, allow it to extract and display the first setup screen. Here, depending on the printer chosen it may let you continue with the setup, or stop the installation there telling you the operating system is not supported.

Whatever the installation screen displays, DO NOT CLOSE THE WINDOW, while its open all the files you need are made available. Next navigate to your temp folder. TIP: Go to Start Menu à Run, and type  %temp%. This will bring up your temp files.

In the temp folder, look for a folder containing the setup files that were extracted as part of the installation, it will usually have .inf files that contain the printer model as part of the filename, below is an example of the drivers to install a HP C4700:

Step 3: At this point its best to copy (not move) the contents of the folder to a more convenient location. When a copy is made, you can close the installation utility as you have all the files in a new location.

Now navigate to Start > Settings > Printers and Faxes, and then start the Add new printer wizard.

After the intro splash, choose “Local printer attached to this computer” and un-check the box for “Automatically detect and install my Plug and Play printer”

Note: Step 4 is for installing a printer over a network, if you are connecting via USB, skip to step 5.

Step 4: Click next, on the next screen you will want to select “Create a new port” and choose “Standard TCP/IP port” from the drop-down menu, as below:

This brings up a new wizard, after the intro splash onto the add port screen, type the IP address of the printer:

NOTE: To save reconfiguration in the future, remember to set the printer to have a static IP address as you are not installing the program that find the printer on a dynamic IP address.

The next screen, leave the settings as a “Standard device type” and “Generic network card”. Clicking next brings you to printer software screen.

Step 5: Click the “Have Disk” button and navigate to the copy of the installation files.

Only .inf files show, and you want to choose the most generic file name that is similar to your device, in this case above hpC4700.inf seems the most obvious.

If the right file has been chosen, you see your printer display as below.

If you get a warning message about a digital signature, choose “Continue Anyways”, but make sure you downloaded the drivers from a reputable site, such as the official HP website.

The installation wizards copies the files, then choose to print a test page to make sure all is well, and your HP printer appears in your printers folder.