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ArkOS: Building the Anti-Cloud (on a Raspberry Pi)
angry tapir writes "arkOS is a Linux distribution that runs on the Raspberry Pi. It's an initiative of the CitizenWeb Project, which promotes decentralization and democratization of the Internet. arkOS is aiming to aid this effort by making it super-simple for people to host their own email, blogs, storage and other services from their own home, instead of relying on cloud services run by third parties. about the project."
I imagine Comcast will have something to say about this - something like "No more internet for you, TOS-breaker"
I'm running my own server for mail, my web site, and various other little bits.
Not running from home: bandwidth is a primary issue, especially my uplink is too slow. My host has at least some 100 Mbit for me, maybe more - shared of course with many other sites but it's there for those bursts, so the few people daily that visit my site have a quick response.
Other concerns are dynamic IP (will need dynDNS, not sure how well that works), uptime, power use, hardware management... I pay some USD 350 a year for my virtual server. All in. Fixed IP, fast hardware, fast bandwidth, reliable connection - more reliable than from home with our over-sensitive RCD. More than enough for a small setup, a couple dozen mails a day, a dozen or so web site visitors a day. Not going to run that from home: more work, more cost, more trouble.
Is officially under construction. Once a few of these get owned it will be quick before they're all compromised.
I agree. I mean, Linux runs the majority of web servers. Just look at THAT giant botnet. Best use MS IIS server, on Surface RT -- No one's doing that so it's far safer.
We could decentralize and democratize the protocol standards as well.
Dr P Linux will hopefully be out by the end of the year ... :)
Spent All My Mod Points
A usb stick or connected RAID 1 mirrored enclose would allow you to keep your data backed up?
New server, check your data and your back online.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It should come with I2P like TAILS does:
I2P-Bote: Decentralized / anonymized email based on DHT
Tahoe-LAFS on I2P: Decentralized and anonymous file storage
Syndie on I2P: Decentralized and anon blog
and
I2P itself: A general replacement for IP. Like a cross between Tor and bittorrent, where everyone is expected to contibute to bandwidth and so reduce the centralization (and opportunity for attacks) as much as possible and expand the approved uses to anything (instead of just web browsing).
Take away the centralized power of the ISP and government to monitor and control every aspect of your online life.
Really depends on what cloud you bought into. Many will offer cpu and bandwidth but as some users have found out other expected benefits may be expensive or lacking.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The graphics firmware blob and driver module are the only non-free pieces of code in there. The rest of the software is all open-source, and even the schematics (Though not the multi-layered PCB layout) have been published. Very useful schematics too - they show you which polyfuse needs briging if you want any hope of powering a USB hard drive.
And OSs like this are not tied to a particular hardware. If ported to another platform, probably all you need is copying the home and etc folders.
Until there's widespread FTTP (GPON or AON) it will be more pain than it's worth.
I have run a Linux server for years with just these services on ADSL & ADSL2. Mail is fine, even a Jabber server is fine, even private file hosting is ok, if a bit slow, but once you start hosting websites your ability to actually use your own Internet when you're home is diminished.
I was hoping that the National Broadband Network (NBN) would stay 93% FTTP here in Australia, but unfortunately with the change in government that's looking less & less likely.
I recently bought a raspberry Pi with the idea of hosting a web server from home using a Huawei Dongle and the cell phone network. Due to the power wastage, I didn't think it a good idea to use my regular PC for the job.
First you obviously need to get the Huawei Dongle working with wvdial or something similar. This took me perhaps a week.
Then you need to contact your cell phone service provider and ask for an unrestricted APN otherwise they block all connections to your dongle. This took some paperwork, but I managed to get it done.
Once incoming connections are allowed, you can start hosting your website. The first proper request to my website activated the dongle's maximum power usage and this resulted in a power brown-out and the PI crashed. After upping the power supply from 700 mA to 1000 mA, this problem was solved.
NOIP and dyndns solved my dns problems easily.
The last problem I haven't solved yet is routing to my Pi with the cell phone networks. About 10% of the time, it finds a route, but the rest of the time it only finds the IP address. I will buy another sim card and see if it improves my situation, but in the mean time I've resorted to Amazon's cloud offering.
Can't believe I only discovered this project today, when it's been running, it seems, for at least 6 months. Anyway, it seems very similar to what I just proposed, the percloud http:per-cloud.com With the difference, if I'm not mistaken, that the percloud would be an easier to use, preconfigured, locked down version of arkOS. Am I right?
...or PWS?
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
As much as I appreciate the joke, GP is right - and it has nothing to do with the OS the system is running, even though I'd wager Linux to still be more secure choice in that front. It's about who do you suppose is going to keep the system up-to-date? Following security news about the latest remote exploit in $HTTP_SERVER, or other parts of the system?
Giving a typical home computer user a "plug-and-play" server machine to host his/her own web pages at home and expecting anything like responsible and competent administration is silly. By trying to make it super simple to set up a server, they seem to be catering to the crowd that uses "password" as password, leaves their wifi just because that's the way it came from ISP, etc etc etc.
If they are trying to make their security idiot-proof, I sincerely wish them all the luck. Not holding my breath on that one though...
I've been thinking about setting up a home server for some time now, but then I took a step back and think about what I really wanted to achieve. What I really would like (I'm not on facebook) is a simple way to share information with my family (who lives all over the country) and friends. And I'd prefer it not be hosted on the internet or with a company that makes money of my information.
:)
Just a simple way to share information with a select few people.
A full fledge home server would be overkill, and it would have to serve as a host to others in my family also. That would be too much work. But a raspberry pi in each home, working as something inbetween a home server and just a vpn with some bells and whistles might do the trick.
Maybe it's time to start coding something at home again
Logical disconnect....because one instance, where the servers are admined by guys making high five figures on up and have had many many years of education and experience don't get pwned its the OS that deserves credit?
Bullshit. I don't care if the OS is Linux,Windows, or OS/2 Warp if you put well educated admins on them they will be safe, bad admins and they will be pwned. For what happens to Linux when it is faced with clueless users one merely has to look at Android, which passed its million infection mark over the summer, beating the time it took windows to reach that number by a good half a decade.
Moral of the story? FOSS isn't fairy dust and thinking because an OS is open magically makes it more secure is just that,magical thinking. The vast majority of infections on ANY platform are caused by PEBKAC and Linux has enjoyed many years of security by obscurity on the desktop and highly educated admins on the server. Takes those away? It gets pwned just like Windows and OSX.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Open access to the internet entails being able to offer services just as much as being able to use them. By prohibiting users to run their own services they are violating net neutrality. When is the class action suit coming?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Yup, this is exactly what I do. I'm with Be (now part of Sky) and I get a static IP address for £20 pm. The BeBox (router) has all the capabilities for port forwarding although I found the interface to be dumbed down for firewall configuration which actually made it harder to set up for me :) Been running a CentOS server for all sorts of things for 5 years with no hassles from the ISP.
The TOS for Google Fiber says NO SERVERS... at all. Kind of lame when you consider they initially called Google Fiber an experiment to see what people would do with all that bandwidth. This sounds ideal. Google Fiber will be available to me very soon, but I may just have to pass it up. I don't like that they have already drastically changed the game by excluding servers.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Great copy paste job boys :)
To me, it seems that providers that prohibit home servers (either by TOS or by actually blocking e.g. port 80) are in violation of FCC-10-201 (net neutrality).
This was brought up before on Slashdot http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/07/30/2322253/google-argues-against-net-neutrality with specific reference to Google Fiber's TOS prohibition of incoming ports. The complaint is described in http://cloudsession.com/dawg/downloads/misc/kag-draft-2k121024.pdf . I wish someone would pursue this against all major providers, not just Google Fiber.
There is simply no valid reason to prohibit incoming ports. This issue is not bandwidth - most home servers use far less than say streaming video. In any case if it's abused, the providers can use their existing procedures to deal with bandwidth abusers.
This is really at the heart of network neutrality. The only reason I can see for prohibiting incoming ports is to prevent individuals from competing with commercial interests that provide network services. Personally, it really PO's me that my ISP blocks ports 80 and 443. I keep my files on a home server, and although I can access them via ssh, many public wifi services (e.g. at hospitals) block every port, in and out, except 80 and 443. I can't really complain about the public wifi (well, I can complain, but they'll just tell me that it's a free courtesy they're under no obligation to provide, so if you don't like it, don't use it). So, to access my personal files, I need to use a 3rd party's commercial server (cloud or VPN) that allows port 80.
(As for the dynamic DNS, that hasn't been a serious problem for me - my ISP keeps it fixed as long as my cable modem is powered and connected, and the IP only changes when I restart the cable modem. Anyway, that is a secondary and minor problem.)
You mean I can run a server out of my home?! That's amazing!
How is this easier than spinning up a TurnkeyLinux appliance on an old Pentium 4 (or better) desktop you can get for free in almost any part of the country?
Let's see - I need to buy the RaspberryPi, a case, and a power brick at a (practical) minimum, which puts the system in the $75+ range - compared to a repurposed desktop that will cost around $0. Of course, the difference is in the monthly power bill - the old Pentium 4 desktop will use much more power. You could avoid that expense by running your appliances under, say, VirtualBox if you normally keep your desktop on 24x7....
Oh yeah, the TOS of most ISPs would preclude any server type work on a residential account, at least that is the case here in the US.
Ken
When did people not have the opportunity to host their own content?
For anybody that has ever hosted their own email server, Raspberry Pi is NOT the right platform to do this on. While you can easily set up an email server on any Linux distro, the reality is that you need something a little bit more powerful than Raspberry Pi to process the ten's of thousands of spam messages a minute you are going to get. And don't think that just because you are "clever" enough to set up your own email server that you will be immune to spam.
And it seems a lot the the Slashdot denizens seem to have forgotten the bygone era of the "Slashdot Effect", when people and companies used to try and host their own websites which couldn't handle a sudden influx of people that used the RTFA. Even a lot of corporate servers couldn't handle when hundreds of thousands of people suddenly jumped onto their websites all at once back in the day. This is why many corporations and consumers just started using hosted services which have a larger, dynamically scalable infrastructure to handle sudden jumps in traffic.
Finally, with things like Facebook and Twitter and a slew of other social networking services, these all but decimated the "personal blog". Nobody cares to go to www.myblog.com and read some mindless ranting from a conspiracy nut. The problem with "decentralization" is that you will be lost in obscurity.
So, aside from hosting anything more than a hobby website for friends and family to touch base with, good luck.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
You misunderstand. People are being NATed BEFORE it reaches their own equipment. Providers doing this claim it is to fight off the dwindling IPv4 supply. It also makes it impossible to get any services through without begging the provider. I'm experiencing this right now as my router is pulling a 10.x.x.x/8 address on its WAN. No amount of port forwarding on my pfSense box is going to work around that. I have a ticket open with my ISP to request a public IP but I have no idea if they're going to tell me to sod off or not.
With all due respect, it's exactly this sort of distrusting end users that gives us the current predicament that we are in. Considering potential end users as "idiots" (I know, it's just a turn of phrase, but it can be representative) is exactly the wrong attitude to have. We should be striving to create software that works well and is secure, instead of feeding the dichotomy of haves and have-nots (i.e. geeks who know how to do everything themselves vs. everyone else that is SOL). There is no reason why this should continue to be the case. It is extremely important to provide secure software for users to use, and that is what I intend to do, as much as possible. There are high technical obstacles to overcome to get this to work properly but they are not insurmountable. So we shouldn't be acting like they are.
Nobody suggested that arkOS would be the perfect solution to all the world's problems. Of course there will be bugs to fix, security issues to track, etc. Just like there are with literally every other operating system. Vigilance is key. But fear of potential problems that apply to every other piece of software ever developed is no reason to discard an idea out of hand.
I get that we're all busy frolicking with our Raspberry Pis, but any Linux distro on an old PC will do this. There's nothing "Pi" about this. You don't need a new distro for this either. Maybe a handful of shell scripts or some kind of GUI to manage all the bits and pieces would be nice, but this is all a solved problem.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
You complete disregard that many eyes make all bugs shallow.
Probably because that is entirely false.
Not only is it a myth you can show with basic common sense WHY its a myth.
You have something like 40 MILLION lines of code making up even the thinnest Linux distro, right? Now programs on average with FOSS have two to four releases a year, some like FF even higher.
Now for "many eyes" to be true ALL of what I'm about to post HAS to be true or many eyes is false...1.- you have to have people with the education and experience in both code AND stenography AND obfuscation, for why you have to have that look at the obfuscated C contest to see how even when you know there is malware how well it can be hidden, 2.- those people HAVE to look at not ONLY the code but ALSO all that it interacts with, for why you have to have that look at payload malware where by itself it is harmless but when mixed with a second program turns nasty, and finally 3.- They have to be willing to check not ONLY this one version but EVERY release for both the program AND the subsystems!
The "many eyes" myth works on the fallacy that states because something COULD be done it HAS been done. Well there COULD be vampires in the world but I don't think I need to carry a stake, do you? if I wanted I could wallpaper this page with Linux malware links but I think an even better answer is to show how you can write a Linux virus in 5 easy steps which will work on pretty much ANY distro, how? By exploiting the weakest link, like any virus...the user. And for those that Linux users wouldn't fall for those? look up the "KDE Look Bug" to see thousands of Linux users that got pwned by a screensaver and theme.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
This sounds like the same concept that the Freedom Box Foundation has been working on for a while. It would seem like a better use of resources for these groups to get together and pool their efforts rather than do the same thing twice.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
Given the hoopla created by Yahoo groups last month this could be a solution for those wanting to bail Yahoo groups.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
I think the biggest barrier is a quality user experience, not technical barriers. As you say the technical barriers are well understood, and not insurmountable. A huge effort, though, is required to get gmail like quality experience without using Google, on the desktop, and my phone, at all times, anywhere in the world. So that necessarily implies the user can opt into more than one hardware unit in order to ensure their data is replicated, and opt into distributed (and encrypted) copies that aren't in their home in case their singular network pipe goes down. I've been inclined to go with "more" cloud service than go it alone mainly because I have one nasty, but necessary, email account that garners so much spam that as a non-expert with spamassassin I just can't tolerate it. Whereas gmail's spam filtering is just so close to 100% correct. So I can appreciate the importance of this project, as well as the work that will be involved.