Tag Archives: Server

Hosting Your Own Cloud With Pydio

Last year I was looking for a cloud hosting solution and I decided on Pydio and even wrote up a install guide (http://allandynes.com/2015/08/was-searching-for-a-cloud-provider/). Some time has gone by and I’ve updated those instructions for the latest version of Pydio (6.4.1 currently) and also to be a purely 64-bit install (PHP 7 x64, MySql 5.7 x64, etc). The overall effect on a Server 2012 / IIS 8.5 install is quicker performance and less issues with large data syncs. I’ve also updated it to include information on SMB shares so you can access your existing Windows based file server from your cloud server so you are not duplicating files. Here is the new install guide:

Installing-Pydio-on-Windows-Server-2012-R2-Pure-64-bit-With-Samba

Generation 2 HyperV Hosts and ISO Files

A problem I have run into recently with installing Server 2012 R2 as a virtual machine on Server 2012 R2 HyperV server was I could not get the iso file to boot. Well, at least that is what I though the problem was. The virtual DVD drive with the Server 2012 iso was at the top of the boot order but it seemed to keep skipping it. After searching, and not particularly well because I barely understood what I was searching for, I found a TechNet blog that was describing my problem here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/jhoward/archive/2013/11/11/hyper-v-generation-2-virtual-machines-part-9.aspx. Long story short the gen 2 hosts are popping up the “Press any key to boot off of CD/DVD” message but not waiting for someone to press a key. Therefor it skips the CD/DVD and goes to other options, namely a blank hard drive then usually a network card. So it turns out there is a solution to this, changing the boot files to no longer prompt for a key press but to start your setup automatically.

To do this you need to get the Windows Automated Install Kit (AIK). Download that here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39982 and of the many options you only really need to install the Deployment Tools and the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) parts. Once these are installed here is how to modify your Server 2012 ISO.

  • Unzip the contents of your Server 2012 or 2012 R2 ISO to a directory such as c:\Win2012
  • Navigate to C:\Win2012\efi\microsoft\boot
  • Rename cdboot.efi to cdboot_prompt.efi then rename cdboot_noprompt.efi to cdboot.efi
  • Rename efisys.bin to efisys_prompt.bin then rename efisys_noprompt.bin to efisys.bin
  • Open up the “Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment” as a administrator (under Start -> Windows Kits -> Windows ADK)
  • Type the following command to create a new iso file called Win2012-NoPrompt.iso in the root of your C drive that will no longer prompt for a key: oscdimg -bC:\Win2012R2\boot\etfsboot.com -m -o -u2 -lServer2012R2 -udfver102 -bootdata:2#p0,e,b"C:\Win2012R2\boot\etfsboot.com"#pEF,e,b"C:\Win2012R2\efi\microsoft\boot\efisys.bin" C:\Win2012R2 c:\Win2012R2-NoPrompt.iso
  • Exit the command prompt

You can also use the Windows AIK to preload updates into your image or drivers but that’s a topic for another post.

Was searching for a cloud provider

http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-y4kLjv8XjBc/VTUMaVBMi8I/AAAAAAAAAcY/ai5irULWftQ/No%252520Cloud_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800

So something I was recently tasked with was finding a “could” service for our technicians to easily share files with each other. We also have multiple people using things like DropBox, Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive, etc with our companies data and no way to really secure it which is a problem. So I started looking into business version of these services and what I found was they were ridiculously expensive.

And that’s kinda where it stopped.  It just didn’t make sense for a company that already has it’s own server infrastructure. To that end I decided to do it in house and started researching alternatives of which I found two main ones, ownCloud and Pydio.  I did some beta tests with both and in the end found that Pydios overall interface was the winner: Fast, “pretty”, and pretty intuitive. The problem was getting it to run on Server 2012 R2 / IIS 8.5 was not easy and none of the guides online had everything needed to get it to function. So long story short after a couple days of playing I wrote my own which is now posted on the Pydio website:

https://pyd.io/example-installing-pydio-on-windows-server-2012-r2-iis-8-5/

Hopefully if someone else is looking for a DIY cloud storage system it will help them out.

Update: I have been asked by multiple people to upload my web.config files for the root and public directories as the copy and paste from the tutorial aren’t working real good. Here they are: WebConfigRoot WebConfigPublic

Also the guide as a PDF: Installing Pydio on Windows Server 2012 R2