NOTE: Unless you know Linux a little, this won’t make sense.

On my home server, I was running a web server (apache2) on port 80 and sshd on port 22. I had both of them open to the world so that I could access my home server from anywhere with an Internet connection. The only problem with the setup I know of is that when I installed mythtv, it created a user called mythtv and gave that user shell access.

(If you have any standard users on your linux system, make sure they are using non-standard passwords!)

So, this fellow from IP 86.122.48.37 logged into my computer via ssh as mythtv and I’m guessing the default password. Once in, he created a public_html directory in the mythtv home directory. All files in that directory would be accessible by the url http://[MY_IP]/~mythtv. (By the way, I got his IP address from my access logs, and I got his email address from his php scripts. His email is delablow@yahoo.com.)

Then, he copied two phishing sites into that directory (ebay and paypal) along with an instance of PHP-Mailer. I’m guessing that he sent out the scam emails from PHP-Mailer on December 10 (while I was in Chicago) and my access log shows people falling for the scam by December 11. I haven’t yet figured out how many people were scammed, but I got a LOT of hits on my server.

Then, someone told ebay, ebay told Insight, and yesterday, my modem was blocked. I didn’t hear any details until I called them this morning and they told me there was a phishing server running on my IP address.

Well, I’m pretty irritated at myself for leaving my system so open, glad that the hacker wasn’t able to compromise my own system, but mad that many people got scammed.

I’ve closed down my system for now, and I don’t know if I’ll open up the ports again.

I hope no one loses any money on this.

The Server

The core to this system is a PC that I built back in 2000 while Jen and I were still at Denver Seminary. I originally built it to run Windows 98, but of course, it has matured a lot since then. Here are the specs:

Hardware

• Pentium III 600 MHz, 384 MB RAM, Drive 1: 120GB, Drive 2: 30GB
• 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo 3 (rev 01) — but there’s no monitor attached
• C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10) — but no speakers attached
• Cheap Ethernet PCI card (National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 [MacPhyter] Ethernet Controller)
• Motorola Brand WLAN controller (Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)) — usable with ndiswrapper but not currently in use.
• Hauppauge PVR-150 MCE (purchased OEM version from NewEgg)

Software

(I’m not going to put version numbers here, because I’ll update them before I update this!)

• Arch Linux (Linux adam 2.6.17-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Jul 16 09:29:38 CEST 2006 i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux)
• MythTV
• SlimServer

Set Top Box

• MediaMVP running mvpmc

How It Works

I have the computer underneath our stairs connected by Ethernet wire to my office, our living room, and the game room upstairs. I have a wireless router in the mix that provides connectivity to our laptop.

I’m thinking that I’ll put up a HOWTO for those who are interested, but who knows if I’ll ever get the time for that.

• MythTV on the server records TV programs to mpeg2 files according to a schedule I’ve set up. Then, it processes the file and removes commercials. I also have the option to convert it to a format that’s playable on my Palm Pilot PDA (Tungsten T2).
• SlimServer on the server uses an iTunes database to stream our music library to any Internet Connected PC (currently, though, it’s only enabled for our home computers).
• MediaMVP (a little box that sits on top of our DVD player) runs a program called mvpmc that automatically connects to MythTV and SlimServer and plays music, videos, and recorded shows on our TV.

The whole system really works well, and I can’t tell you how cool it is to watch an hour long show in 40 minutes because all the commercials are magically missing! The only problem is that I miss a lot of “culture news” like upcoming movies and whatnot because I don’t see commercials anymore!

If you are interested in doing something like this yourself, I’ll try to put up a HOWTO sometime soon.

The Project

My project is to build a connected home entertainment system and household server.

Goals

The Server

1. To have a central family file server acting as a central storage location for the family’s electronic media and other files—databases, documents, addressbooks, etc will all be stored on this server exposed to the Internet so that any authorized computer can access family content from anywhere in the house (and the rest of the world).
2. To have the central server also act as a house-wide media server delivering audio and video to connected computers—this media will include all our family’s shared music (including ripped CDs), movies (including ripped DVDs), and photos.
3. To have the central server be capable of easily ripping DVDs, CDs, and recording/encoding live TV content.
4. To have the central server be controlled by any number of “client” machines located throughout the house by network connection.
5. OPTIONAL: The media server should be able to process HDTV streams.

The Media Clients

1. Aside from the fact that every computer in the house will be able to access the files on the server, there will be two dedicated “media clients” operating as set-top boxes.
2. Live TV and pre-recorded TV should be accessible from each media client.
3. The media clients should be controllable by a simple remote control.
4. The media clients should be able to connect to a standard TV.
5. OPTIONAL: The media clients should be able to display to an HDTV.
6. OPTIONAL: The media clients should be able to play CDs and DVDs and rip them to the central server for later reencoding.

Details

Those are my goals for this project. Now, I’m going to get into the details.

The Network

I have contracted with a fellow to wire the house with standard CAT-5 networking cable to be terminated in simple RJ-45 (ethernet) connectors under the stairs. There will be a network port in the office, the game room, and the living room.

Under the stairs, there will also be a cable line for TV and broadband, a phone line, the network cables, and, of course, electricity.

I plan to use a NETGEAR 108 bps wireless access point/router as the network hub and gateway to the Internet.

The Server

My plans for the server currently are…

• AMD Athlon or Pentium IV class processor. For this, I need to find a balance of performance and wattage. It has to be powerful enough to encode video in a reasonable period of time, but I don’t want it to be a power hog or a major source of heat.
• 512 MB — 1 GB RAM
• 2 or 3 disk RAID setup hosting at least 200GB of space initially.
• 2 Tuner TV card with hardware MPEG-2 encoding.
• (OPT: HDTV tuner card)
• DVD-ROM drive.
• Linux (gentoo most likely).
• Apache + MySQL + PHP
• MythTV running in only backend mode.
• (OPT: IMAP email server with 2GB per user)

The Media Clients

• mini-itx, microATX, or other small form factor motherboard & case.
• Hardware MPEG-2 & MPEG-4 decoding
• SVideo out (DVI/HDMI out preferred)
• IR Remote control + LIRC
• Linux (gentoo most likely)
• MythTV running in frontend mode.

Conclusion

I’ll be tracking my progress on this site as well as the decisions that I make. I don’t think this is going to happen quickly, though, so don’t get too impatient with me.