# Home server after my life



## freebuser (Jul 16, 2015)

Hi all,
I am currently running a FreeBSD server at home which hosts all of our family documents / photos / calendar events / contacts / software /home monitoring / sprinkler system and everything else which can be digitised.

Me and my wife had this discussion the other day that what is going to happen if I were no longer able to manage the server (say died or any other thing which put all the above unmanageable). She said the server will end up in the bin ( I know this will happen at least on the first instance the server get stuck for some reason).

I just wanted to know from you all what are your plan on managing all of the above issues. Have you ever thought about it.

Thanks


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## Oko (Jul 16, 2015)

freebuser said:


> I just wanted to know from you all what are your plan on managing all of the above issues. Have you ever thought about it.
> Thanks


My plan is very simple and old fashioned. I have two kids (daughters) and I started teaching them UNIX since they were babies. My older daughter Ekaterina is still officially the youngest person ever to use FreeBSD 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			






She is an OpenBSD hacker these days. When I die all my earthly possessions including servers holding pictures is theirs. I am sure they will be OK just like I did OK after my mother and father died.


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## NewGuy (Jul 17, 2015)

Why not just make sure the important stuff is on an external drive or printed and make sure your wife can access the files? The rest, like sprinkler automation, she'll do fine without.


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## freebuser (Jul 18, 2015)

Thanks Oko, NewGuy.

External drive is an option but wanted to know if and what others have thought about it.

Printing 10k+ photos is not an option for now and still videos will be an issue.


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## Remington (Jul 18, 2015)

I hope you're using ZFS mirror or raid-z for protection against hard drive failure or data bit corruption.  I agree with the others about using an external drive that's easily accessible to your wife and you can use `rsync` to update the changes to external drive.


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## roddierod (Jul 18, 2015)

I been thinking about this...I was thinking of some kind of usb drive that they could plugin and boot to some live system or something with that has all the password to important stuff.  I've been trying to find some way to back up all the photos over the years...I have something like 50GB of digital pics, scanned photos....home video etc.  Still have come up with a real play yet!


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## Remington (Jul 19, 2015)

You gotta keep it simple otherwise your wife will toss it out if its too complicated for her.  Just do the `rsync` to external drive for photos, print a hard copy of your userid and passwords, and keep it in a safe place where your wife will find it after your death.  Your lawyer will be good one to secure your document with passwords.


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## scottro (Jul 19, 2015)

Having recently lost a family member, and having to open their computer for their family--and no, there was nothing hidden or embarrassing, simply that they didn't know the password and thought there might be needed stuff.....



They aren't going to be thinking clearly. They're going to have enough to deal with.  Make a death envelope, with your needed information including very clear instructions for someone to open the external drive (if that's what you choose).  Something written as if you were writing it for a client, NOT for a forum.   They will not be in a state to figure things out.   If they use Windows or Mac, make it accessible for their computer, unless you have someone like Oko's daughter in the family.  (Which reminds me of the old Jurassic Park line, something like, This is Unix.  I know this.)

Anyway, it's good to think of these things before hand, because they can be really unexpected.   But yeah, simple--they will be grieving and have to take care of all the things that will have to be done so make it as intuitive as possible. I like the idea of an external drive, readable by whatever O/S your wife uses.


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## freebuser (Jul 20, 2015)

Some good advices, Thanks.

I have good tape backup and yes the server is running zfs with mirrored disks.

I have all the passwords written on a note, so that's covered.

As an immediate measure external hdd seems to be the viable option, may be two for backup... just in case.

On the long term, I'll see which of my two sons wanted to stare at a black background with white texts on it... (this is the complaint I get all the time from my wife).


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 20, 2015)

It's not just a matter of passwords. My main computer does not contain the most interesting stuff. It does however run FreeBSD so my wife won't have any problems with it if she has the root password. She'll just have a look around and grab pictures and a few old web sites perhaps. The problem is with my DOS machine which is set up to meet my own tastes. Even an experienced admin would take days to sort out how to use it even if they did know DOS. That's the problem with customizable operating systems. They become personal. I think I'm going to put the good stuff on a CD for eventual access after I die. She'll also need passwords to a bunch of internet servers and have to decide what to do with the web sites. She'll want to continue, or pass on some, but most can just die. A page of passwords will take care of banking and the like.


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