Hello,
I run a small business in which we perform building and repair services for customers at their locations. We have 5 employees and about 10 subcontractors who work for us on a regular basis. We have an office which mostly serves as storage for our tools, materials etc. and our bookkeeper/organizer/planer prefers to work from home and for us that is not a problem. I have an old desktop that we would like to convert to a server and I’m looking for recommendations on a simple, reliable setup that acts as a storage and hub for our workers to connect to remotely.
What we need from this system is a place where we can store documents, invoices or offers, save pictures from the jobs and if possible, use as an information resource for our subcontractors when they are on site. A desktop environment is a must, and oir employees need to be able to connect remotely (from home computers as well as smartphones) with a higher privilege level than our subcontractors. Also if possible, we would like to self host our website and email server.
I have a basic understanding of Linux and networks, but we are looking for the most user friendly setup and one that is ‘easy’ to diagnose when something goes wrong. None of us a big fans of that M company or windows. I have been looking a little into Softether, which seems appealing, wireguard seems at first glance too complicated for what we need. Am I on the right path looking for a VPN setup or is this only necessary for more sensitive data?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Office 365.
Get a license for everyone, give everyone one drive and create a SharePoint site.
Give the correct permissions for everyone that you need and your done.
Emails, Office apps, storage and nothing on premise.
The issue with converting and “old” PC to a server is that it’s old and is a huge liability.
OneDrive and SharePoint is the way to go.
Just read you dont like office, GSuite can also do all this for you.
So you want
- Document storage and common access. (You gonna do backups?)
- You want to self host a website. (You also going to back this up?)
- Self host an email server. (Also going to back this up and run jobs and troubleshoot it?)
- You want a firewall/vpn to then access said internal resources and distribute login creds and permissions etc.
- Which then means you need to set up a small switch, a router with a dedicated IP (You can actually do dynamic VPN/IPSEC stuff but you said wireguard seems complex)
Can I ask why you want to self host those things?
Also need to know how much time you really have to set all this up and then keep it running, and monitor it… and then make sure it’s all backed up.
Straight up I’d just go with cloud, gmail, O365, or find a smaller MSP to put you under their umbrella and you own the stuff like DNS.
BAD IDEA: Do not use old desktops to convert and run your business… Do not use said desktop to mulihost a web server, email server, document server.
- Do you know how to configure DNS records?
- Do you know how to generate TLS certificates and apply them?
- Do you know how to register with ARIN? <— Not technically needed but a real good idea.
- Do you know how to create an LDAP and assign user permissions? And then group permissions, and then inheritances etc.
- Do you know how to create ACLs on a VPN host to segregate networks and then said users?
Your situation is the picture perfect definition of SAAS solutions. Work on making your business better, eat the cost of SAAS or an MSP. Focus on what you’re good at not duct taping together an old desktop to put Ubuntu on.
Some of these services cost as little as 5 bucks a month per user…
My hobbyist self says, sure you can do all that for free or cheap. My IT manager self says do yourself a favor and pay for OpenVPN Access Server. It makes setting up new VPN clients very easy and isn’t too expensive.
Also, I would strongly discourage you from hosting your own email unless you want to hire a full-time IT guy to keep your sent emails out of your clients SPAM folders. There are very cheap options for email hosting with your company domain. I use MXRoute at home and I wouldn’t hesitate to use them for a small business https://mxroute.com/
OK, fair enough… I probably got a little carried away… originally the main purpose is for easy transfer of data from multiple sources, our employees and subcontractors, to a central storage, the data consisting almost exclusively of photos.
We actually already have a website and email hosting service, and are actually reasonably happy with them so I will definitely leave that alone 
Having said that, it still looks like a cloud service is probably what will work best, thank everyone for the advice…
I think my internal hobbyist was just looking for a new project to waste some time on.
I would consider a known SMB firewall to serve as the VPN aggregate in light of all that’s going with breaches and what not. Roll your own is cool; however, you may not have anything sensitive now, but spending money on security definitely can help you sleep better at night knowing there’s less of a chance for those bad actors to sneak in the back door.
Contact an MSP.
Don’t use an “old desktop” for your business file server, unless you don’t care about your file server going poof when your old hardware dies.
Don’t self host your email.
Don’t self host your website.
I agree with /u/retrogamer-999 , for something of this size, with remote work and reliabilty, its hard to beat Office 365. Definetly better than a role your own setup.
Second outsourcing this. GSuite probably the best
