I don't think HW is the problem as my 6 year old laptop
is fine for all usual tasks I need (web browsing, reading
email, office, cd-dvd burning and so on). So i suspect that
when my N900 will be 6 years old (unless the usb port breaks earlier)
it will still be fine for doing the tasks I expect.
There will always be a newer shinier better super phone
around the corner but it doesn't mean that I have to buy them all.

All this Meego Cordia stuff is not production ready on the N900.
Important for is to find a way to be able to get security
updates from debian armel and fixes / improvements
from the maemo community. A first step would be
the remove all unneeded closed stuff and replace
it with good open alternatives, the next step
to see how debian armel repositories could be
added without breaking the remaining closed
stuff to get updates and security fixes for the base system.
The latter step probably involves a lot work of dependency checking and deb control files tweaking so very competent
people is needed, surely more experienced than me.
Nonetheless I'm happy to do the testing if needed.

So.... it is becoming more of a question of why rather than how

As regards to the how...

Bandwidth - I am about 8 months away from upgrading my broadband (waiting for a Sky contract to end). My next provider will be Virgin, who offer 100Mbps connection. Now I know its still "upto" but if you take a look at their actual speeds Vs advertised they are about the same. The upload is 5Mbps for the 50Mbps broadband, so I guess you'd get in the range of 6-8Mbps upload for the 100Mbps package. BTW: their average customer speed for 50Mbps package is 49.84Mbps nice! There is also nothing in the T&Cs as regards to caps or connections, so hosting a mirror shouldn't be an issue.

Hardware - Space is not an issue, as I am currently upgrading my storage to a 4-bay NAS (with 4 x 3TB Seagates), overkill I know, but I collect digital media like its going out of fashion! So I have 4 x 1 TB old WD HDDs kicking about, which can be easily fitted to an old machine to use as a server, also if we only need 1 TB storage, I could do a nice bit of RAID for better backup/stability.

What sort of spec machine makes a good mirror, I guess HDD read/write speeds and a decent (gigabit) connection are the most important, but what about CPU/memory etc.

Security - Again, I am waiting to get the Virgin broadband before upgrading my router, which will help with the security I guess, but I am a little bit concerned about opening ports etc. Is there anyway of setting up private/public areas within the home, I mean easily and cheaply. I am sure Cisco could come in and sort it out, but I don't have that much spare cash

Other - Is it just a mirror that the community wants/needs/would be nice or would other services be useful. I mean if you are going through the trouble of setting up a server "for community use" is it just being a repo the best use for it?

To be honest, even if the Maemo/MeeGo/Community doesn't need/want a host then I may do this anyway as a little project and maybe turn it into a Debian mirror. It would be a good learning curve, especially as my Linux knowledge is seriously lacking

As regards to the why......

I think your right, is Maemo a dead-end, or can/will it be ported to other devices and/or emerge as a better alternative "open-source" OS than MeeGo/Others???

I'm not going to comment either way, but if all the official support goes (including repos etc - which I could actually see Elop doing) then it definatly won't have a chance. Even if it is only the die-hard left (like N8x0 et al) at least they will have somewhere to continue developing and using the devices

Personally I would prefer to spend time/money/effort on supporting the few rather than the many

I usually close all ports on the modem/router and forward only the needed ones to the server, this somewhat insulates the rest of your home network.

I guess it depends on what router I get, it may have some other advanced options other than port forwarding. To be honest I wanted to avoid it completely, as it isnt exactly secure. Are there any other methods to maintain and web server and private home network from the same router?

Well I might start looking into putting the server together some time this week, as was mentioned before, if its only being tested and not used properly then bandwidth shouldnt be an issue.

i had a look at the SS4000E config from Intal that farmatito mentioned earlier. if you can install a Linux / GNU distro on it as well, you can make the NAS also your home's firewall.
this forfeits any routing capabilities of your cable or ADSL MoDem, but the result is a much greater security.
an Ethernet cable goes from your cable / ADSL MoDem to the NAS
the firewall function lets the general traffic (indeed, fairly unchallenged) access the repositories and allows the proper traffic (your web browsing, chats, voip, and whatever) access a router thru a 2nd Ethernet connection / card.

i remember a company i worked at once which was using an NT4 machine as a firewall. because it was an old box (not much CPU or RAM needed, indeed) and they couldn't find a matching Ethernet adapter any more, they simply assigned both IP addresses to the same card ¦:-{
the downside is that you only have one mac address, thus if a hacker knows that... (or simply tries it...)

if you download torrents, you may also want to leave that on the NAS, btw...

EDIT: of course, if your cable or ADSL MoDem has router capabilities, you can still use whatever built-in security features it has to protect the NAS

will be back in about a week.
a little earlier if it is purely time management issue, a little longer if i get banned from the site again...

Can't believe I missed this thread...

Cheers guys for doing all this. I tried to put these points forward before:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=73284
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1018617

...but didn't really get any buy-in.

So it's awesome that you've done this. I'd love to help as I have a meaty server sitting largely idle...but disk space is an issue and I'm out of work ATM...so won't be upgrading for the time being

I'm also a Debian aficionado, so can help in that regard if need be.

Glad to see others are interested in this too!

Would setting the new server to be on the DMZ be an option?

I did this with my Xbox at one point when I was having trouble with multi-player - and basically assigning a static IP to the Xbox and then assigning that specific IP to be the DMZ server on my router allowed ALL traffic to and from the Xbox without any firewall at all.

Now as far as I, personally, would be concerned this wouldn't be an issue, as there would be a clean install of a Linux distro on the server and the only data would be community related.

However if people (end up) relying on mirrors etc allowing all traffic to the server puts it at risk of being tampered with, which wouldn't affect me personally, but may affect others, if you see what I mean.

I guess my question is, is assigning a community type web/repo server to DMZ secure enough?? In fact is assigning DMZ to any mirror, Debian etc, secure enough?