New server for home

Cuddlesworth

I have a new rig coming that I want to use as a new server/workstation. Some people I know keep saying Linux for the Op, and I would like to know why.

I have used Suse and Ubuntu before. Suse crashed on install, and ubuntu I couldnt figure out how to install programs or drivers. But even with all of this I'm willing to go back to them. That and I plan to bug you guys a lot.

Workstation/server specs will be duel 3.4ghz Xeon cpus with HT, 4 gig ddr2 ram, 160+250+300+400gig sata drive + 2* 185.2 Gig ata drive and a duel layer dvd rw, Nvidia Quadro FX1300 128mb PCI-E video card, dual gigabyte ethernet ports.

Edit, stupid tab and enter

What I want for this rig, is for it to be used as a fileserver, both internal and external. A router for my home network with a large amount of control over the users within it. A games server for Css/Bf2 etc. And a possible webserver. And I still want a graphical interface like Kde or Gnome since its going to be a backup for friends want ing to surf the net etc. Can anybody give me a small list of programs for this and point me in the right direction.

PhantomBeaker

To be honest, the most compelling reason I find for linux these days is driver support. For example, I have a Promise Sata card that's not recognised by Solaris just yet. So, I have to stick with linux or nothing right now.

But for your example I'd say: try out a couple of live cds or similar on it. See what's recognised. I.e. if, for example, gentoo's live cd sees your drives, and recognises your ethernet ports, you can be fairly certain that linux supports it. Also try it out with things like Belinix (the OpenSolaris livecd) and see if it can recognise stuff. I don't know if there are BSD livecds but at least go to a point in the install where you can still back out, but can be fairly certain of how well your hardware is supported.

ntlbell

You might be better off getting your hands on an old p 133 or something simillar and use this for the firewall/routing and then use the new rig for the fileserver/webserver/game server.

Choices for the OS on the firewall/router are endless but if you're not used to linux I would tend to lean towards something like http://www.smoothwall.org/
or m0n0wall.

For the fileserver itself it might be an idea as all ready stated to try out some of the live cd's and see what you're most comfortable using.

But you are going to have to do a lot of reading and put in some effort in if you're not all ready comfortable in a Linux/BSD enviroment.

For the file server you're going to have to get your head around http://www.samba.org

Web server http://www.apache.org

I'm not sure about the gaming servers but I'm sure there's plenty to choose from for most linux/BSD Os's

Mach

May this will help , with Ubuntuhttp://www.oreilly.com/catalog/ubuntuhks/

Cuddlesworth

Mach wrote:

May this will help , with Ubuntuhttp://www.oreilly.com/catalog/ubuntuhks/

Urghh, spend money? Thats not the Linux way. I'm willing to spend the time tweaking my setup, was just looking for initail pointers in the way of programs, like what has been given to me. So thanks!

rogue-entity

I would definatly suggest Linux for your rigs OS, but as others suggested, try the lives CDs first to be sure your hardware will be detected. Linux will recognise most "controller" hardware, that is, hardware that has its own controllers and doesnt need a software-controller included in the drivers. Best example are modems and printers, older modems have their own controllers and linux will work with them out of the box, but the newer winmodems and win-printers have controllers/translaters/interpreters written in software to perform much of the work of the hardware, in software, making the hardware cheaper, but mostly windows-only.

As others have said:
Webserver - Apache
FileServer - Samba

Dont "share" samba on the open internet as it is not secure. Use SFTP instead which is included with OpenSSH (remote login) and your friends can use WinSCP to login and upload/download files. You can still setup a standard FTP server if you wish, but again, like Samba, its not secure.

For your graphical interface, KDE and Gnome are good, and most distros will come with Firefox for web browsing.

IPtables is your firewall, most distros, will have a graphical tool to configure the firewall and routing features, which is a godsend considering how complex IPTables can be to configure at the command line.

generalmiaow

reiterating somewhat, but krazy_8s, when you say a file server, I presume you mean you will sharing content/resources with windows PCs, so samba is your man. it has a reputation for being hard to set up, but if you post the relevant information about your network (actually really just what PCs you're using and whether you're sharing just files/printers, etc, where is is in relation to the WAN connection) ,

we can help you (well I will try at least) put together the samba config file (which is the only file you need to mess with really, apart from setting up where you have your files).

as for installing programs in ubuntu or similar, you should be gladdened by the fact that that all the software you need to run your server can be installed with a single command, using apt-get. something like:

apt-get install apache2 vsftpd samba ... but there's a few in-between files... particularly if you're going to have PHP or MySQL on your webserver. I can put to you the exact command to use once you've told us exactly what you're installing. then it's the uhh... "simple" matter of editing a few text files...

I recommend a flavour of ubuntu. Kubuntu for KDE, Xubuntu for XFce, Ubuntu for GNOME. They're all basically equal in power, if you're just using this system as a "spare". I have a computer in my kitchen basically doing the exact thing yours will be doing running Xubuntu, humming away happily without a complaint. Took a bit of messing to set up, but once everything was in place, it's been up and running wth no problem. That's the trade-off with windows. You could set up a windows computer to do this in minutes with IIS etc... with no driver issues, but it will cost you money, and probably email all your remaining money to russia.

Installing drivers is hard, but hopefully the ubuntus (particularly with 6.06) will take care of a good part of it for you

Cuddlesworth

Thanks for the advice, I have been playing around with ubuntu the last week. I downloaded the server edition, and had to figure out how to get Kde up and running. Took so bloody long.

I have a high upload, and I will be using it as a ftp server for upload.

Other then that, thanks I'm going to be looking into installing samba and configuring it now.

I was told that you can, hmm whats the best way to say this? Cache your internet connection? So if I download a update of firefox, then when another person on the network does the same, he takes it off the server rather then the web? Is this possible?

generalmiaow

I was told that you can, hmm whats the best way to say this? Cache your internet connection? So if I download a update of firefox, then when another person on the network does the same, he takes it off the server rather then the web? Is this possible?

Definitely possible, this is how my awful ISP saves cash. If we consider how DansGuardian works (it's a sort of kid-protecting proxy server that replaces dodgy content with a warning page) you would be using a similar idea, only replacing content on the web with your local cached stuff. I don't know if there's tailor-made software for this, because as you implied there's probably a specialised word for it [OT: half of working with linux is about finding the right name for something to google ] but this sort of functionality is built into a lot of server software (like MediaWiki). Would you want to say, only cache content for a certain amount of time, like say, cache binary files that are new for a certain period so if he tries to update firefox again he'll get the new file... e.g. obviously you don't want people to get the same boards.ie page from half an hour ago... or how would you want to discriminate?

PhantomBeaker

krazy_8s wrote:

I was told that you can, hmm whats the best way to say this? Cache your internet connection? So if I download a update of firefox, then when another person on the network does the same, he takes it off the server rather then the web? Is this possible?

For that, squid's your bunny.

It's proxy software and can be set up to cache.

aoife