Uraken Posted January 31, 2008 Posted January 31, 2008 Hi all i'm working on a small project which involves an xp peer to peer network. My problem is that its hit the ten user limit machine when accessing data on the main machine and it looks like its time to start using client server technology.I would opt for windows 2003 rc2 and exchange server etc but the cost involved(i can't get educational prices for this project) makes it a little prohibitive. so i wondered whether i could go down the linux route?and if so what would be the best distro to use (there seems to be so many now). Ideally i want to be able to have more than ten people accessing one central location which will host data etc.I also want to be able to have an email server which will deliver internal email and give external access ala OWA. Can anyone point me in the right direction? some caveats: i'm a linux server noob and so ideally it will need to be gui driven. I searched the forums and googled for info specific to this and whilst there is lots of seperate info nothing that quite hits in on the head. Thanks as always in advance
CyberNerd Posted January 31, 2008 Posted January 31, 2008 central location which will host data This will envolve setting up an SMB samba share. There are a great deal of options in samba but keep it simple rather than trying to set it up as a full blown domain controller on your first go. As usual there are 101 ways of doing it, the 'default' way is by command line editing the file /etc/smb.conf creating users and restarting the service - there are lots of howtos available. There are also various GUI's. System-config-samba is pretty simple, it's predominantly a redhat package, but it is available in the ubuntu repositories (I've not used it), also look at SWAT for webbased gui. an email server which will deliver internal email and give external access ala OWA. IMO zimbra is the most easy to setup, once installed its gui administered via a browser, as usual more exotic settings are CLI only. If you choose zimbra, make sure it's supported on the distribution that you choose. As with windows you will get much more out of the system by learning the shell, it's very powerful and not that difficult. 1
FN-GM Posted January 31, 2008 Posted January 31, 2008 have you considered Windows Small Business Server? That includes Exchange and the technologies you find in Windows Server 2003. I think it also includes ISA server i am not sure though. you are limited to 75 users with SBS. It is much cheaper than the full blown Server product. here is a little info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Small_Business_Server But if you are comfortable with Linux go for it. Z
Uraken Posted January 31, 2008 Author Posted January 31, 2008 cybernerd thanks that gives me a start FN i did consider it but thought that sbs had a 2gb ram limit so could reconsider once i get some prices. i just noticed the karoshi link up top is that for education only? i just had a quick peek at the functions of the single server setup and it seems to tick alot of boxes, is it free?
SimpleSi Posted January 31, 2008 Posted January 31, 2008 Dig out an old Win98 machine and 10 user limit is gone Do you really need an email server for 10 computers - will hotmail/gmail not do you? regards Simon
CyberNerd Posted January 31, 2008 Posted January 31, 2008 i just noticed the karoshi link up top is that for education only? i just had a quick peek at the functions of the single server setup and it seems to tick alot of boxes, is it free? yep, with paid for support if you choose. It's based on pclinuxos
Uraken Posted January 31, 2008 Author Posted January 31, 2008 Hi simon we thought about a commercial web based system like hotmail etc but worried that it wouldn't work sending large emails to internal users via these. also it brings into play things like if the internet goes down no internal email etc
Uraken Posted January 31, 2008 Author Posted January 31, 2008 have you experience of it cybernerd would it do the trick?
CyberNerd Posted January 31, 2008 Posted January 31, 2008 I've not used it. For me I have the feeling it would be too restrictive - I'd get carried away editing configuration files only to find they got re-written by the gui, I had to give up Yast for the same reason (yast is a server config tool for SuSE linux). I suggest you ask Linuxgirlie for the details about karoshi - she's the real expert, you'll probably find here on the karoshi forum. She posts here occasionally.
Uraken Posted January 31, 2008 Author Posted January 31, 2008 yup just noticed her on the karoshi forum, i'm off too pick her brains thanks loads chaps.
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