Which *nix?

[Guest Guest]

Im just about to setup a intranet web server. Got all the hardware ready with a cheap IDE RAID card, lol, gunna just run mirrored/striping.

 

Now all i need to decide is which distro to use. I dont want to be setting this up and then 6months down the line when its live and people are relieing on it, to realise that I would have been better with x distro, or y software wont work with the installed distro, etc etc.

 

It will be running primarily as a simple apache server supporting mainly PHP and MySQL based sites. SSH root access would be nice as i dont plan on having a monitor attached.

 

I can work with CLI, just takes abit to get back into the swing of navigating *nix filesystems, so i could manage without a GUI as long as i have instructions/guide to follow.

 

 

Your recommendations on which distro and which software please :beer:

 

Hardware list

 

ITE Raid Card

2x maxtor 40gb HD

512mb ddr 2700

1.7-2gb celeron

msi motherboard

2x 100mb realtek NICs

 

Spec can and will be upgraded. I think the celeron will cope, what do you think? 300 workstations but nowhere near all will access at once

[Ric_]

You're going to regret asking this! Everybody likes a different distro for a different reason.

 

For my two-penneth-worth... Debian

[webman]

Ubuntu. It has a specific installation method for what you want (commonly referred to as LAMP) and is based on the rock-solid Debian.

[CyberNerd]

My recommend is Centos (redhat enterprise) or Ubuntu server.

Ubuntu has a preconfigured 'install LAMP server' option

 

WRT really cheap IDE raid - these are usually software raid and most modern distro's won't use software bios raids because its generally accepted linux software raid is better than bios software raid. Use the raid card just as another IDE port then setup either mdadm or evms

[Geoff]

Migrating everything to Ubuntu 6.06 LTS here.

[DMcCoy]

Debian, without gui.

[Guest Guest]

Ive recently been "playing" with ubuntu and have found it realy easy - as thats what its designed to be. But im concerned that as its abit kiddyish does it have holes that are going to be exploited?

 

Obviously its not like its the end of the world if it goes down but at the same time id rather it be totally secure. If ubuntu does the job securely then it will probably get the job as it seems quite idiot proof and thats what i need

 

 

//1st post edited to include hardware//

[Geoff]

It's based on Debian unstable. Security updates are regular. At least weekly.

[webman]

Kiddyish? Not if you don't run a GUI on it and manage it via SSH And as Geoff rightly said, it's based on Debian unstable (not as bad as it sounds) and security updates are regular.

[Guest Guest]

Cheers people. Will probably go for ubuntu then. Was just abit concerned as ive donloaded LAMPs before and some say "only for development, not to be used in a live environment".

 

:beer: from me

[Geoff]

That's just the disclaimer. It's no worse than the MS EULA.

[ChrisH]

I have always used debian, recently been using Ubuntu as its an easy transition being Debian based but with more regular updates etc as Geoff has stated.

[OverWorked]

I'm a Linux newbie but have set up Ubuntu LAMP server for my school's intranet.

 

I used parts of Ubuntu Perfect Setup

 

Follow steps 1, 2 (choose LAMP server), 4, 5, 6. (skip step 3).

 

Then, from your windows desktop, use WinSCP3 to navigate the files sytem and upload the web site (/var/www), and PuTTY to administer it remotely.

 

I now have an intranet server in my server cupboard that I never have to touch.

 

Works for me.

[Geoff]

I now have an intranet server in my server cupboard that I never have to touch.

 

Be careful doing this. After a few months and several servers it's hard to track where each server physically is. I've lost machines before now this way. They are up and respond over the network, but can I find the cupboard/room they are in? Can I hell...

[webman]

http://www.UbuntuGuide.org includes some good pointers, too.

[NetworkGeezer]

Debian, without gui.

 

Oh a real man eh ? ;P

[NetworkGeezer]

I now have an intranet server in my server cupboard that I never have to touch.

 

Be careful doing this. After a few months and several servers it's hard to track where each server physically is. I've lost machines before now this way. They are up and respond over the network, but can I find the cupboard/room they are in? Can I hell...

 

It should be able to work your back from the switch cabinet

[budgester]

Debian, without gui.

 

Oh a real man eh ? ;P

 

Nah, real men use Linux From Scratch.

 

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

[webman]

Yeah, it's crawling through the conduits and cable trays that's the tricky bit

[Guest Guest]

Right, we are go! Cheers people! Accepting http, puut and winscp log in no probs

 

 

MySQL is installed as default aint it? How do I know whats the password for it is? Or is it just my root password?

 

Im going to install phpMyAdmin now, any pointers?

[webman]

To set MySQL root password:

 

$ mysqladmin -u root password 

 

To create another MySQL user for a given database:

 

$ mysql -u root -p
Password: [enter root password]
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON .* TO 'foo'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

 

phpMyAdmin information

[Guest Guest]

Top stuff Webman!

 

All working, just tried phpmyadmin and i get logged in and have made a database so its looks like we are ready to start adding sites.

 

I changed the sources.list to the reposiaties one as told to by that website you recommended, do i change it back to what it was originally?

 

Is there anything else i need to do to secure my server?

 

So far i followed steps 1-6 on the "perfect setup guide" like you said and have installed phpmyadmin. Anything else i need to do?

[webman]

Nice one j17sparky

 

You can leave it as it is to have access to a wider range of applications through apt/Synaptic; or change it back to how it was. It won't harm anything leaving them in though

 

Strong passwords and no unnecessary services running are good for starters. As far as Apache etc is concerned, it depends on who you're serving pages to (internally or externally) and if it's exposed to the outside world or not, as to which IP restrictions you set on sites and/or virtual hosts.

[Guest Guest]

Great so as its internal ill just leave as is, maybe change it to only accept requests from our subnet. But tbh this is fairly unnessissary as we do not have incoming traffic from teh outside world and never will, or not in the forseeable future.

 

Thanks for all your help people. It was my first venture with *nix where everythings worked first time (Dont you wish M$ was like that too lol)

Normally i get it right on my 2nd time after ive cocked all the settings up and learned from my mistakes.