Recommended new hardware for Censornet (Debian Sarge?)

[scgf]

We are about to purchase Censornet v4 and a new server on which to install it.

 

I am concerned about buying hardware which is too recent for the Debian version Censornet use.

 

Because we are buying for a new school we are required to use Dell as they have the contract for ICT hardware. A rack-mounted server would be perfect.

 

I would be very grateful if anyone could suggest a suitable spec. We will have no more than 350 concurrent users and are a high school (10-14). Our broadband link is 10MBit through our regional broadband consortium.

 

Many thanks.

[scgf]

Can anyone recommend a forum frequented by users who might know about suitable hardware to use with Linux? Thought this might be it :-(

[mortstar]

Conversely to normal forum trends, EduGeek is more populated during working hours (i.e. 8am - 5pm ish). Your original post was at 6:30pm, when most people aren't here.

 

There are plenty of people on here who have had experience wiht Censornet and Linux. I'm sure somebody will be along with some good ideas for you.

[scgf]

Sorry - I posted the question on Saturday - it's now Thursday.

 

Please do a search on my username scgf or scgf01 or my real name, Phillip Deackes, and see just how much help I have offered Linux (and other OS) users over several years if you doubt my sincerity, or lest you feel I am a leecher.....

 

I understand your irritation - there are usually many more takers than givers.

[Ric_]

ChrisH ma be the best person to ask... IIRC he runs Censornet on a Dell rack server.

[mortstar]

Ahhhh my apologies!

 

Always look at the date...edited the first post to make me seem like less of a pillock

[Joedetic]

I can't see that you're going to run into many problems running deb on most machines. My old school have a debian web server running on a new poweredge (new as in 2k5/6 i forget which). It's a standalone but was the same spec as the one that was running our ISA server.

 

The latest stable release was on April 8th 2007 and is called Etch. Sarge is now outdated.

[clodhopper]

I'm on the Beta team for testing CNv4 and we're currently running CNv4 1.0.3 on a Dell Poweredge 1800.

 

CNv4 is now based on Etch so you shouldn't have any problems getting it working. If you'd like to chat more about this drop me a line.

[scgf]

Thanks, Clodhopper.

 

Adelix have since suggested the following spec:

 

Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 3050 Processor at 2.13GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB, 1GB RAM (preferably 2GB)

 

Censornet v4 is expensive though - £5 per concurrent user per year.

 

We were also looking at Equiinet's Cache Pilot. Does this also have a yearly cost?

 

Thanks again.

[clodhopper]

I'd say 4Gb's of RAM (after talking to Dan at Adelix) I'd always say more RAM for stuff like proxy's and it's not that expensive.

 

Our 1800 is a Dual Xeon 3Ghz for in effect Etch see's it as 4 processors. We got our from Europc for £899 just had to up the memeory but that was quite cheap direct from Crucial.com, again if you want more info on that let me know.

 

I didn't think that CNv4 was that expensive as you only pay for concurrent users and I think we got a bit of a discount as we're were users of CNv3 and a couple of other Adelix products.

[scgf]

Cheers, Clodhopper. We have to buy through Dell themselves so I will see what they can do for us. I will certainly specify the extra memory.

 

At £5 a concurrent user, we would still be looking at paying over a grand a year - which is a lot for us. A lot of software seems to be going down this route of a yearly fee - I am much happier buying the product then deciding whether to buy in support or additional features. We reject the MS School's Agreement for this reason. At the end of the day it is just a way for companies to assure themselves of a continuous revenue stream.

[tom_newton]

@scgf - the reason we (SmoothWall) go for the "yearly" model is that we need to be able to pay for development of patches to the underlying system components, and for ongoing updates of subscriptions, etc.

 

At £5/seat/year though CN4 is very expensive for what it offers, especially for larger installs.

[scgf]

OK, Tom, I'm listening. What does your product offer? We are currently using Censornet V3, which is why we are going the V4 route.

 

I know nothing about SmoothWall.

 

I have sent you a pm with my email address - please get back to me with more info.

 

Thanks.

[ChrisH]

Im running on a dell 860 rackmount I think. Etch has a lot better hardware support so it should catch most things. When you say 350 concurrent users how many PCs do you actually have?

[scgf]

We have around 350 machines - so I understand we are not going to get 350 concurrent users. Probably more like 200 on a very good day. Censornet reckon we could get away with saying 100 concurrent users, but if both ICT rooms are in use, that's 70 users immediately, then staff laptops and 20 Macs in Music . . .

[ChrisH]

You may get away with 100 but you can only experiment with that. The thing you have to think of is its not who is using the internet at one time its how many are actually putting in a request at that moment.

[scgf]

Hmmm. Interesting. So 125 concurrent users would probably be enough. Hadn't thought of concurrent internet requests as opposed to users logged on . . .

 

That makes it a fair bit less expensive than we thought. I am just waiting for a price on SmoothWall's product before I make a final decision.

 

Thanks for your advice, Chris.