Dedicated Webserver Distro
 

I was wondering if any of you guys know any webserver distro ??

Like: only very basic and super hardened security with webserver as apache/nginx w. mysql in bash-only environment ??

I seek such distro, but cannot find any.. I Know I can make one myself with eg debian without X. but it would not be as hardened nor perfect as if a team already works on one..

so, anyone knows anything about such ??

Please.. !! :D

Surprisingly, all that is required to "super harden" any distro is to make sure it has a properly configured firewall set up.

A search for "linux firewall" should yield some favourable results, and if it comes down to "Which one should I choose," it's a simple answer: the one with the best documentation. :)

and which distro is specialized into that ???

anyone ?

How about CentOS? A lot of web hosting firms seem to offer it. You have the advantage of selinux and firewall config tools such as system-config-securitylevel.

hmm. I dont think you understand..

I look for an OS with this geeky style as: as the old times says "DOS-ONLY" OS.. so no X all graphical stuff.
Just a console on the screen to login and type in configuration commands only.. easy and steady u know.

I was trying such OS some years ago, but damn I can't remember what the name was... the only thing on the distro was some network tools/security management. and apache w. mysql/php

It was all booting the system.. and some seconds later it was ready to put in commands from the terminal/dos/shell- only environment.. it was installed directly from the distro-cd.

Any familiar you know of ?? please help me.. I dont want any of these bloated (please not flamewar me) graphical environments when the only thing I need is what I wrote..

There MUST be some distro specialized in JUST that.. !!

Terfy

Any distro can do what you want. There is no need to install a GUI if you do not need it.

With Debian, you can have a fully-functional, non-graphical install in about 20 minutes. It's all about what you choose to install.

I have two servers at home (one for media, one for backup), and neither of them have an X server installed.

At work here, we use ClarkConnect. It is a Redhat-based, no-GUI distro, and all of the admin controls can be accessed remotely through a web interface. The version we use is really old, but rock solid.

yeah, just use debian. it's fast and as light as you want it to be.

thank you for your responses. I use debian already as my desktop. so it would be easy to install this for me I think..

but I miss this firewall/webserver only distro.. shame I didnt remember the name of it.. :-(

ok I try with debian.. any of you know a good firewall made well for debian ? more security = better

thanks again

...are you perhaps thinking of FloppyFW?
I remember using that as a firewall/router distro, back in the day, before I bought a wireless router and needed to transform an old clunker of a PC.

I don't know if it came with a webserver, out of the box, though.

it was not FloppyFW.

it was a CD (very small datausage, smaller than debian netinst cd), and it booted and installed as default, a firewall, apache, mysql and php.. at boot I could choose how all the 4 stuff should be configurated before finally click install.

then it deleted all partition, created new ones, installed it with the conf I chose, and restart = wupti.. ready to go fast with console login (to be able to watch stats and reconfigure and such). It was totally nice.

was it this?
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

i've never heard of it, but it was the first google hit for "apache linux."

this line might make me a little nervous:

"The default configuration is not good from a securtiy point of view and it's not secure enough for a production environment - please don't use XAMPP in such environment."

but if you know what you're doing I guess it shouldn't be any harder to secure than any other install. they also say this:

"Since LAMPP 0.9.5 you can make your XAMPP installation secure by calling »/opt/lampp/lampp security«."

so that helps a little, I guess.

personally I think you're better off just installing debian or slackware with the apps you need and securing it yourself, but to each his/her own. ;)

yeah.- I know about XAMPP and I do even use it now. but i want to try a distro which has this goal to fullfill.

I will try debian with just what I need, and see if I can secure it myself. I just hoped "someone" smarter than me could do it for me.

terfy