Hi, everyone! This seems like a wonderful site, and I'm hoping y'all can help me.

My friend wants me to set up a Linux server for his website, and wants me to learn how to use it because he doesn't know. I'm currently running SuSE 9.0 on it, because it was the first distro I got to work and it's the distro he has ANY experience with.

I'm supposed to install UML on this machine, with a bunch of virtual servers running Debian for the various and sundry operations of this server. And I have no idea what I'm doing. Prior to last week, I thought that SuSE was a horrible misspelling of a children's author's name.

So I downloaded the UML kernel through YaST. YaST said that it compiled it, and I can't find the file directly when I search for it. I also downloaded the root filesystem for Debian, but nothing seems to happen there. Could someone with some experience in setting this up please walk me through it in newbie-speak? The howtos that I've found seem like they're really well-written... just on a level greater than the one I currently have.

Any general tips on learning Linux sysadmining would be appreciated as well. Help an aspiring geekgirl out!



*Z*

Without trying to deter any of your efforts I think you are very brave. Debian in itself is very different in its approach and can be quite daunting. Its a really fine distro once you get the hang of it though. I suggest reading this article on setting up a Debian server. It is very much a do this and do that approach so you should cope with it if you are willing to learn and persevere. Good luck!

Would it be to my benefit to install Debian as the base system, instead of SuSE? Thank you very much for the link... it seems quite useful, and I think I'm going to try that way tomorrow.

Any more UML-specific advice, folks?

*Z*

Is there any particular reason to use UML. I have no experience with it and went to the site to read up and my impression is that it primarily software/application focused and seems a bit of over-kill in the server environment unless you getting heavily into php etc.

I don't want to use it at all. The friend that's having me set this up for him said, and I quote:

"UML is pretty close to full speed (if using the host-kernel modules. It can also run slower in userland) UML effectively sandboxes each server. This is a security benefit in the best sense of the phrase:

It keeps a server from being screwed up by a security hole in another one, a reboot-bug in another one, us having to do something stupid to reinstall another one, or us just screwng up a server."

So there ya go.

*Z*