Best distribution for easy to setup out of the box secure web server?

jimdaworm · 03-27-2005, 05:56 PM

Hi everyone!

I was just wondering what distribution would be best to setup a web server. I love slackware but while I am sure I could set it up quite easily am not very confident as far as securing it. Using freebsd has also crossed my mind.

Any ideas? Somthing secure and easy to setup without toooo much ´locking down´ required?

spoody_goon · 03-27-2005, 06:00 PM

Mandrake 10.1 easy as... well you know

jimdaworm · 03-27-2005, 06:21 PM

Hey spoody_goon, how secure is it ´out of the box´?

spoody_goon · 03-27-2005, 06:42 PM

To the best of my knowledge its as secure as slack it just has more bells a whistles. Comes with a firewall as does most distros.
Although I will point out that I am not an expert in securty, not even close.

jimdaworm · 03-27-2005, 11:25 PM

Thanks for your input, I will keep mandrake in mind

JSpired · 03-27-2005, 11:33 PM

Well, I'd actually go with Fedora or Slack (the latter being harder to set up out of the box). Mandrake is OK as a server IMO, but I think there are better alternatives.

jimdaworm · 03-27-2005, 11:45 PM

What do you think of the BSD´s? I am just download freebsd to see what I think of that. I have heard they are more secure out of the box configured.

doublejoon · 03-28-2005, 10:43 PM

out of the box i would pick the BSD's

jimdaworm · 04-01-2005, 03:54 AM

I have installed Freebsd. Now I just need to get it all configured and serving web pages

Krugger · 04-04-2005, 08:17 PM

I would pick gentoo. You just have to take a quick look at the use flags put up a -X -kde -gnome and probably some other stuff, then you do emerge apache2 and you only have apache 2 and the bare minimum.

But you have to have so linux knowledge and some experience or you will get entagled as it only starts with the minimum of stuff. I did it for my webserver and I am happy.

Then if you need something like mysql, you just emerge mysql go for a couffee and when your back you have mysql full compiled.

jimdaworm · 04-05-2005, 01:10 AM

Thanks for your opinion Krugger I might give it a go sometime... but for now my mind is made up and I am going to try freebsd

overlord73 · 04-05-2005, 01:45 AM

actually I´d choose FC3 or DEBIAN.
there are slimed distros (no X, only some internet daemons,firewall,..), but never tried.
read that astaro security linux should be nice.