I have been researching several places on a new Apache Web Server setup. There is the easy way and the hard way. The hard way seems to be the more appropriate way of doing it. I have even looked over the articles on this site but they do not explain much of the preperation/implementation details. Linux documenation explains way too much about what certain terminology is and not enough to know how to properly allocate and layout your hard drive space.

When loading RedHat Linux install for the first time from CD it asks what kind of setup environment you prefer. One of the choices is a Linux Server and realize it says Linux Server, not Linux Web Server. Could I use this Linux Server install option and just customize it to make it a little more professionally done? What method do you folks recommend? Or, in other words, what do you most commonly do for setting up/preparing a Linux Web Server. Please clarify so if there is something I need to lookup I can use your keywords to research it further.

Another concern is the partition size and layout for a Web Server. I'm not running some mega corporate website either. Just one I can experiment with. I want to setup a test web server with 20GB of available space. What would you recommend as far as layout and sizing considerations for a Web Server?

For the Apache installation I can handle it from that point as Apache has good Linux installation documentation.

Thanks for any advice.

You don't need anything fancy for the setup, I normally do a pretty basic install, I choose the custom and turn off almost everything, as for the drive layout the way I normally do it is:

hda 2x the size of the ram
hdb /boot 100 megs
hdc rest of the drive

Also I personally like installing apache to the /web directory, I know that is not standard but it keeps it nice a separate and the path's are alot shorter to type out in code and stuff like that.

Past that make sure you compile apache and not just use a rpm as then you are sure of how it is setup and can add new features as you need them while not running all the ones you don't need, it also cuts down on your vunerbilities.

Ok now everyone else can argue with the way I do it, it works for me so do whatever you find works the best

Cool, thanks! Anyone else with custom Web Server/Apache setups please speak up. Anything helps.