Hello everyone,

I've been heard of an specification as below which has been applied in a Cyber Cafe locally:

Main Server Specification:
======================
- Celeron 500
- 256MB SDRam
- 20GB Harddisk


Client Computers
==============
- There are about 150 client computers (all in Windows XP Platform) in the CC for Internet surfing, Network Gaming and so on.

- Using ---> IPMASQ+Squid as the Proxy Server.

- Also the "Squid" has been used for setting up some rules on the "syntax" (for eg: Sex, fxxk, hardcore) to prevent the CC users to browse these website.

- Samba has been setup for "File Sharing", the boss from CC told that he is using this to enable about 60 client computers of watching Real format Movies with totally no problem at all. (p/s: the Real Movie are stored in a server locally, there are about 3000 movies and up to 8000 video Clips stored in the file server that's connect up to LINUX.

- He also setup the DHCP and DNS's CACHE for certain service.

- He claim that this make his Server to run up successfully with totally no problem at all after 6 months till now.


My Questions
===========
1) Is it possible?

2) May i know what is the usage of PROXY SERVER?

3) Why he need to setup the SQUID? and also IPMASQ?

4) There are about 60 compters open different RM format movie at the same time with no problem at all, I'm wonder, is that the Server which storing these RM movies must be a SCSI Harddisk so it only acquire such fast speed to support the file access request from 60 client computers?? I'm dont understand everything about how powerful a SERVER can be by using a such low computer specification but with a LINUX OS platform... as it just really amzed me as LINUX is so powerful!! can someone show me more about this and what LINUX can be?

5) I don't understand why he still need to setup the DHCP and the DNS's CACHE? What is the usage for this?

6) I just feel that this is a good idea since he can run up his Cyber Cafe like this. What do you guys think?

Lets try to exchange your idea on this ~~~

http://www.clarkconnect.com/ if you want 5 years of support.
http://www.ipcop.org/ if you want to handle support yourself.

No need to reinvent the wheel. You are probably the last person to want to do this. There are doc's and tutorials for each.

Thanks Thoreau,

but it seems not the page that lead me about how to configure the low spec of PC to be a server....

hm.....

the http://www.ipcop.org/ <--- This is seems like a Firewall for LINUX?? but i just need to know about how to configure the LINUX to be the server and then the rest computers is sharing the Internet Access, and also the file from the LINUX box hehe....

1) Yes it is possible.
2) The Proxy server is used to retrieve the informatiom from the remote server and passes it onto the local browsers. The proxy server will keep the data for period of time so that the next person to retrieve tha page gets it from the local server and not the remote one. This saves on bandwidth usage.

3) squid is the proxy server. ipmasq is IP masquerade, this allows the CC computers on a closed private network to communicate with the internet.

4) the real player clients sort out the the different codecs for playback.

5) DHCP allows the computers on the local CC network to obtain an IP address. DNS cache is used to reolve site names to IP addresses.

6) If you want to give it a go, then go for it.

Michael Johnson,

Thanks for your clear explaination. But I'm still don't understand about my Questions no.4. It just seems not possible for a Celeron 500 + 256MB RAM of computer spec to support up to 60 clients by watching different Real Media Movies at a sametime. Can other people explain this to me? Do you guys think this is possible for such specification of LINUX SERVER to support the rest client request? Thanks

Look at the network. It is probably a 100Mhz network cards which is five times slower than the system it running on. The other 400Mhz is used to run all the applications required. The server would NOT be running a gui as this is unnessesary and just a waste of resources.

Michael Johnson,

Thanks again for the explaination. So what you mean is, it is POSSIBLE for the above spec to run on LINUX and supporting such operation. And if the system will running smoothly if it is in a Terminal without GUI right?

One more question here.

If you are the system administrator of the CC. If the System's harddisk is big enought for all the real format movie. Will you just store all the .rm movies adn clips in the LINUX System or You will use another system to be the FILE SERVER by storing all the movies and clips? Im just want to learn more about this as I think i could be very useful in the future.

As I'm not very good in Networking, so I could learn it from this

Thankyou for your patient to read and reply my post~~

A separate file server would be the way to go.

Why?

Load sharing across servers will give better reponse times. It's not really necessary but it helps. The main point is to have enough storage capacity and bandwidth. You can run it all on one server if you wish.
The second reason is backup.

Thanks,

So is it it will be better for me to use a LINUX BOX to be the server which store up the movies rather than windows. (what i mean here is about the system performance base on same hardware requirement but under different O/S)

Linux will always make a better and more stable server than windoze.

Files stored on the hard disk are cached into any remaining available RAM, thus if 30 people watch the same movie, one guy is reading it off the HDD and 29 are getting it off the RAM cache. It can be done just as easily in a samba share, but he could also have it in a local web server, which does the same thing.

The proxy (squid) allows cached web pages, same thing as above, if everyone goes to google then one request is sent to google's site and all the subsequent replies come off squid's cached copy.

DNS cache is the same deal, repeated hits to the same domains don't have to come down his Internet connection because they are also cached on his server.

so may i know what will be the fastest way for me to copy all the huge movies files into the harddisk folder?(let says there are 100GB Files) Don't tell me, the best way is just using "cp" command? I'm sure there is a better way for doing this so the file will be copied in a faster way.