One stop shop for setup
 

Greetings everyone from floppywhopper

I'm probably showing off my ignorance but...
is there a one stop shop : manual for setting up a
firewall, web server, file server etc etc
using a package like Mandrake 9.0 or above
or similar
setting up everything with webmin or similar
please no command line stuff
I'm a gui freak

I am currently using Smoothwall 2.0 which is OK
but doesnt quite do everything I want it to do
and I dont want to pay thousands when I know it can be done for free
or near abouts
but would be happy to buy a decent book on the subject

Comments would be welcome

If it hasnt been written
heres an idea for someone in the know
I would be quite happy and I know others who would too
pay for a decent book
that takes a relative newbie from installing the necessary software
updating it, administering & maintaing it, checking logs etc,

cheers
floppy

have you checked amazon.com for something?? i know they do have several linux books, but i'm not sure if they have one that covers firewall, web, and file server, etc. all in one...

here's a good online documentation project in case you haven't seen it already:

http://www.tldp.org/

Yes I have downloaded all sorts of how-tos
and they are helpful
and check out all sorts of forums
and they are helpful too

my humble thanks to all those out there
helping idiots like me

however they usually assume some sort of networking skill
and usually a lot of command line knowledge

I dont want to end up being a super techno geek
but I do want to just build it and admin it myself

A nice all-in-one "build your own network" manual
is what I want for christmass

floppy

okay but you have a windows system administration background, right??

would you like a book that's geared in that direction (for windows admins and NOT complete newbies)??

Good question

In short - No- I dont have any Win network experience
just the experience of looking after a home network
And i'm not really chasing the formal experience
I'm just a humble accountant
I have a home network of six computers
One firewall and five dual booting win 98 & mandrake
I simply want a comprehensive book or how-to
that takes a newbie through
all the steps, whys and wherefores of setting up
a small home network

floppy

It's no rocket science.
Just install what you want (e.g. apache for a web-server, samba for windows file-server etc.).
Have the servers stareted at boot.
And you are pretty much done.
You only need to configure stuff when you need to change the default configuration. When you do, try configuring with webmin. If that doesn't help, ask specific questions here.
R.

Unfortunately some things you may need to learn...

Without going super geeky, it would be worth finding out about configuring a simple home network (not all the firewalls, webservers and things, but just setting up the IP stuff). Once you got a bit of that under your belt, setting up the other stuff should be a lot easier.

As r0b0 says, most of the default server configs will work straight off. There are some gui configurators like webmin for some of the servers, but these don't always do everything you want. You don't need to go all command line to change what you want though, usually you just need to edit a text file, then restart the server. For the most part if you don't understand what it says in the files, you can ignore that bit.

Further Reading:

Try LINUX the complete reference ISBN 0-07-222505-X
It starts off nice and simple, explaining everything as it goes along, and you only have to take out as much detail as you need.

floppy, check-out this link:

http://store.slackware.com/cgi-bin/s...Fq9nG&mv_pc=86