setting up a LAN server
 

hey all! it is then end of the highschool year and in my computer engineering class we were working thru the course.. my teacher figured I knew enough about windows and told me to set up a server using the mandrake 7.2 distro I gave him. I have never even used NT let alone Linux for a server. where can I start?

I installed the "server" option, and turned on most of the services that a workstation would have.. now the thing is

I have to serve a web page off of it (I think), people have to log in with their microsoft computers (using the domain and username and pass) for files, and I would also like to run a half-life server on it if I got around to it!

I have absolutally no clue how to connect to it from windows.. I chose a hostname that is way too long and I cant figure out how to change it. I am under the influence that if I set everyone up on the computer, they can put my hostname in their domain and their user name and pass for my linux box and log in like that? I dont know.. do I have to use samba for that? as far as the half-life server goes, I think that will be just install and dont worry..

what all do I need running / going on to serve a small (20 comp) LAN that isnt connected to the internet?

any help would be appreciated!
thankyou..
jude

For a web server you should of course use Apache.

For a windows domain controller (also called a PDC for primary domain controller) you will use Samba. I recommend buying a book on Samba and there is an older version free online:

http://www.oreilly.de/catalog/samba/chapter/book/ again i say this is an older version, but it seems pretty helpful and it tells you in there how to set up the windows domain controller and how to set up windows clients to log in.