I have a 166Mhz pentium w/80M ram. Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller-9G, 3G, 2G SCSI drives & a Ricoh SCSI cd-rw.

What I want to do with it: Store files mp3s, docs etc. and allow network access to files and cd burner. For example on a networked machine (Linux &/or windows machines) I want to browse, select and burn files from said server onto the Ricoh cd-rw on same server.

Is this just a file server or something more(or less)? I am looking for recommendations on a distro and which server app(s) to use. I'm partial to Debian but would prefer ease of configuration since this is my first server. Security is not of utmost importance. I don't need fancy GUI's for my Linux machines- cdrecord from the CLI is flawless. Could I just ssh into the server and accomplish my goal? You know the windows users will insist on having some pretty flashing lights though.

Any advice, ideas, tips, suggestions or otherwise are welcome. You can even tell me to RTFM just tell me which one. : )

Thanks!!

I would go with somthing small and fast like vector - I haven't used the newest version but I'm waiting on the CD's.

Have you thought through remotely burning cds... how do you change the cd?

I ordered a trained primate from Microsofts new side business "Monkeys-R-Us". This is actually a joint effort between MS & AOL in an effort to boost lagging revenues.

Actually- the network's inside my house. This was the best idea I had come up with for sharing a cd burner with 4 machines (& more to come) and not tie up my Linbox. Good point though.

I've actually used Vector before (I think i even have a copy)and it was extremely easy to install. Do I need anything besides a distro? What about server applications like Apache or something or am I overcomplicating things? I really don't know squat about building a server. Maybe I just need to enable access to the files and cd-rw for all networked machines?

Apache is just a web server - I can't see why you would need it.

You would need NFS to share files with other linux machines and samba to share files with the windows boxes.

As for creating the CD's - since you don't have a great deal of space - what about creating a single directory where the windows users can drop an iso image then ssh into the server and run a script that you have already created that is just called "burncd".

I knew somebody would have some good ideas here. Thanks david_ross for the brilliant suggestion. Hmmm.. now to go work on that script. I'll have to study Samba a little more too. I've used it but had to get linneighborhood because I couldn't make it work myself but on all 3 occasions I tried linneighborhood I messed up something on my network and pages would time out before loading completely. It was suggested that I had a 'master browser' problem but i never did figure it out. I just removed linneighborhood and that got me back in action. Anyway-that's another post. I'm off to build a server. Thanks again! I really appreciate your time and response.

linneighborhood is only for browsing the network.

I'll keep an eye on this thread - post any samba problems you have and I'll see what I can do. If you are thinking of making this a "permenantly on/on more often than not" server I would make samba the master browser - it does a much better job than windows.

I appreciate that. I just found this:
http://www.madhaus.com/projects/cd-server/

It seems to be what I was looking for. Excerpt from the page:

"cd-server v.3
copyright (c) 2001 Jason Speckman



This set of scripts allows you to use a linux box with a cdrom drive to act
as an imaging cdrom server for your network. This allows you to have as many
cd's available online as you have harddrive space for and loopback filesystems
supported by your kernel.

Requirements:
Perl 5.5 or greater
If you plan on using nfs, you'll need a user space nfs daemon to export the
loop back filesystems created by cd-server.
and you'll need samba to do smb sharing. Configuring nfs and samba are beyond
the scope of this document. As always backup your files before using.


Looks like I have yet another project on my hands. Thanks again david_ross.

I may be wrong but that just looks like CD server support. (saving images of CDs to an HDD to save you swapping CDs) I thought you wanted to burn CDs?

OIC - it looks as though I misinterpreted what it does. This server business is quite confusing to me. Maybe the word 'server' is too broad. You have xservers and print&file servers, sound servers, etc. etc. Perhaps I am overcomplicating things. If I just install Vector, set up NFS, Samba and build the scripts you mentioned would that be enough? Does that qualify as a server still? It doesn't realy matter, I just want a machine to hold data and let everyone burn cd's with it.

I don't see why not. It should be fine. With the drives you have I would reccomend:
3GB = / /var /usr swap
9GB = /home
2GB = some other mount point that could be used as temporary storage of ISOs before they are burnt.

These are only my reccomendations - you may want to do things differently.

I'm off to bed but I'll check back tomorrow.

Looks like some very sound advice to me. One last hurdle- that machine is currently serving as my Coyote router/DHCP server - gotta find another one.

I'm sure that would do it in it's new form but if you want a decent free firewall out of it and you have an old P100 or something then take a look at:
www.smoothwall.org.

Do you prefer Smoothwal over Coyote Linux? Coyote uses an ipchains firewal, is fairly straightforward to configure and port scans tell me I'm sealed up quite nicely. I have heard alot of good things about Smoothwal tho. I'll go compare features. Thanks for the tip.

Sorry - I've never used Coyote. I would be interestred to see any reports/tests/comparisions you find.