Best Distro for WebServer with some ease of use
 

hi All,

I'm trying to host create a web server using linux, so far i've come to conclusion that slackware probably would be the best option, however since i'm a newbie coming from windows environment, the note that slackware is for advanced linux users kind of daunting.. i'm looking at mandriva now.. so i need your advice on what would be the best, secure, stabil distro for linux with the goal of making it as a webserver. Also do i need to purchase any firewall hardware,and antivirus software to secure the server? any suggestions on those stuff also

thanks
hans

I am using Fedora for webhosting for past 1 year and i found it quite easy and powerfull. if you need
GUI to use with webserver try ISPconfig or webmin. it is a hosting control panel.ISPconfig should be installed on a newly installed server becaus it overwrite some configuration files like httpd.conf. for firewall you can try
Iptables it is shiped with fedora and it is very powerfull and configureable. for antiviruse give a try to
Clamav(it is open source).

Hello hanwi,

First of all, there are several distributions geared for the server industry. I *personally* would not advise you to use this server in a production environment yet, but to try it out in a test lab (LAN), because (being new to this) it might be exploited quite easily.. And if the server were to be exploited, then that could put you in a difficult situation.

IMHO, the best three server distributions (in no particular order) are openSUSE, CentOS, and EnGarde Secure Linux. openSUSE and EnGarde are very easy to use (especially the latter), so you should find yourself at home with them! To be honest, I've never tried CentOS -- but so many webhosts and people I know run it on their servers, that it must be a very good server distro ;)

There are different lines of defence you can use in front of your server. This, ultimately, is down to you and your budget. If you could afford it (and the time to learn how to set the different the different parts up properly), then the following set up would be great:

Firewall -> Switch/Router -> Server(s) -> Backup machine on a VLAN

That stuff isn't cheap, especially if you choose the top of the range products. But, as I said, it's up to you ;)


HTH,

-jk

Ps. Welcome to LQ!! ;)

CentOS is based on RedHat Enterprise linux. they just remove RedHat logos and ship it with a new name.
and RedHat Enterprise Linux is not much different from Fedora.

I'm trying to run a personal home headless webserver using Slackware but cant get it right... I'm phobic about disk space and useless garbage so I keep trying to get it configured and failing terribly. Does anybody know where I can find an idiot guide to setup Slackware as a webserver with ftp, ssh and VNC? I'd really like to put this one to bed and get to other things but its been eating at me for some time.

Maybe you should post in the Slackware forum where your question will get more exposure.

hanwi,

I've been using SuSE (openSuSE) for my webservers for quite some time and haven't had trouble at all. You will find that through YaST you will get the easy-to-use (graphical) configuration screens for your HTTP Server (Network Services --> HTTP Server) as well as your firewall (Security and Users --> Firewall). All of the configuration is pretty straight-forward using that method. You can also, as always, edit conf files directly if you wish.