Help required for setting up LInux Server
 

Firstly I would class my self as a newbie as I have only been playing with
Linux Redhat for just over a year now. I have set up a couple of Linux boxs but now I am considering stripping down my old faithful Linux box to make way for a new improved one.

I would like some advice and suggestions on set up amd configurations for this server. Its basic role would be to be a SFTP server, Mail server for internal network but using fetchmail/sendmail to outside POP accounts, maybe Appache web server, games server and H323 server. The server also will act with windows 2k machines with samba. Now I have set up fetchmail and H323 server in the past so this is not to mcuh of an issue.

Proposed Hardware:
Mobo (possible ASUS A7N8X Deluxe or K8V Deluxe) will support 2 X IDE and 2 X SATA on AMD 2400+ XP processor or 64 bit processor. 512Mb DDR RAM min. Matrox G400TV AGP or
Geforce 4 64 meg card. Would like to have TV out though.
2 x 120 Gig SATA HDD
1 x 120 Gig HDD
Operating system Redhat 9 (but im open to suggetsions on both hardware and OS)
This box will be behind a hardware firewall.

I am intersted in building the Server based on RAID and SATA drives. My idea being and please this is where I need help, is that I want all data storage on the 2 X 120 gig SATA HDD on RAID 1 (mirroring the 2 drives for backup)
and the OS (redhat 9) on the 3rd 120 Gig HDD on IDE.

Now my knowledge of Raid and SATA is minimal. So is it possible to set up this sort of configuration under redhat?

All mail, SFTP, Apache, general important information on the raid side, whilst all OS and applications on the 3rd 120 GIG IDE drive.

Security is a big issue so I want to know what precaustions should I take about keeping MAIL on the same drive as Apache and SFTP games server stuff?

The Server will be SSH to the outside for mail access and SFTP access.

Now if anyone has any suggestions or has done something similar to this then I would like to hear from them.

One thing this is not for business use just personal use.

You could setup a RAID 1 on your SATA device and place the OS on a normal IDE drive. Personally, however, I would go with a RAID 5 setup using 3 120 Gb disks. This would give you a total of about 240 Gb (239.97 to be exact).

RAID in any configuration is never a replacement for good backups, it's just for minimalizing the effects of hardware failure.
If one of the drives were to fail, that's where mirroring or striping would come in handy because your system would stay up and running without data-loss. However, when data-loss is caused by user-error, mirroring will be of no use, you'll need your tape-backup to restore.

Because RAID is there to protect you from hardware failure and to keep your system up when a drive goes bad, there is no reason to put your OS on a drive outside of your RAID container. If the drive with the OS on it fails, your system goes down.
Therefore I would go with a RAID 5 setup, this way you'll have twice the diskspace you would have when mirroring, with one extra drive. The data is striped across all three drives, so if any of the drives goes bad, your system will stay up. You will, however, need a 4 channel SATA RAID controller for this setup.

I haven't used such a setup on Red Hat, but I have on Slackware and SuSE, so I don't see why RH wouldn't support such a setup.
If the cost of a 4 channel SATA RAID controller is too high for you, you could go with the setup you described. But, as I said above, putting your OS on a non-mirrored drive doesn't do you much good. A better setup would be mirroring the two drives using RAID 1 and putting both the data and the OS on that container. A RAID container is seen by the OS as 1 drive, so you can still partition it to your likings. In either case, you would still have to make regular tape backups!

I hope this was of some help to you.

Oh GREAT!
Now I won't be able to walk through town without wondering , if "that guy over there" could be djbanaan......;)

LOL Nice to know that I'm not the only Linux-er in our beautiful town! :D

Howzit


I would have to agree with djbanaan I think raid 5 is a better option for
reliability. He also mentioned maybe to install SATA RAID controller which is a good idea if u have the cash to spend but u are able to do this with a software RAID under RH. U can put the whole OS on the RAID partition but I normally put /boot , swap on different partition meaning outside the raid partition.

chow

Thanks to all your replies it has been very usefull and I will look into the price of a 4 way SATA RAID card configured as you where suggesting (RAID 5).
Would this still work if 2 drives are SATA and the other is IDE?

Cheers once again everyone.

A RAID 5 config is also possible with 2 disks, which would put the total capacity at just under 120 Gb (when using two 120 Gb disks). This makes it pretty much the same as mirroring two drives, except for the fact that it's got parity. The third disk would, however, not be included in the array. So its data will not be included in the striping process.

djbanaan,
I am a total linux newbie but 2 disks for a Raid 5? I don't think that is physically possible. A raid 5 is a stripe set with parity. You lose 1/3 for parity. Maybe you are thinking of Raid 0 where there is striping across 2 disks but no parity. This version allows for better performance but if you lose a drive, you lost the array so be sure and have a backup...

I am a newbie of Linux.
I'm trying to setup a linux server, but I don't know how to maximize the usage of my hard disk.
Any suggestion for me, guys?
I have a 36 GB SCSI hard disk.
How much should I assigned for the /root, /swap, /var, /temp and etc?

Thank's guys

narshadda,

I stand corrected, RAID 5 does indeed require a minimum of 3 disks. Thanks for the correction.