I need help picking a Distro for my server
 

Hey all,

I had taken off some time from learning Linux because for the past 7 months I have been setting up a new gaming business. The problem I am having now is I have a system I want to upgrade from windows 2000 to a Linux distribution.

I need it to do the following:

• Web server (5 virtual sites)
• File server for gaming center
• Mail server
• Print server
• real time monitor of the server and traffic
• newbie friendly

I have tried Fedora 6 on another one of the systems and it worked well, for some reason I cannot get virtual servers to work on it. I tried Mandriva as well and I cannot get the file sharing to work properly. I have not tried the mail server, print server, or monitoring. I need something easy to set up, and reliable, hence Linux since it is a very reliable OS.

As usual, any and all help is greatly appreciated, and below are the system specs.

1.8 Ghz 32 bit AMD
512 2700 Ram
hard drives, 80 for the OS, a 200gig for storage and another 250gig for the game server (iso image server and file backup).

as an added bonus running G3 torrent would be great

Any distro will work ... You have enough experience to know that. Why ask us to tell you the best one. If there was a best one, we'd all be using it.

Better you should get one installed and ask for help when a specific problem arises.

I've heard slackware is the best for servers. Or BSD.

Like every poster have said, any distribution will work. I suggest Gentoo. Setting up Gentoo for server will take a few hours instead a few days for desktops. Nothing is better than a text editor, a manual, and your two hands. Read the aphache manual and edit the config file. There are plenty of example for setting up virtual web servers. After you got everything setup how you like it, use webmin to tinker the settings.

For any server, I suggest upgrading to at least ECC memory and using two or more processors to handle all those services. Apache is going to take a lot of resources because it is a multithreaded server. With all those services, probably you want to start with 2 GB of ECC memory.

I suggest setting another computer for the printer server just in case hackers start attacking the main server.

For a simple server, I suggest at least RAID-1.

After you finally got it working for a few weeks, it is time to increase the security of the server. The simplest way is to chroot apache by using its chroot module.

Good News
 

Well I got some more time with my system, and I got one of the biggest needs set up - a NAS

Funny thing is I tried the same thing in mandriva and in Fedora, worked only in Fedora for some reason, I also went out and got a server manual (all else fails RTFM right?) I am now working on a virtual webserver and Email sever, the virtual servers I have gotten to work in older versions of Redhat, but hopefully this wont be too bad.

the big questions is does anyone know of a web app to easily set up a mail server?

Try ATMission or Slackware:

ATMission:
http://www.atconsultancy.nl/atmission/

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

cruise on over to howtoforge, click on the Fedora link and look for a mail server how-to. I'm sure you will find on e for setting up Postfix and Courier..

See it's the third entry in the list.. Virtual Users And Domains With Postfix, Courier And MySQL (Fedora Core 5) or maybe look at "the perfect Setup Fedora Core 5" it covers web server, mail, and plenty more..

Or check the how-to links on the postfix website.. http://www.postfix.org/docs.html

Webmin can help you manage the mail server after it's setup and I suppose you could use it to configure the server but the postfix config file is easier to edit manually because it is commented so well.

The reason why I suggest Gentoo because it gives you an example configuration for each server or service. Also gentoo-wiki.com provides many howtos. Using apache from Redhat 9 is a security risk and may not support the chroot module that latest apache versions can use to secure the server with ease.

Azureus is similar to G3, but it is programmed in JAVA. Azureus provides more features than what G3 provides. When running a server, GUI should not be run, so Azureus is out. I suggest using Python based BitTorrent client from the creator of BitTorrent. The creator provides both GUI and command line versions of BitTorrent, but they are not easy to use.