Hi all, I'm new here, and also to linux.
I know a little bit about linux, but not enough to know what kind of direction I need to be taking.

Me and my neighbor, who share the same internet, are also trying to learn linux for use in a data center environment. What I want to do is install CentOS on my home desktop and set it up so that it will allow neighbor and I to both access linux related files (such as source codes and distro images). My PC has two ethernet ports and more than enough power to handle a server.

I just don't know how to implemint it. What all do I need? I would like for it to run on CentOS if possible.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

The major question becomes is your partner also running linux, or is he on windows, or both? I am assuming that you guys already have a small network setup and are behind some sort of firewall and in a private network.

Please tell me if I am wrong or not on any of these assumptions, but i would recomend NFS if you are both on a secure netowrk with no other traffic and Samba if you guys are running windows and linux

--Jezzirolk

Hi zebadee2010,

Welcome to LQ!!!

Jezzirolk is right. We need to know which OS your neighbor is running on. There can be two scenarios that I can think of, either he will be running on Windows or he will be running on linux.

If he is running Linux: You can allow him for ssh connection so that he can access your CentOS box. If you want to limit his access then you can use /etc/sudoers to allow him with limited access. If you want to share files on your CentOS box then you can use NFS.

If he is running on Windows: You can still allow him ssh access and ask him to putty or any other ssh client to connect to your CentOS box. You can configure the CentOS box with Samba to allow file sharing.

Remember that you configure iptables rules properly thus preventing unnecessary access.

Let us know if you have further queries.

Let me further explain a little bit. What the senario is is me and my neighbor both are trying to learn linux so that we can have a possibility at working for Facebook at a new data center being built in our area. I figured in a data center there would be centralized terminals that would be used to manage certain groups of servers.
SO what i'm trying to do is create my desktop as a "linux server" (not really serving anything, except for maybe a few files) and have it to where both of us can access it over the internet/network.

Network wise, Everything is setup using a basic home dsl modem, and fed into a Apple AirPort Extreme. Wireless network is secured using WPA2. Pretty secure, and we live in a small rural neighborhood, so no huge threats or anything.

Computer wise, we are both running MacBook Pro's with CentOS running in VirtualBox.

The ultimate goal be that I teach him and myself how to remotely login to the Desktop computer and run some basic commands. My neighbor and I are close friends, so i'm not worried about him doing anything. So more than likely I will teach him how to put himself into the sudoers file.

Right now I have CentOS up and running as a Desktop Minimal install. What other packages, or package groups would I need to accomplish this. And also generally speaking what files should I need to edit to make this happen?

Thanks for the quick responses.

That makes the picture quite clear. Lets see if I am getting it correctly. Here is your environment looks like as of now:

1. One desktop server running CentOS (stand alone)
2. Both of you got Macbook Pro running CentOS as virtual machine.
3. Got a dsl connection plugged into Apple airport extreme.

Well in datacenter environment people login to one terminal server from where they get connected to server for administration purpose. In your case I support you are trying to make CentOS virtual machine running on one of your Macbook pro to act as terminal server from where you can connect to your desktop running CentOS.

If that is the case then you can achieve by using iptables running on Desktop CentOS to only accept ssh connection from CentOS virtual machine. So if your neighbor want to connect to your CentOS desktop machine then he has to first connect to CentOS virtual machine running on your Macbook pro.

As you said that you want to know what are the packages that you can install on your Desktop CentOS machine I would say it is a generic question. You can install as per your requirement. For example:

You can install httpd package if you want to set up a webserver
You can install samba if you want to provide file sharing to Windows machine.
You can install nfs if you want to share files with other linux clients.

and the list goes on.

I would suggest you to google for it and let us know if you stuck somewhere.

Yeah thats pretty much my setup.
iptables? Is this something I can read a man page on? or is this a technique?

Pretty much I just want him and myself to be able to login remotely to the Desktop client and see the files. So should I need any "server filesystem" or can I just use it as it?

iptables is a tool to manage firewall in linux. Well for file sharing you will atleast require NFS package to be installed on your desktop machine. No additional file system package will be required.

One last question. Will I need to install the NFS package on the Virtual Machines as well, or just the Desktop Client?

You have to install it on both the machines. Run the following command to check if it is already not installed:

If not, install it.

Well, iptables is essentially the firewall (we could get into the semantics of whether it is the firewall, or the command line interface to the firewall, but let's just leave it as 'the firewall' for the moment...you may well have some GUI tool that writes iptables rules, so maybe you don't see iptables directly); the man page on iptables is one of the better man pages, but you would probably still need something in more of a tutorial-style to get going.

the following, I think, are probably the best places to start
Frozentux
Linux Home Networking
YoLinux

(that is probably in exactly the wrong order, for you; the last is the closest to an 'easy start', and the first is close to a complete manual); don't get the idea that iptables is something that you will learn adequately in the odd ten minutes. There is a lot more to it than that.