New Linux Server Setup
 

Hi,
I would like to setup a web server and would like to get advice on the below. Currently I am having my website hosted by someone.


Server
(1) Is RedHat 9 the best choice?

(2) I am having 1 hard drive which is 1 GB, how am I going to
partition it?

(3) Which control panel should I use?

(4) I have no idea on configuring the firewall. How do I make
sure the security is tight?

(5) What is the best email program which I can use -
Qmail/Postfix ?

(1) Is RedHat 9 the best choice?

You may be better off with something more recent and updated. Redhat 9 is quite old and has security issues with just about all the packages that come natively with it.

(2) I am having 1 hard drive which is 1 GB, how am I going to
partition it?

In all seriousness, you may opt to get a larger hard drive. 1GB isn't much to work with and with a drive that size, you'd be able to get about a 15MB /boot, 128MB swap and the rest for /, which is not a real good setup for a webserver with today's standards. And with Redhat 9 and most recent Distributions, you'd only be left with 100MB or less with space for your actual files.

(3) Which control panel should I use?

Control Panel? You don't need a control panel.

(4) I have no idea on configuring the firewall. How do I make
sure the security is tight?

Read up on iptables. Only open up ports necessary to run a webserver.

(5) What is the best email program which I can use -
Qmail/Postfix ?

In all honesty, Postfix is easier to maintain, configure and use.

And worse, it's no longer supported so no new fixes.

Grab Debian 3.1 or Ubuntu 6.06 if you want more cutting edge packages.

Hi,
The Disk Space is 80GB instead of 1 GB.

If you are already used to Redhat, then I suggest you get a distro like CentOS which is a free rebuild or Redhat Enterprise Linux instead of using Redhat 9.

I'd like to add my own question to this forum if i may,

I've got slackware 11 installed, will this suffice or should i use something else for my own webserver?

Any distro will work fine as a web server, so Slack is ok to use.