Linux - SoftwareThis forum is for Software issues.
Having a problem installing a new program? Want to know which application is best for the job? Post your question in this forum.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Any Linux system can serve as a "server." And that word, "server," can of course mean a great many things.
The specific role that you describe .. that of handing-out network addresses to DHCP-clients .. is a bit unusual. Most commonly, one of the routers (in each isolated network-segment) does that... and to avoid nasty conflicts, you must be sure that there's always only-one source.
To be "a server," a computer simply has to run some programs (they're called daemons in Linux/Unix and services in Windows) that are designed to "listen" on various TCP/IP ports and to respond in some useful way to requests that are sent to them that way. Computers usually employ a firewall to filter-out requests that should not be allowed to arrive.
A "dedicated server" is a machine that is, well, "dedicated to" the task of "being a server." Which means not only that it has a lot of hardware capacity, but that it isn't running many programs that are un-related to the services that it is intended to perform. Large-scale installations are usually "rack-mounted," so-called "blade" servers, where each computer sits on a single circuit-card and there might be dozens of them in a single case. Each of these machines is focused on a single task ... providing a single set of services very efficiently.
Yet... the software that runs on each one of them is "straight out of the box Linux." Many distribution-writers have found a good niche market of building pre-planned distributions that are targeted for this type of deployment, and they have built specialized (usually open-source) tools to allow you to manage "hundreds and hundreds of blades."
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.