LinuxQuestions.org
Share your knowledge at the LQ Wiki.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Distributions > Slackware
User Name
Password
Slackware This Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 04-10-2006, 01:47 AM   #1
Zmyrgel
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2005
Location: Finland
Distribution: Slackware, CentOS, RHEL, OpenBSD
Posts: 1,006

Rep: Reputation: 37
Post Working as system adminstrator


I'm establishing a limited company with my friend and I'm going to be working as system adminstrator there. It's nothing big but still I'd have enough in my hands on there. I probably have one server machine in my hands which holds the firm's webpages (I need to make these too) and stores the customer info of the firm so obviously I need to work on the security issues on that. Then there will be a computer for office use. I'm leaning heavily to install Slackware on the server machine. I'm still thinking what to put on the "office" machine. Not so important, that one.

So my question is what kind of computer should the server be? Will something like basic 750 Mhz Celeron do the job with 256mb memory? Does even smaller suffice?

And, we probably register a domain name so can I make a secure e-mail addresses which reside on the server and is accessable from anywhere?

What services should be in the server? I'm new to server usage but it will work atleast to store files, publish webpages and offering the e-mail. Should it grant anything else?

I can do the file storing and webpages with samba and apache but how can I do the E-mail?

Then I heard something about MIB:s. There like some daemons who monitor the system and could be made to send me a e-mail when, for example, server shut's down. How they work exactly?

Is there any server specific things I would need to put on cron?


There's a lot of quetions but I'd hope to have answers. If there's something I missed in there, do notify me.

Thank you

Zmyrgel
 
Old 04-10-2006, 02:32 AM   #2
Alien_Hominid
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2005
Location: Lithuania
Distribution: Hybrid
Posts: 2,247

Rep: Reputation: 53
For email use sendmail (others will tell you to use qmail, postfix and so on, so you can look at these too), imap and pop3. They are defaults in Slackware so no additional job is required. As well you need database server like mysql (postgresql, firebirdsql) if you plan to make webpages with client data. There was a script in this Slackware forum called like smth similar to good for newbies which would setup mail service, apache with ssl (you will need to generate proper sertificates, however)and mysql in several seconds. Search for it. For web mail access there is squirrelmail, imp in horde framework.

Last edited by Alien_Hominid; 04-10-2006 at 02:36 AM.
 
Old 04-10-2006, 02:49 AM   #3
Zmyrgel
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2005
Location: Finland
Distribution: Slackware, CentOS, RHEL, OpenBSD
Posts: 1,006

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 37
Ok, thanks.

I tried to put sendmail with sasl2-support on my new homeserver but never got it to work. Gotta keep working on it.


I'll search for that script...
 
Old 04-10-2006, 06:06 AM   #4
mdarby
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2004
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Distribution: Slackware-Current / Debian
Posts: 795

Rep: Reputation: 30
DO NOT put your customer data on your public webserver. This could lead to Bad Things.



Other than that, if you're only going to have one box running many services, I'd bump up the specs a tad.
Services you'd likely want include email (I prefer Postifx / Courier IMAP), Apache (along with MySQL/PHP or some variant), BIND DNS, SSH, FTP (vsftpd is nice), DHCPd, etc.
 
Old 04-10-2006, 10:55 AM   #5
Zmyrgel
Senior Member
 
Registered: Dec 2005
Location: Finland
Distribution: Slackware, CentOS, RHEL, OpenBSD
Posts: 1,006

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 37
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdarby
DO NOT put your customer data on your public webserver. This could lead to Bad Things.
Yes, I thought that one a little. Not feeling too secure on adding customer data on same thing as network server. But then again we would need to get a extra machine to store the files.



Quote:
Other than that, if you're only going to have one box running many services, I'd bump up the specs a tad.
Services you'd likely want include email (I prefer Postifx / Courier IMAP), Apache (along with MySQL/PHP or some variant), BIND DNS, SSH, FTP (vsftpd is nice), DHCPd, etc.
What's BIND? DNS is other thing I should check. If I register a domain from, for example DynDNS, Do I need a DNS service running?

I'm pretty confused about those domain names.

What setting should I put on my machine as I have now a server at home where I train my linux skills. I use router to forward all the ports which by-pass my firewall into it.

Let's say I registered zmyrgel.kicks-ass.net from DynDNS. Where do I need to put in on my Slackware server to get it to work correctly. I can access my webpage using the domain but how about the sendmail? My machine is called slackbox currently, should it be changed to kicks-ass.net or what?

Could someone give few pointers on the hostname localhost.localdomain things?

Last edited by Zmyrgel; 04-10-2006 at 10:58 AM.
 
Old 04-10-2006, 11:41 AM   #6
Alien_Hominid
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2005
Location: Lithuania
Distribution: Hybrid
Posts: 2,247

Rep: Reputation: 53
Change domain to zmyrgel.kicks-ass.net, leave machine name slackbox.
 
Old 04-10-2006, 11:51 AM   #7
mdarby
Member
 
Registered: Nov 2004
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Distribution: Slackware-Current / Debian
Posts: 795

Rep: Reputation: 30
BIND is the defacto DNS server. You will definately need to run this in order to have a domain name running off of your server. Setting up DNS is pretty tricky; I'd recommend getting O'Reilly's book on BIND. It's configuration can vary widely based on what you want to do.

You won't have to rename your machine to run a domain.
 
Old 04-10-2006, 12:47 PM   #8
Alien_Hominid
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2005
Location: Lithuania
Distribution: Hybrid
Posts: 2,247

Rep: Reputation: 53
Maybe where he buys his domain, he will also get domain name resolving support .
 
Old 04-10-2006, 12:56 PM   #9
win32sux
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Jul 2003
Location: Los Angeles
Distribution: Ubuntu
Posts: 9,870

Rep: Reputation: 380Reputation: 380Reputation: 380Reputation: 380
about the customer data on the same box as the webserver (which i do agree is a very bad idea): if you get yourself a box that's a little more powerful you could use Xen (or another VM) to put customer data and the web server on separate installs, while still on the same box... it's just a thought, though... the ideal would be to have two separate servers, but when you don't have the financial resources for that, a virtual machine can make your day IMHO...
 
Old 04-10-2006, 05:13 PM   #10
krizzz
Member
 
Registered: Oct 2004
Location: NY
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 200

Rep: Reputation: 30
MIBs don't monitor the systems themselves. MIBs are a the entities that describe the systems for snmp protocol. SNMP is an actual minitoring engine. MIB for the particular system defines what values can be a subject of monitoring (like Interface parameters, cpu usage etc). In fact is not that easy in a practise as all MIBs in the world are organized in huge tree... Monitoring can be pased on periodically polling the device for particular values but also the monitored machine can talk to the server using so called traps.
When using SNMP you must remember that monitored machine has to keep UDP port 161 open which opens a potential hole in your system. Read about Net-SNMP.
 
Old 04-10-2006, 06:54 PM   #11
vamp
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: May 2003
Distribution: Slackware-current
Posts: 19

Rep: Reputation: 0
The specs of the server are going to totally depend on the number of users this server is going to serve, both internally and externally. my experience is that you'll want to have more ram than just 256. You'll be running your mysql, bind, imap, samba, sendmail, pop3, apache... sometime several instances of these services simultaneously. With the prices of RAM these days dropping, get at least 512, if not more.

Another thing you might want to consider is having an internal server with lower specs that you can use to develop your webpages, keep your customer data, etc, then after enough proofreading/debugging, cvs these changes to your server.

Finally, something else you might want to consider is whether it would be more cost effective to have your webpages hosted externally. Unless you have some serious bandwidth and have some redundancy, you don't want your customers to experience any downtime or lag.

Just some thoughts...
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
adminstrator login while auto-login is on? joshknape Linux - General 5 07-19-2005 04:51 AM
System tray not working?? TippyToes Linux - Newbie 1 11-15-2004 01:52 PM
system speaker not working mesperidiao Linux - Software 1 09-16-2004 02:35 PM
mysql adminstrator tool inq Robin01 Linux - Software 5 10-22-2003 02:07 PM
system notifications not working hobylinux Linux - Newbie 0 07-20-2003 11:47 AM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Distributions > Slackware

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:47 PM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration