Perfect server

[stefanos]

Hi,

I got a dell 2950 off ebay (at a deal of a life time I think). I have on it now Fedora perfect server 9 but I have a few minor problems. I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to upgrade to to Fedora core 10 - perfect server and start clean as I am quite new to all this. I run a few personal sites from on it on my home ADSL line and I use mydomain for the DNS (because you need 2 NS servers (ip's) and I only have 1 ADSL line).

The questions I have are as follows:

1) It has 2 network cards. should I just not configure 1 one or should I configure both with different ip's?

2) Should I install Fedora 10 or some other system like ubuntu .. mandrake .. etc..

3) It's a bit of a waist for such a PC of all the processing power should I install VMware and run a XP + Fedora perfect server? At the moment I contribute all the extra flops to seti@home.

4) What should I do for a backup solution for my sites?

Kind regards
Stephen

[falko]

Originally Posted by stefanos

1) It has 2 network cards. should I just not configure 1 one or should I configure both with different ip's?

IF you don't want to use that system as a router, you just need one NIC. You can add more IPs by creating virtual network interfaces (there's ab example on http://www.howtoforge.com/fedora-8-s...p-ispconfig-p3 ).

Originally Posted by stefanos

2) Should I install Fedora 10 or some other system like ubuntu .. mandrake .. etc..

That depends totally on you. Personally, for a server I'd use Debian.

Originally Posted by stefanos

3) It's a bit of a waist for such a PC of all the processing power should I install VMware and run a XP + Fedora perfect server?

You can do that. Instead of VMware you could as well use VirtualBox.

Originally Posted by stefanos

4) What should I do for a backup solution for my sites?

Take a look at the "Backup" category: http://www.howtoforge.com/howtos/backup
There should be some tutorials that suit your needs.

[stefanos]

Hi Falko,

Thanks for your answer, you gave me some ideas and have been on the research over the last week.

VMWare is a better choice for me for Virtualization as I have some sites running as a VM instance and I would like to be able to make a backup of the image file in case something goes wrong on that server. I also see you use it quite a bit.

I also agree and understand your choice as Debian it's a good OS as a server.

My search has however brought up some good questions that I was unable to find answers to.

As I will not use a Desktop very much but I need one (maybe every 1-2 months), and as I read your How To Install VMware Server On Debian 4.0 (Etch) at:
http://www.howtoforge.com/debian_etc...e_server_howto

Is it possible to install the base OS as the server and if I want a Desktop load the VM instance and switch to it?

If I was to use Virtualization to run multiple servers say eg 3 for security,

1) Apache/PHP/CGI, FTP
2) MYSQL/greenSQL
3) Mail Dovecot

How would you set this up?
(The Perfect Desktop - Fedora 10 or Debian Lenny as the base system.
a VM instances for each of the servers.)?

Would you need to configure a firewall for each VM instance? I ask as each instance would have it's own IP.

I want to use ISPCONFIG, is this even possible?

For a backup methodology would you just backup the VM instances image files? (I should have plenty of space for this)

OR should I scrap the whole idea and just go for:
A Perfect Desktop and one VM instance of The Perfect Server - Debian Lenny with ISPConfig?

I have a Dell 2950:
2 X Dual Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5160 @ 3.00GHz
4 Gb Ram (8 X 512Mb)
5 X HDD (160GB each) in Raid 5
1 X HDD ( 500Gb) for backup

One last Q.
How's ISPConfig 3 coming along it looks good. Any rough ideas on a final release date? (1 - 2 months)

Kind Regards
Stephen

[falko]

Originally Posted by stefanos

As I will not use a Desktop very much but I need one (maybe every 1-2 months), and as I read your How To Install VMware Server On Debian 4.0 (Etch) at:
http://www.howtoforge.com/debian_etc...e_server_howto

Is it possible to install the base OS as the server and if I want a Desktop load the VM instance and switch to it?

If you also need a desktop, I'd use Ubuntu (however, it's also possible to install a desktop on a Debian server).

Originally Posted by stefanos

If I was to use Virtualization to run multiple servers say eg 3 for security,

1) Apache/PHP/CGI, FTP
2) MYSQL/greenSQL
3) Mail Dovecot

How would you set this up?
(The Perfect Desktop - Fedora 10 or Debian Lenny as the base system.
a VM instances for each of the servers.)?

Yes, one vm per server.

Originally Posted by stefanos

Would you need to configure a firewall for each VM instance? I ask as each instance would have it's own IP.

Depends on your security needs.

Originally Posted by stefanos

I want to use ISPCONFIG, is this even possible?

Yes.

Originally Posted by stefanos

For a backup methodology would you just backup the VM instances image files? (I should have plenty of space for this)

If there's nothing important on the host, I'd just back up the VMs.

Originally Posted by stefanos

One last Q.
How's ISPConfig 3 coming along it looks good. Any rough ideas on a final release date? (1 - 2 months)

There's no release date yet, but it's around the corner.