Debian 5.10

[linuxuser1]

Thanks Falko. I finally was able to get things going using both GUI and vi which means I have now had the chance to try out Fedora 4, Suse 9.3, Ubuntu and Debian Server. Now my question is, which of these and any other is best suited to an ISP's live production as Web, DNS and Mail server. I am looking in terms of reliability, security and stability.

Thanks for anyone's advice.

[till]

I can recommend DEBIAN, Its stable and the only system (maybe beside Ubuntu) i know that can do a remote dist upgrade.

[falko]

Originally Posted by linuxuser1

Thanks Falko. I finally was able to get things going using both GUI and vi which means I have now had the chance to try out Fedora 4, Suse 9.3, Ubuntu and Debian Server. Now my question is, which of these and any other is best suited to an ISP's live production as Web, DNS and Mail server. I am looking in terms of reliability, security and stability.

Thanks for anyone's advice.

Debian!

[linuxuser1]

OK! Thanks folks for your kind advice. Now it's time for me to get more serious in learning this OS - Debian. Any good book for newbies? Or any Tutorial. I have followed the Perfect Setup Tutorial to the letter but does not know or understand what am doing. All I know is that both machines seems to be working. I am only interested in knowing how to do my job perhaps as an Administrator. I have three years experience as a Windows Server Administrator (MCSE) but no clue at all out Linux/programming.

The second question is that I have 2 (Debian) installed, one as a dedicated Server and the other as a Desktop. I intend to use the Desktop to manage/control the Server. (I do this in MS Windows - using XP to manage my Windows 2000/3 Active Directory - so don’t know if this applies in linux environment). I have tried to look for where to connect to the Server from the Desktop, but am still not able to find this. Or is there a better way to manage the Server without really logging on to it except where it is absolutely necessary.

Till, you mentioned “remote dist upgrade” being done on Debian. How can this be done?

As always, many thanks for your help.

[falko]

Originally Posted by linuxuser1

The second question is that I have 2 (Debian) installed, one as a dedicated Server and the other as a Desktop. I intend to use the Desktop to manage/control the Server. (I do this in MS Windows - using XP to manage my Windows 2000/3 Active Directory - so don’t know if this applies in linux environment). I have tried to look for where to connect to the Server from the Desktop, but am still not able to find this. Or is there a better way to manage the Server without really logging on to it except where it is absolutely necessary.

You don't need a Linux desktop to administrate a Linux server - you can do this with Windows.
For ISPConfig you only need a browser , and for SSH you can use PuTTY ( http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~s.../download.html ). You can also transfer files over SSH with WinSCP ( http://winscp.net/eng/index.php ). And for FTP, you can use WS_FTP or SmartFTP or something like that.

[linuxuser1]

Thanks faldo. I have finally installed WinSCP and http://www.webmin.com/index.html. I will think the webmin completes some of the great work that ISPConfig does. Well..... am still experienting and I sincerely appreciate your help at all times. What is your thought about webmin.

I have another question though, when I log to my ISPConfig from the internet, the connection seems to be too slow and some of the images do not show properly like the the image indicating a Reseller. Any reason for that?

Thanks as always.

[till]

Originally Posted by linuxuser1

Thanks faldo. I have finally installed WinSCP and http://www.webmin.com/index.html. I will think the webmin completes some of the great work that ISPConfig does. Well..... am still experienting and I sincerely appreciate your help at all times. What is your thought about webmin.

Webmin is fine, as long as you do not try to configure any services that ISPConfig is writing the config files for (mainly postfix / sendmail and apache). And be aware of thet webmin might be a security risk.

I have another question though, when I log to my ISPConfig from the internet, the connection seems to be too slow and some of the images do not show properly like the the image indicating a Reseller. Any reason for that?

The URL setting in the controlpanel config is wrong, i guess you used an internal IP or domain that is only reachable from inside your network.

Please read here:
http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=534

[linuxuser1]

Thanks Till,

I think I got the answer to the question I did not ask - Security. Since I now have an insight that webmin might pose a security risk, I think the best thing for me to do is not to use it to connect to my servers on the internet. Perhaps I can VPN to the network and then connect using webmin once am connected through VPN. Thank you very much for the info. Really helpful. So would you consider WinSCP as more secure or would you consider SSH with PuTTY .

As for connecting to my ISPConfig control panel, I can log on to the Control Panel from the internet but just that some of the images does not come on properly and slow as well. My firewall allows me to publish my Server to the internet which is waht I do for all my web servers.

Now another question do you know of any info on how to cluster my Debian Servers?. My intention is to cluster at least two for operation purposes.

Thanks.

[till]

Originally Posted by linuxuser1

Thanks Till,

I think I got the answer to the question I did not ask - Security. Since I now have an insight that webmin might pose a security risk, I think the best thing for me to do is not to use it to connect to my servers on the internet. Perhaps I can VPN to the network and then connect using webmin once am connected through VPN. Thank you very much for the info. Really helpful. So would you consider WinSCP as more secure or would you consider SSH with PuTTY .

WinSCP and putty are both secure. WinSCP runs the commands through SSH too.

Now another question do you know of any info on how to cluster my Debian Servers?. My intention is to cluster at least two for operation purposes.

Do you want to cluster the servers only for failover or shall boths servers work in production?

[linuxuser1]

Thanks for the quick response.

The servers will be clustered for Production but I may have another one for Failover.

Thanks.