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deadxerxes

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HELP HELP x) shocked

I wan't to buy a new computer and it is going to be a web

server and running linux. ( I am a completed noob to unix )

 

1. What Linux Os should i use if i want to make a webserver

that use php, mysql and having 100 megabit internet

connection. I would like it to be as stable as possible.

 

2. What hardware should i use !

> I'm installing mandrake right now and I'm stuck at the first

page got 2 sata hard disk and it only detected one and it said

no valid device found for filesystem. Fedora Core work well but

mandrake fail. Some help would be apricated.

 

 

*> Storage : I want to use raid 5, with 6 hard disk with 200 g

each, with a total of 1000g

*> Ethernet Card : 1000 mb/sec

*> Cpu : 3g +++

*> Memory : 2g +++ of static ram (i want the fastest ram)

*> A motherboard design for server! (can't find much

nformation on this )

;(

*> Don't really need sound card or video card.

*> The Case must be the small enough to fix in the server rack.

 

 

I'm also going to make a gaming server some suggestion plz.

Both server will be send over sea to be manage.

 

 

;( They are charging me 160 euro that is like $300++ australia

dollar to copy all my cd to the server. (Got like 300g cd) That

why i want to send them a server now

 

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howdy deadxerxes

 

lemme start with the brief version of my reply ...

 

1: forget about any "onboard"-RAID setup. You can't use RAID 5 with almost any known onboard chip anyway

 

2: use dedicated SATA-RAID controllers like the Highpoint RocketRaid 1640 for your RAID-setup (supports also RAID level 5)

 

3: try to keep the overall number of disks as low as possible (thermal issues and power supply issues)

 

Now, let's move on to the very, very verbose version of the reply where a few things are to be explained ...

 

A: DISTROS

Web-server capable Linux distros are in fact as countless as daily hits on an average pr0n site smile As it goes for preferences: the distros we are running on our servers are Debian (Woody), Mandrake 10 (mail and ftp only), Mepis and Suse 9.2.

 

Mepis:

The most load to handle has Mepis powering a webserver that delivers no less than up to 6 GB/day and as any decent vortegaunt would say: "The Mepis excels at all tasks" smile Still though, it did not detect the SATA-RAID setup properly, though an installation on the non-RAIDed drives was painlessly possible.

 

Mepis PROS:

+ easy setup

+ easy to manage

+ all requred apps are available (apache, php, mysql)

+ good package management

 

Mepis CONS:

- SATA-RAID detection was not at it's prime (around Dec'04)

 

Debian:

The reliable working horse. Many distros are in fact Debian based and if you wil ever see the uptime statistics of a Debian box you will know why.

 

Debian PROS:

+ super stable

+ excellent package management

+ all requred apps available

 

Debian CONS:

- limited hardware support in the stable version (Woody)

 

Suse 9.2

Not that I would ever set up a suse server myself, but we have a couple of rented servers abroad that all came with Suse 9.2. Lemme pin that down: I don't really like Suse as it creates a directory structure that can be very confusing ... but, it has a few super-huge advantages: It's stable and it runs perfectly together with server management software like PLESK or CONFIXX. As you won't have physical access to the server, and as you are new to linux, something like PLESK would make your days a whole lot more easier. So, please, do consider this when you choose a distro.

 

Btw: SW like PLESK also runs with Fedora from what I know. But I'm only guessing as Fedora is the only distro I've tried that I could never get running on a variety of server setups (FC3).

 

B: HARDWARE

B.1: Motherboard

Almost any kind of hardware will do for a web server. Given that the only requests will come via the LAN interface, the server won't need to be a prime number cruncher.

 

My recommendations: Don't use Intel-CPUs (not only because of the CPU but because of the mobo-chipset). The Last socket 478 mobo I had contact with was the Asus P4P800-E and it was a rather troublesome experience.

 

A nice mobo is the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum for the Athlon 64+ CPUs, which comes with dual Gigabit controllers and load of goodies like support for ECC/non-ECC RAM (up to 4GB).

 

B.2: RAID setup

The RAID thing will be an essential question. Not only do some distros refuse to detect the onboard SATA chips properly (as you could see during your Mandrake installation), most controllers do not even support more than 4 drives. And if this would not be enough: RAID level 5 is totally unkown to most onboard controllers (they only support levels 0 and 1, the better ones maybe also level "10" (which is a mirrored stripe set)).

 

Your options in this field are to either ...

1: spend a fortune on a SATA controller that handles up to 8 drives and supports RAID 5 hardware-wise (e.g. the Adaptec 2810SA for standard PCI-slots, which is ~ US $500,- or the Intel® SRCS16 which handles up to 6 drives for around US $320,-)

 

2: setup Software-RAID

which I don't really recommend, as the setup procedure can get _REALLY_ hairy. But if you manage to get it up and running it will work smoothly

 

3: use a seperate controller card

like the Highpoint RocketRaid 1640 (RR 1640 specs) which supports up to 4 drives, bootable arrays and also does RAID 5 (though it's not mentioned on the above site).

 

Here's a suggestion for a setup that might run nicely:

nr. of disks: 4

-) 4x200-400GB disks on the RocketRAID

 

So what you need to find is some distro that supports e.g. that RAID controller out of the box.

 

B.3: Other considerations

I realize the above suggestion only uses 4 drives instead of the planned 6 drives, but give it a thought: You said you need some case that can be rack mounted. 19" cases are spiff with one minor flaw: they can't house too many devices. This is not only a space-specific question, it's more power supply related.

 

Most 19" rack-cases come with only a 300W PS and a powerful CPU, 2 gis of RAM AND 6 drives can lead to troubles. Also consider that the drives will need power cables and the outlets of those 300W thingies are very limited (cables for 4, maybe 5 devices; and you would need 7 (6xdrives, 1xDVD/CD).

 

C: SOFTWARE

As it goes for the availability of the required packages you won't run into any kind of troubles. All major distros do have packages for Apache, PHP and MySQL. On thing though: If you haven't set up a web server yet, prepare for one of THE MOST TAXING learning experiences you can imagine.

 

"Web server" not only means "Apache + PHP", it also means "SSH", "iptables", "logrotate", "access and transfer statistics", "Pro- or VsFTP", and - last but not least - the most taxing of all: POP/SMTP/IMAP-server setup. And those are just the very BASICS. If you also plan things like "WebMail" or "WebDAV" you will find your linux-noob-brain spinning at 20000 rpm in no time flat.

 

A web server's not to be considered proper if it's just stable, it is also cruical that it is secure. Cruical because you can be held responsible if some baddies crack your box and maybe use it as spam relay, warez or p0rn server.

 

I'm not saying this to scare you, but you seem to be unexperienced in server setups. So I'm just mentioning that the innocent days of the internet where we used to plug a server to the net and watch funny looking GOPHER pages are long gone. If you are interested I can show you the contents of the file "/var/log/messages" of our least accessed server and you wouldn't believe how massive the attempts to break the box are.

 

As it goes for configuration questions for the "game server": Unfortunately I have no idea what is to be considered in that field as all I know is the client side of "Counter Strike" from back then before it became "Steam".

 

A lot to read, I admit, and at that it's just 0.000005% of what you will have to read on docs and HOWTOS in the near future :))

 

hope it helps at least a wee bit

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Just going on what blackpage said, i recommend amd cpus over intel any day, especcialy the 64 bit, im currently running the MSI K8N neo2 platinum and it is an excellent motherboard and offers plenty of storage options. Distro i would say is debian its an all around excellent distro i have yet to try woody, but sarge is rather stable(very stable), and debian makes it very easy to configure things as well. Debian youll only have to do minor reading, on things to get a basic system setup, and the others are painless to install in my view. Some harder distros with more options would be gentoo or slackware. But a good start would be a debian based distro, personally i wouldnt recommend ubuntu though, because that is more of a desktop distro.

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