OK going to do something new

[DX]

I'm looking at hosting our clan's web page and forums. Nothing big and fancy just on an old system with 512 to a gig of ram to run forums, a front page and a screen shots section. Secure login so basically there would be password to get in to the site a application page to apply for membership. Some tool like what is in guildportal that I can hook into the World of Warcraft armory and have the guild roster listed. The system shouldn't need any beef cause we are talking maybe 5 people max on at the same time.

What software that is easy to use and FREE can I use? I was thinking I would start with Apache on XP Pro as I figure that there would should be the majority of what I want to do made to run with Apache.

[Apoptosis]

When performance counts and you have a small amount of memory go Linux - LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL & PHP)

Ubuntu has it all (the Server OS and LAMP package) and it's free....

[DX]

OK but I have to tell you that I know nothing about Linux except when I experimented with it back in 99 making it run on a DeskPro. I got it to work for the most part but it was an extreme pain in the ass and I could never get it to work with the LS120 drive. Since then I have been reluctant to putting my hand back in the Linux jar. I don't want to get bogged down with something that is going to be a major pain in the ass to maintain and back up. I have an old Surestore dat drive that I'm going to be backing it up with as well.

[Apoptosis]

Try Ubuntu desktop then as it has a GUI and should be pretty easy for you to work with.

[martini161]

yeah either get ubuntu server edition (comes with all the lamp dependencies and what not already installed) or Xubuntu. xubuntu is lighter running though, but its still a great os. its what i run my home print/file server on

[DX]

OK now that I'm getting the ISO (Ubuntu 8.04 desktop i386) what should I look for to secure it? I just want port 80 opened to it and maybe 8080 for SSL login. What else should I do to make it secure other than just patching it up? Basically I would like to make it as secure as possible. Not that I have billions of web foes out to get me but I would like to make it as secure as possible from 99.99% of the script kiddies and make it worthless for anyone looking to hack for profit. Well it will be anyways but you get the idea.

[martini161]

linux is very secure right out of the box, you shouldnt need to set anything else up

[Alathald]

You might want to get the server edition and just install the gui on it with these simple command in the terminal:

Code: Select all

sudo aptitude install x-window-system-core gnome-core
/etc/init.d/gdm start

It won't have all the extras that come with the desktop edition so it should be safer and run faster on your system. Better yet, learn to use the terminal only for the best security.