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.

[DX]

Cool thanks for the advice. I should have time to work with it this weekend.

[kenc51]

Another option is OpenSuSe
You can setup a webserver via a gui, then set it to boot into command line to save resources when the server is setup.
You can also do this with Ubuntu Server as well. Once you have installed the desktop via the commands listed above and setup the server, you can set the OS to boot into the command line.
You can also set it to go to the command line manually by opening a terminal and typing the following

Code: Select all

sudo init 3

Another point to add.
before installing the desktop via the command Alathald posted, you'll have to run the following

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sudo apt-get update

--> this updates the list of available "packages" (programs)
Then

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apt-get upgrade

--> This checks for and installs all available updates (Run this command often!)
The "apt-get" command is specific to Linux distros based on Debian (Like Ubuntu)

[Alathald]

Code: Select all

apt-get upgrade

Pretty sure that should be "sudo apt-get upgrade" in front of it...sudo basically gives you admin rights for the one command (means super-user do).
Either way, I forgot to mention it but yeah, that's basically all there is to keeping the "drivers" up to date on a linux system...it's a beautiful thing...it can also be done from the GUI as well (will have a icon in the systray).

Also, apt-get and aptitude are pretty much the same thing, both are just frontends for apt, so use either one (I usually use apt-get but I copy and pasted that command ).

[DX]

So I can set those commands to run every morning at 4am and reboot.... or do I even have to reboot? Basically I would like to automate as much as possible and only have to go swap tapes once a week.

[Alathald]

You shouldn't have to reboot, there are very few updates that require you to reboot and most of those don't even need a full reboot, just a logout and log back in...the only updates I've ran into that requires a full reboot are proprietary drivers (such as nVidia graphics drivers) and since you're just running a server you shouldn't need (or use) those. Most of the time though it's just simply run the commands above and you're done!

Use this to add autoupdates (there ARE gui ways to do this, it's just easier to list the commands for the terminal)

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sudo crontab -e

and add the below line

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00 04 * * * sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade

and your system will autoupdate every morning at 4:00am. I suggest not doing the dist-upgrade automatically though because if it goes wrong (say, power fails) then you can screw up the whole system...do this command manually every month or so.

[source]


EDIT: could try this as well...http://www.watchingthenet.com/how-to-co ... buntu.html

[DX]

Cool thanks for all the tips guys.