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remotely administering linux server

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estesflyer

Programmer
Dec 19, 2000
284
US
Ok, me and a few friends are grouping together after deciding that our small services/bits-o-knowledge aren't much use by themselves. My friend number 1, is a graphic/site designer, and works very well with marketing and gathering clients. Friend number 2 has a very extensive vocabulary and between the lot of us, we are able to come up with very inticing catches and phrases, as well as write the content for client's sites as well as our own. Friend number 3 will help out with graphic design as well learn bits of coding here and there. Now, we come to the best of them all! Me! (Just joking, of course...)
Now my job is to administer the linux web/mail/ftp/quakeTF server, as well as do bits of php/html. Now, My first question, is where do i start? =)
I have used linux before, and am very comfortable in it's environment, so I am not scared to get into the nitty gritty. So far, I've assembled a pc, consisting of the following hardware components:
amd athlon t-bird 1ghz
512 megs pc133 ram
k7vza revision 3
40 gig ibm deskstar 7200 rpm 8.5ns (were going to buy two scsi drives and connect them using raid)

oh yeh:
floppy =P


Now, we are installing mandrake 8.0 since I have two full loaded reference manuels, as well as a very wide online user group.

First things first, Whenever I administer the server (multiple t-1 connections) I will be remotely administering it about 20-30 minutes away on a dsl connection, as my home 56k connection is, well, next to worthless.

I suppose I will be setting up linux and getting the ftp server/apache/q-mail/quakeTF server setup before we send it down to the server room.

Now, when connecting, would it be wise to telnet into the machine? What other ways of connecting are useful?

when im connected, what exactly do I do then? I will be reading up in the very near future about telnet, and how it works, but in the mean time, could someone please tell me a little something about server administration in general. Just a few tips will do if you have time. I mean, say the server crashes, do I just reboot it? (considering it's possible to reboot the machine using the command which is in the reference manuel).

I'm not exactly sure what to ask, so tell me a bit about what things need to be checked on frequently, as well as what software would be needed to run a web server, considering we have about... 8 clients, an ftp server with about 2 hits a day, q-mail with all clients checking mail, as well as maybe 10-15 hits per night on the quake server.

Any other information would be highly appreciated. I have many people around that could help me, but they are CONSTANTLY busy, and i prefer not to bother them, because I tend to talk a lot. =P - Rusty
 
I don't think all four of you should admin the server. Since you're the one with the working knowledge of these things, I'd say "you d'man". You should have both local and telnet access as root so you can configure your servers. Since your friends will be doing the design work for websites, They would just need ftp access to the directories for each client. If you set each clients directory as a name-based VirtualHost, then your designers can update then test the websites as they are working on them. Name-based virtual hosting lets you use the same ip for all your clients. They would just have their own sub-domain (i.e. client1.yourdomain.com, client2.yourdomain.com, etc...). You can have as many as you want as long as you have your dns record pointing to your ip for all of them. I assumed you were just looking for some general advice. Let us know if you need help with a particular issue.

Good luck
 
Hi,

Apache is the webserver that you want but I believe it comes with Mandrake when you install it.

Get Webmin from webmin.com, it could save you a lot of time administering the server.

Joe
 
actually, you guys gave me exactly what I was looking for: support & encouragement from others on the web. =)
Now I'm ready to get my hands dirty.

Tomorrow, (well, actually in 7 hours) I will be going over to work on the server. After we get everything set up, I will mess around with it on the local area network. After we get a few more clients, we will set things up with the phone company, and bring Earl down to the server room. From there, we won't have much client side access, except from aNOTHER friend who will be checking on Earl occasionally to see if all fans are good to go.

So basically, we won't have much local access. I suppose it is possible to go down there (server room and everything is about... 20-30 minutes away) and setup a moniter/keyboard/etc... and work on it, and set it all up. Then, after that, we will move all the clients over to the server, from a friend's temporary server. Hopefully, Earl will have a nicer home, with less dust. =P

Thanks a lot guys, and g'day to ya!

TIA

- Rusty - Rusty
 
Ok, first question

when I install apache, I can figure out how to start/stop it. I also know where to place web files. But let's say that I have two people that want their own website. One friend wants one account, another friend wants another, and a third friend wants another yet!
Then ofcourse, I will want my own personal account (Ya know, aside from the business.) So now my question is, how do I do that?

From what I know, I would first add new usernames and passwords. Then I would setup new directories and setup the web server so it would accept a certain user when he/she logs in and will direct them to a certain directory.
I have never really gotten deep into linux, especially as a server, even though I have just recently started using mandrake 8.0/redhat 7.0 as my desktop OS choices.

Oh yeh, say the server crashes (apache)
do I just restart it? I know that is prolly a very dumb question, but I guess it's better to have asked and find out for sure, than to not ask at all and never know for sure.

Well, I suppose that's it for now, thanks a lot everyone!

TIA - Rusty
 
For apache with various domains, check out it's Virtual Hosting features... You can have directed to /home/user1/website and directed to /home/user2/website, etc...

With WebMin, there is a monitoring feature for various services, one of which is apache... it also has a feature to run commands when a monitor goes down or comes back up...

Finally, I am using apache & php at a school environment with about 400 machines... at times, when the system has the 200 staff entering their student report marks to the MySQL database, the machine is quite busy, but the PIII 500 and apache has yet to "crash" on me... it gets real busy but has not managed to let me down as yet... and MySQL also runs on the same machine... the more RAM the better... but I digress...

Have fun... AV
tnedor@yahoo.com

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