[SLUG] LAN Server

[Paul Teasdale]

On Saturday 17 Apr 2004 22:55, Jamie wrote:
> mhc at freeuk.com wrote:
> >I'm trying to set up my linux box as a server for my house. it's
> >connected to the other computers (inc both a mac and windows PC) via a
> >hub. i still want to use it as my usual computer too. it's running
> >mandrake 10. what do i do?!
> >
> >markeyc
>
> What do you want the server to do for you? Fileserver / Internet
> Gateway? Do the machines communicate at all at the moment?
>

Not wishing to repeat Jamie to much but you do need a purpose as to what you 
will use the server for. It would be fair enough for you to say 'A little bit 
of everything just for learning purposes'. To expand on Jamie's comments I 
will give you some suggestions as I am currently in the process of setting up 
my own Linux server (something I have been wanting to do for ages now but 
never got the time). I did have one setup a while ago (1997-1998) before I 
was married but has to disassemble it all when I moved house after getting 
married. It never got put back together at that point. Anyhow enough about 
me.

Personally I see Mandrake as more of a desktop distro but that's not to say 
you can't set it up as a server as such. I don't use Mandrake but it's 
probably easier to get things up and running than say Slackware (which I use) 
so don't be put off by my personal preferences.

You will need to setup basic networking regardless of your servers use. So 
firstly get your Mandrake system onto the network along with your other 
systems. Make sure they can all ping each other at least. It's also best to 
give your a server a static IP address.

If you want Internet access for all your systems via the server you will need 
to setup a modem/ADSL router and enable packet forwarding in order that you 
can pass network packets between your modem/ADSL router interface and your 
internal network card. You will also need some kind of firewall setup.

Strictly speaking it is not a good idea to have your server as the gateway to 
the Internet also but if you're short of systems then it will work. I've set 
mine up in such a way that the first thing any potential hacker meets is my 
ADSL router. It has a comprehensive built in hardware SPI firewall too which 
helps. They would need to get through this before finding my server with 
everything else on it. This is probably not impossible for someone clever 
enough but it makes things a little harder for them. Another person in this 
LUG has gone one step further still with an ADSL router with firewall 
followed by a specialised Linux distro called Smoothwall (or was it IPCop) 
before you get to his server. Smoothwall is a dedicated firewall/router BTW.

If you want file serving then NFS (Networked file system) allows other *NIX 
machines on your network to mount an area of disk on your server and use it 
as if it's there own. Other (probably more secure) ways of sharing file 
systems do exist BTW but NFS is OK for me for now.

For file serving with Windows you need SAMBA. This allows *NIX systems to 
'become' part of a Windows network and vice versa. You can share file and 
printers on both *NIX and vice versa in a transparent manner.

You may want print serving in which case I use CUPS (Common Unix Printing 
System). I have not yet got printing working from my Windows system and need 
to look at how I can integrate CUPS with SAMBA (if possible).

I have not setup any mail daemons yet because I have not decided which way I 
want to go about this. My original system used a POP server but there may be 
better ways to go (such as IMAP). I need to investigate.

I have also setup DHCP to allow clients on my network to be allocated a 
dynamic IP address from a range of given IPs. This is overkill for such as 
small network like mine but I wanted to learn how to do it.

I have also setup dynamic dns in conjunction with DHCP. When a client is now 
automatically given an IP it is also added to dns system which means I can 
reference it by name rather than IP without any additional work (such as 
manually modifying the hosts file or manually adding it to dns). This is big 
overkill for such as small network like mine but I wanted to learn how to do 
it.

You may want to setup a web server for a local intranet (such as apache).  You 
may want to setup databases services (such as mysql). I have not done this on 
my server yet but have done it many times for myself/others.

As you can see there are lots of possibilities. Just let us know what you want 
to do and we can then get more technical as to how to achieve it. Also note 
that I have not mentioned MACs much simply because I don't have a clue when 
it comes to them. However seeing a OSX 10 is based BSD it shouldn't be too 
bad to get them integrated onto the network too.

Regards,

Paul.