[Wylug-help] Fwd: newbie - web & mail & dns svr

[Shaun Laughey]

On Wed, 2006-03-29 at 19:48 +0100, Richard Starkie wrote: 
> hi all
> 
> just wondering if anyone can assist me as hosting contracts are expiring at end of next month and i have to give 1 month notice
> 
> please help if you can!
> 
> richard
> _______________
> Subject:	newbie - web & mail & dns svr
> Author:	"Richard Starkie" <richard at starkiefamily.org.uk>
> Date:		28th March 2006 4:56:25 pm
> 
> hi all.
> 
> i would like to escape windows completely but to do this i will need a little help. would someone please advise me on the best way to set up the thee severs mentioned in subject line. the server will either be running FC4 or FC5.
>   
> the dns also needs to log the internal boxes as some can not be seen by others or even be pinged by others  with no ryme or reason. all have same networking config  just different ip's
> 
> any help very greatfully received
> 
> see you at a meeting soon (as soon as work shifts allow)
> 
> richard
> 
> email sent from mobile device

Hiya Richard,

Hosting? A website? Or is this to do with the question on web and mail
and dns svr below? I'll assume the question before that. Correct away if
I'm wrong.

If you want to use DNS in a small network you could use dnsmasq or in a
larger network run BIND or DJBDNS (although DJBDNS isn't as widely used
I have used it with no problems for 3 years in a production
environment). Most distributions will have a DNS server package
available some will actually work with very little effort out of the
box.

I assume you are running some windows machines that are using Netbios
name resolution - if you are trying to ping IP addresses and they aren't
responding then it's likely a switch/netmask/firewall problem. If you
want to use Netbios names then use Samba to act as a master browser
there is information in the Samba configuration file on how to do it.
They will all need to be on the same network segment though as I think
some broadcast traffic is needed for this to work although I can't say
I'm an expert on Samba or Windows networks - I'm more of a database and
application server expert I'm afraid.

Email servers are usually split into the mail delivery bit (MDA) and the
actual mail transport bit (MTA) - I personally use Cyrus Imap and Exim
but Postfix, Imapd/Pop3d and postdrop are very popular along with many
many more. 

Postfix I found to be easy compared to Exim, not straight forward just
easier than Exim, to set up so if you are just starting give that one a
try.

Web? Internal or external? Have you looked at Apache 2? Its practically
a standard and works very nicely with almost any kind of content.
Although if you have a load of windows based .NET ASP files then that's
not going to be much good.

You are thinking of Fedora Core? 
Is there anything that attracts you to this? 
If its going to be a server and I could choose - I would look at Debian,
CentOS or another more stable / less changeable distribution purely
because the lifetimes on those are longer so fewer hair pulling, knife
edge updates/upgrades than with the desktop aimed Mandriva, Fedora Core,
Gentoo etc.

You don't get the cutting edge stuff but at least you know it might
actually stay running for weeks, months, years (or until the next kernel
patch anyway).

I think you'll need to give more explanation about what you want to do
if you want more help as I can't decide if this a setup purely for
internal use or some sort of external webserver/dns etc in the DMZ at an
office.


Shaun Laughey,
Py r2 Ltd,
Linux Integration Specialists.