<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Feb 7, 2009, at 7:29 PM, <a href="mailto:p.echols@comcast.net">p.echols@comcast.net</a> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">I have a few projects in mind that are - for me at least - somewhat ambitious. The question is about best practice / acceptable practice for server installations. (I have been using Ubuntu desktop on my laptop for a few years now but have a learning curve ahead for setting up and running a server.) <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br><br>The question is can all of my projects run successfully on one server, and if not, why would that be a bad idea. The following are what I have in mind (I don't think these are all really separate projects, but this is how they are organized in my mind):<br><br>Project 1. Setting up a LAMP server for testing of web pages / apps before transferring them to the commercial site that has my website.<br>Project 1 (a) Using the same to set up an Intranet page for home documents etc and info I mention this one because that would be about the maximum limit of the traffic.</div></div></span></blockquote><div><br></div>This isn't much of a problem. You can get around some security implications of sharing public and private sites on the same server by using appropriate Apache access controls to determine who can access which sites. Apache's security mechanisms are pretty good.</div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><br><br>Project 2. Setting up a Samba server so that the in house Windows users have lan based redundant (RAID-1) storage / backup area.<br><br>Project 3. Allowing server to function as remote site for my office automatic backups.</div></div></span></blockquote><div><br></div>I would lump Projects 2 and 3 together, as they sort of have the same basic purpose, file-storage. Obviously, you'd want to make sure that whatever firewall you have this server behind (or local firewall, if it's not behind a separate firewall) is blocking access to Samba from the Internet. As for your office backups, how you would implement being a remote site is probably dependent on the requirements of your backup configuration. I would not recommend just backing up over an exposed SMB/CIFS share, it's just asking for trouble. If you do want to back up to an SMB/CIFS share over the internet, I would suggest doing it over a VPN (which would be another project in and of itself).</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><br><br>Project 4. LTSP server both to serve Ubuntu desktops and w/ a virtual machine to serve XP desktops. (The boxes that would be using this all have their own licenses. But the hardware was never really adequate and by today's standards pathetic).<br><br>The machine currently redundant and tapped as the probable server is a Celeron 2.4 ghz w/ 1.6 Gb RAM. Ideally I'd like to just add the drives required to support the necessary storage, possibly more ram and get started, one thing at a time.</div></div></span></blockquote><div><br></div>Judging from your current system configuration, it is possible to use it as an LTSP server. However, you'd have to give more information as to how many clients you're expecting to serve. The number of clients you're planning on having connect to your LTSP server will determine what your hardware needs are. Here's a reasonable place to get a ballpark for what you'd need: <a href="http://www.k12ltsp.org/install.html">http://www.k12ltsp.org/install.html</a></div><div><br></div><div>Please keep in mind that those hardware requirements are for a server that is SOLELY serving as an LTSP server with no other function. LTSP is pretty resource intensive on the server-end, as all applications technically run on the server and not on client. The more users you have and the more applications they have open at the same time, the more strain is placed on the server.</div><div><br></div><div>In light of that, adding a Windows Server (running Terminal Services or Citrix) in a VM on the same server would be very taxing. You'd at very least want to be running it on a server with multiple processors or cores and devote 1 or more of the processors / cores to the VM. You'd also have to dedicate a slice of available RAM to the VM which means it wouldn't be available to the underlying server. If you're going to be running a Linux / Window terminal server, I would definitely recommend setting aside some dedicated hardware for it. Or, at least bumping the specs up for your current system.</div><div><br></div><div>Otherwise, it is possible to run Apache and Samba on the same system and have it serving as a LAMP and SMB/CIFS server. I would advise you to look into the security implications of doing so, however. If someone was to exploit a security flaw in PHP through one of your sites, they might be able to gain access to files you have stored in your Samba share or backups. In the same vein, if someone were to exploit a flaw in Samba, they might gain access to your webroot as well. Things to think about as you go forward with your endeavors. </div><div><br></div><div>As Rashkae already posted, it is *possible* to do all of these things on one piece of hardware. I would argue that it's not *practical* or recommended to do so. But, sometimes you just have to make due with what you have available. Again, Projects 1-3 on the same server is the most doable scenario. I would recommend focusing on mitigating security risks while doing so, however. And for the LTSP / Windows server aspect, you'd need to lay-out some cash whichever way you went with it (upgrade current hardware / purchase new hardware) as your current specs would probably be pretty strained under the load of *all* of those services, especially Project 4.</div><div><br></div><div>-- </div><div>Preston</div></body></html>