Whay kind of server software are you running?

[Spacedye69]

I am getting ready to set up a server I would like to keep running for a while. I was curious to see what type of servers and config utilities people were using. My requirements are they have to be stable, and I would prefer easy to use, but they must be flexible and able to control all aspects of the config.

Web server-probably apache, but what type of config tools
Web development-the tools/IDE and scripting languages
ftp-whatever
email-pop or imapi, config tools
database- which one and config tools

I would prefer FREE, but am willing to pay for a great piece of software.

Thanks!

[willawake]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

http://www.centos.org/ its basically free Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is more recommended than Fedora for servers because it is designed to be stable not cutting edge.

[Spacedye69]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

That is exactly the OS I am installing. I use Fedora 6 for my desktop. I'd like to know about the configuration tools available for email, mysql, etc...

What do use for an HTML editor, and don't lie and say you hand code it all.

Any dummy tools that would make my life easier would be great. I can do it all in config files, but was looking for a time saver, plus just to see what everyone else is using.

[willawake]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

topcat recommended http://www.ispconfig.com/
webmin i like http://www.webmin.com/

basically linux is ok to install and then config with webmin for file serving and general administration then use the web interface for cups to do the printers.

i have not used webmin for webservers, neither do i wish to do manual configs and editing files much so i like cpanel which is a paid service. So the free Ispconfig is going to be useful to you.

whilst file and print is pretty easy, i wouldnt consider webserving to be that easy at all without a control panel.

phpmyadmin http://www.phpmyadmin.net for mysql databases.

[Spacedye69]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

Yea, thats the stuff!

[willawake]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

for html i use dreamweaver and also notepad. but i do a lot of hand editing cos dreamweaver writes ugly code sometimes. i also add some css manually and i write the style sheet in notepad.

a free editor would be Nvu http://www.nvu.com/ which is also for linux

depends what you are doing though, if you expect in the future you might want the ability for people to leave comments and other stuff that a static site would not provide then just go for a cms software instead in the beginning.

[toastygoodness]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

For HTML I use Visual Studio or maybe Quanta Plus sometimes. I think that Visual Studio (or Visual Web Developer Express, the free version, which is just without all those other tools, such as C# or whatever.) I would use VWDE if you're running Windows. Otherwise, Quanta or, if you want a lite editor, Nvu, as willawake said, is a rather good choice.

What I really don't understand is why ultra-linux "SUPERIOR" "l33t" people have some kind of a grudge against Microsoft. Yeah, I use Windows Server 2003, but I also participate in the Arch Linux user repository. Windows Server is better for a server with all the latest software, in my opinion, than Arch Linux; however, Arch can be super stabilized and is super-duper modular. CentOS is a great choice, I actually use it as a workstation instead of Fedora.

A good FTP program is SmartFTP, I use it all the time. I think it's only for Windows, but it's got good integration and time-saving features. Also, because I am a die-hard classic SQL user, I use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL. SQLite works if you've got a relatively small database, but if you want a lot of compatibility for later CMSs, you might want to go with MySQL. PostgreSQL, in my use, has been faster and more reliable, but MySQL, for some reason, has proven to be more popular.

[Rainbow]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

I used SmartFTP before but it is (and always was) incredibly buggy. Every single version. Too bad that this is probably the best FTP client for Windows. Good that I don't have to use it anymore as there's good FTP support in KDE (and FTPS too with kio-ftps) - and this is in all KDE applications - sometimes that Microsoft will have probably in 10 years...
I use JOE text editor for editing HTML, PHP and C code. Syntax highlighting helps a lot sometimes.
MySQL is so popular because it's fast. Probably the fastest existing SQL database for most operations.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

Hmm, sorry can't be of much help

Linux is a difficult route to go if you do not like the command line IMO, I know, I've tried countless times before I got a good introduction actually by a teacher in school in a class...

I at first thought the treshold for learning "tis stuff" was very high compared to Windows but it really wasn't, however on my own and by just forums I would never have managed it, I must admit that...

Right now I am a server admin for a decently large site, the server does not have any graphical interfaces that I use at all...

I would say that Windows Server 2003 is a really good choice unless you are prepared to spend some time learning, this is just my 0.02$ worth though...

[willawake]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

some more stuff as we are on the subject

APF firewall. very popular in webhosting
http://www.rfxnetworks.com/apf.php
http://www.eth0.us/apf

zend optimiser. speed up php. its really cool
http://www.zend.com/products/zend_optimizer

I at first thought the treshold for learning "tis stuff" was very high compared to Windows but it really wasn't

the problem with linux is that there is always so much documentation and most of it is not necessary to know. all written by the programmers in the way they like to see it. this will always be the shortcoming.

but linux on a VPS its amazing. try to get windows to run with so little resources some of the VPS have........hail to Xen

many hosts are using centos cos it is free and reliable. i would not recommend it in a large company better to have RHEL cos on occasion they are slower on the updates. i recall some whiny complaint on the centos forums about some update which broke samba or cups...i forget. and centos were a few days slower on the fix update than redhat. but lol anyway wtf to keep a file and print so currently updated......

[Spacedye69]

Re: Whay kind of server software are you running?

I have no problems with Linux or command lines. I've used the standard graphical server config tools that come with KDE, and I don't like them. They either are too slow or not detailed enough for my taste, so I end up editing the config files by hand anyway. I've done most development and editing by hand in the past, using Kate ( I have no idea why I like it, but it works ) because I like the folder views to keep track of files, and then compile on the command line if it is a compiled language. I was going to try some "fancy" tools to see if there were any time savings, because there is never enough time.

My plan was to install minimal with no X server, as it is smaller and considerably less resource intensive. I also am a freak and like command line. I just wanted to check out some tools to see if I had any reason to install X. I just might try the browser enabled stuff and keep the server at a bare minimum. The developement stuff I do on my desktop anyway.

I've tried Dreamweaver, Front Page, and InterDev before, and I have found that the time it takes to fully lear how to use the IDE, I could have already done what I needed to do 5 times as fast.

Thanks for the input. I definitly will be using Linux, Apache, and MySQL( because it is faster than the rest, but if I were doing a large, complex database, I would be looking at something else). I will, however, be using Windows on my mirror/ back up server, just to keep in touch with the little people.