DSL as a web-server?

Forum: Networking
Topic: DSL as a web-server?
started by: haravikk

Posted by haravikk on Mar. 22 2006,13:11

Hi!

I'm currently putting together a very inexpensive web-server, and I'm looking to run it as a web-server and crank as much performance out of it as I can. So I'm looking at Linux distributions that I might install onto it.

So I've come across DSL!

Here's a brief outline of my intended machine:

AMD Sempron 2800+ (1.6ghz 64-bit)
Asustek ASUS Vintage AE-1 case (contains motherboard for this chip, integrated graphics and power-supply, nothing fancy but affordable)
2 x 256mb RAM chips (DDR3200 400mhz)
2 x 20gb Seagate U Series X (5400rpm ATA-100 drives)

It should have everything I'm going to need bar any extra cabling. It should also do just fine but has some room for upgrading the hard-drive and such.

Anyway, what I'm hoping to do is set that up, plug it into my network and then install Linux onto it using a CD-Drive in another machine (I don't really need a CD drive in the machine itself). Alternatively I do have a USB-key so I could probably use that I suppose.

So I've got a few queries, please bear in mind that while I'm fairly well versed in basic command-line and am an avid Mac OS X fan, I'm quite new to Linux. These are my general requirements:

- Allow me to format the two HDs first of all, and put them in RAID 1 configuration (mirrored, just in case I got that number wrong

)
- Allow me to install onto the HD after booting from the CD/USB-drive
- Install Apache 2
- Install PHP 5
- Install MySQL (or maybe SQLite since it's included with PHP5, I'll do tests on that before I make a decision)
- Provide SSH access for administration

Is DSL a good solution, or would I better seeing what else is on offer?

Posted by newOldUser on Mar. 22 2006,16:54

DSL should run very fast on that machine. For a LAMPP configuration you may want to take a look at XAMPP < Xampp website >

I use it for personal use on a much smaller machine then yours and it runs fine. I don't allow access to it from the outside world so I'm not too concerned about security, that may be an issue for you. Do a search of the forum for XAMPP if you need additional help installing it.

Posted by haravikk on Mar. 30 2006,16:25

Sorry to bump this again, still waiting for the hard-drives to arrive.
But that got me thinking, how do I go about enabling a software mirror of the two drives? I presume there are things I can install for Linux that allow me to do this? Since I'm going low budget then a RAID-1 or RAID-5 capable card isn't an option at this time.

Posted by desnotes on Mar. 30 2006,17:00

The obvious recommendation would be to use a hardware RAID but you indicated that it is out of your price range (I can relate). I have set up a RAID 1 on a Tao Linux distro (based on Red Hat) and on SUSE 10.0. It was tricky for me as at the time I was pretty inexperienced.

I've never tried setting up a RAID using DSL but I would recommend doing a Google search for RAID HOWTO and see what is available.

Posted by haravikk on Oct. 28 2006,19:34

Hey there, long time no post to this, heh!

Finally got wireless set-up on the box, but I still can't get mirroring to work. I tried following your idea and found < this article >, however the tools it links to won't build on DSL, even with the gcc compiler (though it is version 1, could it be a newer version of C or something?)
Though not mission critical, it's something I'd still like to get set-up. On that note, setting up a mirrored RAID, will it delete the contents of my boot disk, or will it automatically just copy them to create the mirrored drive, anyone know? Though with the network running I can hopefully move the files more easily.

Posted by Thulemanden on Nov. 06 2006,00:30

Quote (haravikk @ Mar. 22 2006,09:11)

Hi!

I'm currently putting together a very inexpensive web-server, and I'm looking to run it as a web-server and crank as much performance out of it as I can.

I'm running Apache on a 233mHz PII mmx (labtop), 128mb and it's fast too. Just running plain old html files.

You won't have any performance problems ;-)