Need to install a web/ftp server... which OS is best?

Massonite · Jul 4, 2003

Hey guys

I'm running Win 2K with IIS 5, and I'm considering a move to Linux/BSD. I'm not sure exactly what flavour to use because I hear different things from different people about which is best, etc.

I'm just wondering if I can get some ideas between Red Hat, Free/OpenBSD, Debian... stuff like that. I just need something that's easy to use, very stable and won't give me a million dependancy issues.

Thanks for the help

jonmullen · Jul 4, 2003

I have not dealt with the BSD's but I hear great things...personally I would go with Debian net-install. Its fast, lightweight very small footprint and apt-get pkg system is great.

Massonite · Jul 4, 2003

What's apt-get?

Need4Speed · Jul 4, 2003

Originally posted by: Massonite
What's apt-get?

debians package management

zantac · Jul 4, 2003

openbsd is easy to get going as a server, since apache is installed by default, although you may not like the installer. some thing like debian or whatever might be better since apt-get handles dependecies and what not

Massonite · Jul 4, 2003

Yeah, dependancies really tick me off because I installed RH8 and when I tried to install Apache 2, I got all these dependancy errors. I tried looking them up online, but to no avail.

I may try Debian or OpenBSD, as I have a friend of a friend who works with the OpenBSD group.

Nothinman · Jul 4, 2003

Debian.

debians package management

Technically it's a wrapper around the packge management system.

Barnaby W. Füi · Jul 4, 2003

Just use whatever OS you want, any OS can serve web and ftp just fine.

pitupepito2000 · Jul 4, 2003

I would go with Debian, the install may be a harder than RedHat and Mandrake, and it does have a steep learning curve, but once you learn to use it you will love apt-get, which takes care of all dependencies for you. I install Apache in less than an hour

:Q. Actually it took less than 5 minutes to install it, what took me longer was to get understand the configuration.

I have used Red Hat and I didn't like it because of dependencies problems. Also with Debian you only have to "apt-get install packagename" and your progam is installed. Isn't that nice

?

sciencewhiz · Jul 4, 2003

with redhat all you should have to do is up2date apache no dependencies problems either.

Edit: I still prefer debian, but people too often overlook up2date when bashing redhat.

Panther505 · Jul 4, 2003

Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
with redhat all you should have to do is up2date apache no dependencies problems either.

Edit: I still prefer debian, but people too often overlook up2date when bashing redhat.

The other thing that gets overlooked it that there is an apt-rpm package out on freshrpms.net. Install that and synaptic and you will have apt-get on a redhat box. the base and the update repositories are mirrors of the RedHat Up2date server so you have the ability to apt-get update; apt-get -u dist-upgrade and you will get all of the updated packages. If you want to use a GUI tool then synaptic will let you do that.

Additionally there is a utility for updating RPMs on sourceforge called autorpm (I think) that can be used the same way with an ftp mirror of the redhat up2date site. you can additionally cron the autorpm utility to do the install and send you mail with what was updated( additional option to "uninstall" the rpms in case of a problem)

Nothinman · Jul 5, 2003

up2date and apt4rpm work well, but the thing that makes Debian better is the quality and quantity of packages. Theres over 11K packages in Debian sid right now, while I wouldn't recommend sid for a server it will eventually become the next stable and I think there's over 8K packages in the current stable tree. No RPM I've used has come close to being as well setup and integrated with the rest of the system as almost all Debian packages.

Panther505 · Jul 5, 2003

Nothingman- can't argue the quality and quanity of the Deb packages. I am finding the whole thing a little arcane right now, but I am getting better with using the sources that I want and getting apt-get to install what I want. Right now I am on my 3 or is it 4 install in about the last 24 hours. Pratice makes perfect.

CTho9305 · Jul 5, 2003

Personally, I like running my servers (older boxes that don't do any large amounts of traffic) as netinst debian (well under 100MB or so), then I just apt-get apache and whatever else I want. It gives me a clean setup in which I understand almost every part.

At work we use W2K Advanced Server, IIS... but that is a totally different environment.

edit: my main box (which I use as a server when I don't have a spare older box) runs XP and apache. Works great, and is really easy

. I find apache easier to administer than IIS because one text file is simpler than a crapload of GUI dialogs.

Abzstrak · Jul 5, 2003

staying with windows would be fine too if you wanted to, but just load apache instead of IIS

sciencewhiz · Jul 6, 2003

I find that the redhat packages are of similar quality to debian packages. Third party packages generally suck for both, though. The advantage of debian is, of course, the number of packages provided (8710 in woody).

Nothinman · Jul 6, 2003

I find that the redhat packages are of similar quality to debian packages

Either the RH packages have changed drastically since I've last looked or you havn't used Debian very extensively. When was the last time a RH package used a post-inst script to ask you setup questions? Half the time RH packages don't put anything in /usr/share/doc or what they do put in there isn't very usefull. Debian packages add themselves to the menus of all desktops installed, I know Mandrake took the Debian menu system and integrated it, but I don't think RedHat has yet.

Massonite · Jul 6, 2003

Is Windows Apache any less/more stable or useful than a Linux/Unix/BSD version of Apache?

darktubbly · Jul 6, 2003

As long as you get Apache 2.0+, it runs great on the Win32 side.

kamper · Jul 6, 2003

Indulge a web-servers newbie here, is it a bad idea to let iis in windows xp/2000 serve pages to the internet?
I read that it's meant to be used as an intranet web server and maybe that it's not secure enough for the real thing.

darktubbly · Jul 6, 2003

No, that's not true. Any web server can be insecure if configured improperly. IIS is used worldwide by countless corporations.

Nothinman · Jul 6, 2003

IIS is used worldwide by countless corporations.

As is easily demonstrated by the huge number of nimda attempts I still get daily.

Massonite · Jul 6, 2003

Yeah I got nimda once, it slowed my network to a crawl and infected 7 machines. It really sucked, but I fixed it. Needless to say, anytime I install Windows 2000, I always patch everything before I setup IIS.

You'd think that nimda would be gone by now, but unfortunately it's still kickin around.

Anyway, I'm going to try and install Apache in Windows. Now, does anyone have a good FTP server I could use to remotely admin my site and give my clients access to their sites?

Thanks

darktubbly · Jul 6, 2003

GuildFTP is pretty nice, and so is WarFTPd, but it hasn't had too many updates as of late.

Edit: fscktargz...posted the wrong link. Corrected now.

Massonite · Jul 6, 2003

Thanks, I'll try Guild. I like stuff that's free

I'll let you guys know how everything goes with Win Apache and Guild.

Need to install a web/ftp server... which OS is best?

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