[SATLUG] New Server is available (but not set up)

[Al Castanoli]

On Thu, 2005-12-01 at 15:14 -0600, Bruce Dubbs wrote:
> I now have the new server available thanks to Rackspace and especially
> tweeks.

I'm glad a decision was finally made on a new server, and thanks to
Rackspace, probably a reliable one.

> Does anyone know how SATLUG is set up in the DNS system?  How do we
> change the ip address for the server?  Who do I contact?

http://www.pir.org/whois_search is where you go to check out .org
domains.  Chuck Tetlow has satlug.org set up as:

Tech Email:  chuck.tetlow at gmail.com
Name Server:  DNS1.URDIRECT.NET
Name Server:  DNS2.URDIRECT.NET
Name Server:  DNS17.REGISTER.COM

> The system is running RHES4.  I'd like to throw open the discussion on
> exactly how to proceed.  As a lot of you know, my preference is for a
> LinuxFromScratch system and I could build that up in about a day.
> However, this is a SATLUG server and what is running really needs to be
> a group decision.

I'd like to recommend scientific linux.  It's taken from RHEL4 and
repackaged as open source.  It's maintained mainly by fermilab, and 
I've been using it for various functions for about 4 months.  I prefer
SuSE on my desktop, but scientific linux works great on my server.

http://www.scientificlinux.org/

> Right now, without anything set up, the RHES system has 74 processes
> active.  On my LFS server that hosts ftp/http packages for public
> access, I have 49 processes running (and I know what ALL of them do).
> To me that is more secure.

Any distro will have a number of processes started up by default that we
wouldn't necessarily want running.  With the RedHat variants, chkconfig
is an easy way to stop them from starting up at boot and chkconfig runs
from the command line.

> We could also load another distro if we decide that is best.
> 
> To start out, the main processes needed are apache, mailman, and a mail
> transport agent.  Other processes are admin and security related.
> 
> What are your thoughts?

I'd be glad to help if you need it setting up the box.  It looks like my
extensive traveling days are over, and I'm building our new systems here
in San Antonio and shipping them out rather than doing fly aways.

Regards,

Al Castanoli