Linux home data center challenge :-)

[Mark Haney]

Tom Diehl wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Oct 2006, David Fletcher wrote:
>
>> At 00:40 05/10/2006, you wrote:
>>
>>> I was just speculating how hard it would be to turn my Fedora
>>> box (which is up all the time) into the central system all
>>> my other computers go to for information (smtp, dns, imap, dhcp,
>>> etc).
>>
>> This is something I also fancy doing sometime, but I would question 
>> whether Fedora is the best distribution for the purpose. What is 
>> needed IMHO is something that once set up will be extremely stable 
>> and won't need to be upgraded for a long time. Because of the 
>> relatively rapid fire release cycle of Fedora it is great for the 
>> desktop where you want all the latest stuff but not necessarily for a 
>> server.
>>
>> Ubuntu Server is currently promising, I think, a five year support 
>> period, so that is the one we are currently looking at for a new 
>> engineering department server at work. I've got it experimentally set 
>> up on what used to be my desktop PC, serving files and some queues 
>> for networked printers via Samba. I've not tried setting up email 
>> services yet - that's also something I want to try to learn to do in 
>> the future. I'm keeping notes on what I've done to it so far to set 
>> it up, if you want to see these just email me off list and I'll send 
>> the file over to you.
>
> Since you are already using fedora, you might want to look at Centos. 
> That is
> a rebuild of RHEL. 7 year support IIRC.
>
> Regards,
>
I haven't had any trouble at all with using FC as my central server.  I 
have 13 systems at home (10 desktops/servers) and 3 laptops and 2 of my 
Fedora boxes act as central servers for files/home directories, dns, 
smtp, dhcp, etc.  The rapid release schedule doesn't really bother me or 
those servers.  I always upgrade my backup first, make sure everything 
works, then upgrade the primary.  I don't see the problem with the 
release schedule except possibly in the case of a serious 
production-level system.

But that's just me.


-- 
Ceterum censeo, Carthago delenda est.

Mark Haney
Sr. Systems Administrator
ERC Broadband
(828) 350-2415