On Wed, 4 Mar 1998, Marcus Brinkmann wrote: > I have managed to promote Debian in a small but expanding firm > (currently a dozen systems). They have old Novell Net and Samba at the > moment, but they like Linux and want to change somehow. They allow me > to give them a wishlist for a Debian System, and they'll buy it, and > now I really need some help here. > > TASKS: File Server, Print Server, Internet Connection per ISDN (so > this would work as a Gateway & Firewall) (light load), File Backup,
If you can do it, i would suggest that you put the gateway/firewall on a separate box. scrounge up an old 386 or 486 (running debian, of course) if you have to. It's not a performance issue - a well configured debian box can easily handle all of those tasks - it's a security issue. the fewer services running on your firewall, the less likely it is that a newly discovered security hole can be exploited. something like this ought to do it: ^ (ISDN line to the internet) | | v +-------+ +--------+ | 386 | | Server | +-------+ +--------+ (other machines) | | | | | | +-------------------------------------------------------------> eth0 - 192.168.1.0/24 (internal, firewalled LAN) one box *can* do the lot, but it greatly complicates the firewall and other security configuration. > and probably to be used at Workstation, too (login, probably with X > for Windows) see comments below about mixing WS & Server functionality. > If you could take a quick look at the following lists and comment on it, I > would be very grateful. > > Pentium >= 166, probably not so important > RAM >= 64, probably more (96?, 128?) more memory is good. much more important for fileserver performance than a few extra Mhz processor speed. > SCSI discs, 2 or more each 2-4 GB. Is buslogic available in Germany? Other > good brands? > Mainboard ASUS > Normal architecture or PS/2 (is PS/2 well supported?) PCI. > What is a good Graphic card (they'll need a good one) is Matrox Millenium > well supported? Other brands? anything that works. an S3 Trio-64 is good value for money...cheap and adequate for most needs. remember that this machine is primarily a server, not a workstation. mixing those two functions is OK if the user is the system admin and knows what they're doing (and how to avoid harming system performance/stability)....however you can't trust a normal user to know that they really shouldn't be playing quake or real-video on the company file-server. > What is a good backup device? DDS-2 or DDS-3 tape. don't bother with flimsy toys like ftape units. > What is a good network card (they will switch to a faster network soon, at the > moment they use NE2000 compatible cards, but I recall something with 100Mbps > or so). PCI NE-2000 clones work well in my experience. they're not the fastest card around, but they're dirt cheap and easy to set up. > Other things (as CD-ROM, Monitor, etc) I do not expect problems > with. Should I? i've had problems with 24x CD-ROM drives. didn't bother figuring out why, i just swapped it with a W95 user for an old 8x cd-rom. craig -- craig sanders -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .