From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Dec 13 16:51:32 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com (cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com [24.2.89.207]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E3F3515247 for ; Mon, 13 Dec 1999 16:51:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from cjc@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com) Received: (from cjc@localhost) by cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id TAA75121; Mon, 13 Dec 1999 19:55:25 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from cjc) From: "Crist J. Clark" Message-Id: <199912140055.TAA75121@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> Subject: Re: Merging 2 servers? In-Reply-To: <19991213101919.C22122@lucifer.bart.nl> from Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven at "Dec 13, 1999 10:19:19 am" To: asmodai@bart.nl (Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven) Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 19:55:25 -0500 (EST) Cc: jaime@malkav.snowmoon.com (Jaime Kikpole), freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Reply-To: cjclark@home.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL54 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven wrote, > -On [19991212 19:50], Jaime Kikpole (jaime@malkav.snowmoon.com) wrote: > > So what would you folks recommend? I've been considering > >replacing the staff's server with a modest computer with RAID and more > >RAM. But I know that NIS would simplify my user maintenance. I just > >don't know if its usable here. The newer server (i.e. the "student" > >server) has far more RAM and CPU power than it needs, but not enough disk > >space for the staff to be added to it. Specifically, it has 1152MB of > >RAM, an external 9.1GB SCSI HD for booting, an internal 4HD x 9.1GB > >RAID-5 array (total 27GB of usable space) for /home, and a Pentium-III > >600MHz with an empty second slot. The students get 5MB to 15MB each, > >depending on what classes they take. The staff should really get about > >100-150MB of disk space so that they can collect assignments from their > >students. > > > > Does anyone have any advise about NIS, NFS, keeping two servers > >but replacing one, adding RAID (and booting from it, preferably) to the > >older server, or any other possible improvement? > > NIS really is a handy tool for ease of administrating. I just wonder > if, in your two server set-up, it isn't overkill. > > If you want to use NFS, make sure you move that 3.0-R box to something > more 3.3-STABLE, or even 3.4-RC since there have been fixed quite some > annoyances with NFS. Before you even consider NIS or NFS, I think you need to think about your security model. I would guess every student in the building does not physically use these machines, but rather there is some LAN the teachers and students connect too? With NIS/NFS, if one host on the network is comprimised... Game over. Or if some bright pre-teen brings in a laptop and plugs it in to the LAN, they gotcha. Want students to be able to read each others' mail or *gasp* the teachers' mail and files? (And do you really trust all of those teachers too? ;) > But what is exactly the situation you are wanting to go to? Are you > looking for a more centralised means of administration? That isn't > clear to me (then again my mind is foggy due to my cold). I agree that we need a little more info about your entire network archtecture and your goals. But we'd love to show-off^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H help you with your problem. -- Crist J. Clark cjclark@home.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message