From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Apr 21 18:26:14 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from jig.ordway.org (jig.ordway.org [209.98.93.103]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F9F41569A for ; Wed, 21 Apr 1999 18:26:08 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from cpalmer@jig.ordway.org) Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 20:23:37 -0500 (CDT) From: Christopher Palmer To: Bob Keys Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Need specs for small-medium FBSD based web servers In-Reply-To: <199904211433.KAA14506@cc01du.unity.ncsu.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, 21 Apr 1999 rdkeys@unity.ncsu.edu wrote: > 1. Which release of FBSD would be recommended for server use as a web > machine? I run currents on my office boxes and the home boxes, > but perhaps something a little more stable would be best here. > 2.2.8 or 3.1 RELEASE, or 3.1-STABLE? 2.2.8 is safe. > 2. What amount of ram would be best for server use. The machines will > be used for class distance education, so won't be heavily hit, but > will have some high hit times sporadically. I was thinking 128M > of ram would do. Would that be sufficient with apache? There's no such thing as 'too much'. Buy less drive space and more memory. > 3. Drive space is always at a premium. If two drives were used per > machine, what would be a good drive size, 9gig or larger? If > 4 drives were used for sparing and redundancy, are there any particular > hardware configurations or controllers or manufacturers that would > be recommended? The local heavy hitter seems to be Gateway, around > here, but I would like to hear from the server admins about as > to what works and what doesn't, or if other manufacturers are better. However much you buy, be sure you can back it all up. DLT is good for backups. Unless you're running some kind of monster database site or search engine or such, 4GB may well be more than you need. > 5. A scanner must be usable on one of the machines. What is a recommended > scanner that works with FBSD and the software is part of the FBSD suite > of packages or ports? You don't want to do workstation things on a server. That's trouble. Consider a cheap Mac, like an iMac with a USB scanner (real cheap these days). There's not much reason to go cheaper, unless you find a really great Quadra for really cheap. Windows, of course, is out of the question. :) > 6. A postscript printer must be usable on one of the machines, or maybe > both. What models would one recommend these days of HP hardware with > postscript capability and sufficient ram, etc? We have HP LaserJet 4M Plus PSs here. They rule. > 7. Backup is a must. What are recommendations for tape backup systems that > are reliable and work well with FBSD? DLT, as I said above. Since you're going with SCSI for the HDDs (yes, you are :)), you can just throw a DLT right on your bus and be gleeful. And as for your Suns: that's what NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux/SPARC are for. :) Christopher Palmer Assistant Systems Administrator, Ordway Music Theatre cpalmer@jig.ordway.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message