[Techtalk] Suggestions on setting new server up

chris chris.madrone at gmail.com
Thu Sep 15 17:01:14 UTC 2011


I'm in process of migrating a bunch of domains over to the 512 Linode right now as well.  

I think OS choice is .... well always a personal preference. Right now,  I prefer Ubuntu which is a Debian flavor, I used Gentoo for a few years before switching to Ubuntu and sometimes I miss it.  I don't miss Red Hat, Fedora, or CentOS.   I think that if you run into performance issues, it's more likely to be an issue with application performance or server configuration than an issue with the distro, so other things to look at when choosing a distro are how active and friendly is the community and how timely are security updates.  

If you're not in a hurry to migrate, have you considered setting up 2 profiles with each distro and benchmarking them with your web applications? That would give you  the most accurate data for which is the best for your particular usage.

re: email - I'm using google mail to handle all my domain email to reduce my administrative overhead and also I'm trying to conserve my ram for web applications. 

hth
chris



On Sep 13, 2011, at 10:22 AM, Terry Roy wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I've been using a VPS with cPanel and CentOS for about 10 years now and
> want to move to an unmanaged VPS.  cPanel is serious overkill for what I
> need.
> 
> I've been playing with a Linode for about 6 months now and really,
> really enjoy it.  The specs beat the heck out of any cPanel VPS I've
> been able to find, service is remarkable, price is better and I have
> total control.
> 
> My question now is what OS do I want to go with and what's the best way
> to do things.  I know enough but then I don't.  I've had years of
> experience with Exim, Dovecot, Apache, MySQL, PHP, etc, but I've never
> really installed any of it, other than playing with my Linode.
> 
> My needs are:
> 
> OS - torn between Debian 6 and CentOS 6.  I'm trying to go with the
> smallest Linode available to keep my costs down.  I'm used to CentOS but
> have read that Debian, for a small VPS, is better in terms of size and
> memory usage.
> 
> Mail - thinking Exim & Dovecot, with spamassassin and clamav.  Need
> virtual users for several different domains.  Would like to use some
> type of db, sqlite preferable or MySQL for managing users and
> preferences.  I've seen some setups where the mail is stored in a db.
> Not really sure that I need/want that.  I really don't want to consider
> any other MTA as I don't want a steep learning curve for the mail.
> 
> Webmail - thinking Squirrelmail.
> 
> Web - thinking Nginx with PHP, sqlite preferable or MySQL.  I have only
> a couple of sites with different domain names - 1 static and 1 with a
> Drupal installation currently using MySQL.  Not too concerned about
> having to migrate my current MySQL db to sqlite for Drupal.
> 
> Security, of course, is most important. After that, is mail. The plan
> for implementation is to first get the OS installed, secure it and then
> work on getting the mail server and associated packages up and running
> then move all mail functions over to the new server.  I have a couple of
> domains that I can test with that won't affect my main domains. Then,
> once I've got the mail server functioning, I can then work on the
> websites and transition over to the new server.
> 
> I've read so much stuff now about implementation that I have confused
> myself about which way is the best to go. Any comments, suggestions,
> experiences, links to resources, etc, that y'all can offer on any aspect
> of the above would be very much appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> Terry
> 
> 
> 
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