Re: Advice for setting up a file server

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Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 07:40:26 -0600
To: Stefan Goessling <debian-user@lists.debian.org>

Stefan Goessling wrote:

>Hello List!
>
>I would very much appreciate any advice concerning the set-up of a Debian
>based file server. I have some experience in Debian desktops and laptops,
>but none so far with servers. My list of questions is long, I know, but
>any answer would help. Thank you!
>
>Best regards, Stefan (debian @ goessling . de)
>
>
>
You don't say what kind of server you want: a print server? a web
server? a file server? an email server? an ftp server? an authentication
server? a database server? a streaming video server? etc etc etc

I'm guess from the "2GB" hint below that this is just a file space server.

>Questions:
>
>Which Debian version?
>
>
stable (woody, currently) - probably no need for the latest and greatest
packages like you'd likely want on a workstation

>Which packages should I use?
>
>
depends on what type of server. You don't want the X Window System
packages (no KDE, no Gnome, no xserver-xfree86, blah blah blah). You
will want:
 - samba
 - samba-common
 - smbclient
 - smbfs
 - ssh
 - some sort of firewall software
 - some sort of antivirus (for the Windows files stored on your server,
because they will be infected; they won't hurt your Linux side directly,
but cleaning the files will help your clients and will cut down on
virus-induced traffic)
 - and then whatever server software you need (apache? exim? etc)

>Which security measures to take?
>
>
Make sure you have security listed in your sources.list, and
update/upgrade often. Firewall. Tripwire or equivalent. Enforce good
passwords. Physical security of the box. Backups!! Written (and
published) policies. Use ssh/sftp/scp, not telnet/ftp/rcp. Turn off
unneeded services (clean up /etc/inetd.conf, uninstall unneeded
packages, etc). Configure system to write logs to another machine. Break
your filesystem into multiple partitions, and mount "static" partitions,
such as / and /usr, as read-only. Use sudo instead of handing out the
root password to your co-admins.

>Which backup procedure is recommended?
>
>
Whatever works. Perhaps raid or mirroring on the local machine; a cron
tar job to another machine every night, backup the second machine every
day to tape and move the tape off-location (so a local catastrophe
doesn't destroy both your primary data and your backup). Or any other of
a thousand different possibilities. Basically, whatever allows you to
restore whatever you need restored, no matter what comes along. (You
probably won't need to backup the "system"; just the user data and
system config files.

>Any experiences/success stories in this field?
>Are there pre-packaged distros (Debian based)?
>
>Here are the requirements/conditions:
>
>* Server must serve Windows clients (e.g. via samba) *and* Linux clients
>* Access also via secure channels (scp, sftp) from outside the local net
>* 10+ users (2-6 concurrent) with around 2 GB file space each
>* Server runs 24h in an unprotected network (i.e. our university does not
> have any firewall or port blocking)
>* System will probably have 2 HDs (80 GB)
>* Second (rather old) machine available for backup service
>
>
>
>

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• Previous message: Clive Menzies: "Re: Advice for setting up a file server"
• In reply to: Stefan Goessling: "Advice for setting up a file server"
• Next in thread: Harland Christofferson: "Re: Advice for setting up a file server"
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