Unsure about security requirements for workstation/server

Hi,

I have a requirement for a machine that will double-up as a server and a workstation for me, and I'm not sure what to install on it.

I currently use a laptop. It's a dual-boot system, with Debian Testing (I plan to upgrade to Unstable soon) and Windows XP. Most of the time I work on Debian, but occasionally I switch to Windows.

I'd like to be able to run Windows & Debian at the same time and my plan is to run WinXP on my laptop and Debian on another machine which I haven't bought yet (I'll be running an X-server on my laptop under WinXP in order to run my X apps).

I'd also like to make my Debian machine accessible from the Internet as a server. I'd like my clients (I'm a web/software developer) to be able to see work in progress for testing etc., so I'll be opening up Apache/PHP/MySQL/Tomcat to the Internet. I'd also like to give a few chosen people SSH/FTP/CVS access via the Internet.

NOTE: High availability is not that important - if I have to reboot or I get a powercut it's no big deal. I'm not expecting constant hits on the server (if I did I wouldn't host at home).

I realize that I'm trying to do two things with one machine. I'm trying to create a publically visible server (it won't be used that much as a server, but it does need to be secure) and a personal workstation. Ideally I should buy two machines, but I'd like to save space/money and only have one machine acting as a server and a workstation.

I know that for production servers only the Stable distribution is recommended and as little software as possible should be installed. But as a workstation, I'd like to install Unstable and a lot more software on it than I would on a pure server (e.g. Gnome/KDE, GIMP and loads of other stuff that I like to play around with).

What should I do? Is it possible to run Unstable in a secure fashion? I know the security team focuses on releasing security updates to Stable first, but doesn't Unstable get the updates soon after?

Any advice/thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Yasir


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