[vox-tech] My Thought: Building a Server

[Marc Hasbrouck]

--- Samuel Merritt <spam@andcheese.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 09:30:59PM -0800, Richard
> Crawford wrote:
> > My wife and I have been planning on getting a
> server of our own for quite
> > awhile now.  And while browsing through Fry's
> recently, I stumbled across
> > a book on building your own PC.
> > 
> > Here's what we want to build: a nice little server
> running off a DSL line;
> > it'd host a couple of printers, our documents, all
> of our MP3's, mail, and
> > a relatively low-traffic website.  I imagine this
> will be relatively low
> > maintenance so I don't want to worry about
> co-locating.  
> 
> I've got almost the same setup: a little machine
> that hosts a dozen or
> so low-traffic websites, runs Samba* for local file
> and printer sharing,
> and mail for my domain. It's a Debian system with a
> current uptime of
> 160 days, and that's only because of power problems
> this summer. 
> 
> Keep in mind that you don't need a powerful system;
> I've got a dual
> Pentium Pro 200 handling all the above tasks plus
> netatalk, playing
> mp3+ogg files, and squid, and my load average
> usually hovers around
> 0.15, and very seldom gets above 1.5. 
> 
> * I'd rather use Coda or NFS or something, but my
> roommates are all
> Windows users. 
> 
> 
> > I've been pondering RAID as well.  
> 
> You won't need it for performance; the network will
> be the bottleneck
> for file sharing. The redundancy might help if
> you're not confident in
> the quality of your drives. 
> 
> > And, naturally, it will be running Linux (I'm
> > familiar with Red Hat, but I'm certainly open to
> suggestions for other
> > systems).  
> 
> Anecdote: my Debian (stable) system has been
> virtually maintenance-free
> for more than a year now. The installation was kind
> of a pain, but I did
> that in late 2000.
> 
> > My rationale is that anything I build for myself
> using parts
> > that I've carefully researched to make sure
> they're all willing to play
> > with each other and with Linux is probably going
> to be more stable than
> > anything I buy from Dell or Gateway or Wal-Mart.
> > 
> > I don't know.  Does this sound like a stupid idea
> or what?
> 
> Sounds like a good idea to me. If nothing else,
> you'll learn a lot. 
> 
> > -- 
> > Slainte,
> > Richard S. Crawford
> > AIM: Buffalo2K / Y!: rscrawford / ICQ: 11640404
> > http://www.mossroot.com http://www.stonegoose.com
> > "It is only with our heart that we can see
> clearly.  What is essential is
> > invisible to the eye."  --Antoine de Saint Exupery
> 
> -- 
> Samuel Merritt
> OpenPGP key is at
>
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> 

> ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pgp-signature 

I build all my systems from scrap or obsolete parts,
so researching parts is what I've always done. I think
knowing your hardware is quite valuable, no matter
where it came from. I like to build systems rather
than buy them prebuilt. Just my preference, I like
hardware.

Marc

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