[H-GEN] Visitor to the humbug meeting

[Alex Delaforce]

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Tony,
Thanks for all the information. It is all rather daunting. I appreciate
all the info you sent and will attempt to digest it all, in time. 

Alex Delaforce
[alextdel at bigpond.net.au][dir.tech.ormistoncollege.com]
Phone (H) 07-3820 2210
Phone (W) 07-3821 8964

-----Original Message-----
From: Majordomo [mailto:majordom at caliburn.humbug.org.au] On Behalf Of
Tony Nugent
Sent: Thursday, 27 February 2003 12:27 PM
To: HUMBUG General Discussions List
Subject: Re: [H-GEN] Visitor to the humbug meeting 

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and
]
[ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish.
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On Wed Feb 26 2003 at 22:38, "Alex Delaforce" wrote:

> My name is Alex Delaforce. I have recently started to use Linux. I'm
at

Welcome to linux, welcome to humbug!

> the 'I've installed it but don't know enough to do anything with it'
> stage. My aims are to have a Linux server at home to serve web sites
> using  the LAMP combination and in doing this learn more about setting
> up firewalls, DNS servers, file servers etc.

Yes, linux can do all that (and more).

One vital key to having networks running properly is DNS... set that
up on your home computer first, as cache-only or perhaps mocking up
a "fake" internal network (for your own use).  The package is called
bind, the server is called named, the config file is /etc/named.conf
(and I should mention /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/hosts).

Web site (and email) configuration usually needs DNS to be giving
the "right" answers.  Apache is the name of the web server, and it
should work "out of the box" with a default page once the server is
started (it has a configuration tool).  Replace the default index
page with one of your own, play around with phpnuke and you're off
and running.

Linux makes a great router, easily done by adding a second ethernet
card and plugging it into another box or into a hub with many
others on a network.

Make your linux box do the internet connection at home (dialup or
broadband), and then:
- set up some fairly simple iptables/ipchains rules that will
  make it masquerade for internet traffic generated by other
  computers in your local area network.
- turn on forwarding in the kernel to enable it as router.
- get all the other boxes to use your linux box as the default
  gateway (and dns, and web proxy, and mail server, whatever).

Often it is useful to set up a dhcpd server to automatically
configure any hosts on your network.  (Linux has a fully functional
dhcpd server).

You'll also want to learn about samba, which allows linux (and other
*nix) to talk to windows boxes - especially for file sharing in a
windows environment... linux can behave as a windows network client
or a PDC in a domain.  In any case, you can set up shares (including
home shares and printers) for the other clients to use.  You can
import user accounts in an NT domain into the linux box using
winbind.

A proxy server (squid) can be set up to work as a transparent proxy
on the firewall, which is often useful for larger networks.  A time
server (ntpd) is useful for keeping the time accurate on all the
computers in your network.

Get fancier - let it handle all your email.  You can have the linux
box collect (and filter) all your email, and access it from anywhere
on your LAN using pop or imap (and with ssl if you want that).

Get even fancier - boot a windows box into linux from a boot floppy
that will boot and run linux over your network from (on) the linux
server over "nfsroot"... this works with no need to install linux
onto that box (its hard drives are not touched).  (fairly advanced).

Note that some programs come with their own configuration tools (eg,
swat with samba), and some distributions provide their own
(sometimes gui) tools that can configure lots of system-wide things
(network, dns, dhcpd etc).  (There are more "wizards" appearing all
the time:)

> This will lead into my work
> area as I am the Director of Technology at an independent school which
> is presently locked into the MS framework.

It's a learning curve (the view from the top is fantastic!), but
you'd already know the basics... the big climb would be getting used
to linux itself (bash, system layout, editors, X gui, process
management, administration basics, etc) then how to go about getting
all the routing and network services running as you want.

There are some good books available, so go browsing.  All you should
need at this stage is a good solid reference for linux
administration.  And perhaps a recent book about apache and php if
you are serious about web development.

There should be a lot of documentation already installed on your
hard drive: man pages, /usr/share/doc/*, "help" output from
programs, and many default configuration files give good
descriptions.

Web resources are vast, a few of the more useful ones:

The linux documentation project:
	http://www.tldp.org/
samba:
	http://www.samba.org/
iptables: (netfilter, firewalling)
	http://www.netfilter.org/
bind:
	http://www.isc.org/products/BIND/
google searches:  (linux-oriented)
	http://www.google.com/linux

> The meeting seems to last for quite a while, is any time more
> appropriate for new visitors than any other.

There are almost always "events" planned each week (as Ray has
pointed out), but I have found that if you just go along and start
listening and talking to people, then the afternoon/evening just
"starts happening" :)

> Looking forward to your reply.

Good luck, and have fun!  Take one step at a time and you'll get
there... and soon enough you'll look back and wonder how you got by
without it.  :-)

Linux will make a big difference to your school network if it was
used at the backend for providing all the services.

> Alex Delaforce
> 
> alextdel at bigpond.net.au
> dir.tech at ormistoncollege.com

Cheers
Tony

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