I'm a newb with questions

Hi,

The good thing about linode is that if you screw up you can just start again.

With DNS you can either run your own, or use something like zoneedit.

Under something like debian is would take about 10 minutes to install apache, mysql and php.

Adam

I'm in the same boat as mschiano.

I'm frustrated with my current situation b/c i don't have control over things that my server admin won't help me with. But with a linode it would be up to me to install everything and make sure it's all secure? I can work from a linux command line with a good tutorial, but i primarily do php/mysql development, not server admin.

adamgent says you can install apache, mysql and php in 10 minutes. But how about doing it securely? I have installed mysql before, but don't i risk having a bad set up?

I think what i'm looking for is a server that is all set up but that gives me the freedom to change settings as needed. That's not what Linode is, is it? Any other recommendations?

thanks.

The nice thing about Debian is that in general, the default installs are pretty secure. For example, mysql listens only on a local FIFO, not on a network socket. You'll want to switch to the small memory configuration file (included). People around here seem pretty helpful when you have questions.

Which is not to say that you can't shoot yourself in the foot, but that's always the case if you can modify the configs.

So I wouldn't necessarily have to do a whole lot to get started?

That's true that the kind of freedom i'm asking for requires a certain risk. I guess I'm willing to take the risks on little changes. I just don't want to spend a month trying to get the thing to a state where I can actually start using it.

I'm trying to think of what to ask about. Obviously Apache, PHP and MySQL are important to me, also OpenSSL. Are these things all there already?

caker's Debian distro is pretty minimalist - lots of us use it as an emergency spare to boot into when we ned to work on our main systems without the filesystems being mounted.

If you choose Debian, you have to use apt-get to install your choice of software.

If you choose one of the full distros (Redhat 9, Mandrake 9.1), pretty much everything is installed - it just needs to be configured to suit your requirements. However, they take up a lot of disk - 1.7 GiB for RH9 vs 80 MiB for Debian before you add to it.

If I were just starting out, I would choose Debian and install just what I needed. Check out Harry Sufehmi's Debian Linode tutorial plus the discussion here.

@mschiano:

I'm kind of puzzled on the whole DNS thing. If I have my domain, let's call it iamanewb.com… in my Registrar, what do I enter as my nameserver? Do I need to set up DNS on my linode to have ns0.newbs.com, or what? I'm puzzled.
Linode does not provide DNS. Lots of registrars provide free dns these days. If your registrar doesn't then, as someone else said, there are a few free dns services such as zoneedit.com. It may even be worth moving to a registrar that does dns such as NameCheap, GoDaddy and numerous others if they handle your type of domain. I'm using and happy with the dns (and registrar) service at namecheap.com. Its convenient to have everything in one place.

Ross

thanks pclissold.

reading Harry's guide gave me a boost in my confidence that i could do that. (and thanks Harry for writing that!)

One thing about Harry's tutorial is that he's working with Debian stable (woody), and then installs a lot of software by hand when the woody version is too old/buggy. Given that Debian sarge is going to release Real Soon Now, you can start with the Linode Debian disk image, upgrade it to sarge, and then do a lot more from packages. While there are certainly valid reasons to build stuff from scratch, each one becomes another thing that you have to keep up-to-date with respect to security issues; where as with packages it's a lot more convenient.

(I'm not dissing the tutorial, it's good, but it's worth checking out each item. For example, 'firehol' is in sarge, and there are a lot of firewalls out there. Not to mention that a firewall on a public server whose only connection is to the Internet isn't (necessarily) required. But that's another post.)

I've been using Linode for a few months now and I had the same concerns before I signed up, being a Windows user. I followed Harry's guide and did a lot of googling and actually had a lot of fun and learnt a lot getting everything up and running.

Linode makes it easy to start again from scratch when you need to, so you can afford to experiment at the beginning. Also you can duplicate a disk image at any time, so once get something new up and running, you can duplicate it and restore it if you make a mistake later (kind of like a save game feature!).

I also recommend qmailrocks.org as a guide to getting up your email server using qmail and courier imap.

The flexibility, control and performance of Linode has been amazing and for me, this has been a great choice!