Best Server Platform and Why

[billy_gates]

I am looking to create a web server. here is a list of things it will need to be able to do.

-POP Mail
-IMAP Mail
-WebDAV
-Normal WebPage serving
-FTP access to each specific users page
PHP4
-MySQL
-Needs to support a cheap raid card for mirroring, and has to be able to automatically use the non failed hard drive if one happens to fail
-Needs to run on a 233MHz Celeron, if traffic becomes to heavy I will upgrade processor
-I want the POP and IMAP to have all the same accounts and mail, so someone could use POP if they wish or IMAP with no configuration by them or by me.
-Does not need to run Xserver, but if WebMin is not preinstalled, i have to be able to install it without the XServer.  I know how to do the install part, but the downloading with out the XServer is what i do not know how to do
-Free and infinite license, I can't afford to pay for anything except the domain I run it on and ISP I have.
-100% uptime, no restarts, no jams.  I will not be using this computer as a workstation, it is only a server

The above item, "FTP access to each specific users page" is the same setup that most ISP's have, where your free webspace can automatically be accessed through FTP, I heard that this was done through apache, but not sure.

With all of these requests what distro of a unix variant should I use.  Also how much ram should I have?

[rtgwbmsr]

I use Red Hat for most of that stuff. My recommendation would be to set everything up in whatever GUI and then go to text to save precious processor cycles.

Mac OS X can also do those things if you happen to have a Mac laying around.

[voidmain]

Penguin Computing server running hardware RAID and RedHat is a great combo. I do all of that stuff and a lot more. If you are on a budget you can use your existing equipment and use software RAID with multiple disks.

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[TheQuirk]

If you're interested in software RAID by Penguin Computing, they quoted me $100 for setup (for RAID 1).

[voidmain]

If that's the case I would just have them ship me the server and install it myself. It's easy to set up in Disk Druid during installation of RedHat.

[billy_gates]

aren't raid cards only like 40 bucks now adays?

[voidmain]

Maybe for IDE RAID. I use SCSI RAID with lotsa cache and SCSI drives, which are much more expensive. But if you go with IDE RAID you need to make sure the card is supported by the Linux kernel (many are), and of course the same is true for SCSI RAID controllers. Check for compatibility at places like this:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/ideraid.html

and of course with the vendor of the card's web site, and with the Linux distro you plan on using it.  Software RAID will work on just about any drive combo, even on drives of different type. Do your own research and make your own conclusions as I don't want to say one way over the other. Different people like to do it differently.