Hi,
I was just wondering for starting out to practice on a CPU at home as server admin what minimal specs could I have?
Thanks,
Regards.
Sabre-Hosting

Cybersol,

We have an older server here that we play around with (currently freebsd on it) - ours is a celeron 433 with 512 mb of ram and an old 12 gig hard drive. For console stuff that is sufficient. I wouldn't go too much lower, however because then it just gets painful.

-David

Dont you run a hosting company ? *eek*

Matt,

Was that directed to me, or cybersol?

If it was to me, well, we like to play with things without causing disruption to our clients. That's the purpose of that server, really - the ability to play without breaking anything important :)

If it was to cybersol... well, I dunno. Maybe he has just a reseller account and wants to move up to a dedicated server?

-David

Hmmm, do not really know what to say..

Is this how it is now ?

Step 1. Start Web Hosting Business
Step 2. Get Customers
Step 3. Learn how to Admin the Web Server
Step 4. Wonder why customers do not come ?
Step 5. Wonder what is a business plan ?

**Shudder**

Not you David.

Exactly.

IMHO you should have learnt the admin stuff and have an interest in the field before ANYTHING else.

You sure dont need much to practice on. You could use a p133 if you wanted :D Compiling is where it gets fun though.

I am a reseller thats why I didn't learn about server admin before... and Eddy I don't wonder why customers don't come and I do know what a business plan is and have one... but as I said I am a reseller and want to learn how to admin the server and look into upgrading to a dedicated server when I get more customers

Not everyone here runs their business by themselves either. Some of us hire good people to do the server admin stuff. Being a good server admin and having a good head for business don't always come in the same package.

I run a small company from home for about 5 customers so far. I am using an old Sun Microsystems Ultra5 workstation for my server. This box is uber fast! I could probably host over 300 sites on it with no trouble.

Originally posted by CyberSol
I am a reseller thats why I didn't learn about server admin before... and Eddy I don't wonder why customers don't come and I do know what a business plan is and have one... but as I said I am a reseller and want to learn how to admin the server and look into upgrading to a dedicated server when I get more customers


Actually, that's the best reason to get a reseller plan. As long as you go with a company that has a good server admin on staff, you'll do well. ;)

I've had a "learning" box which ran freeBSD that was 133mhz and had 32 megs of ram. So just buy some old crappy computer to learn on.

Originally posted by CyberSol
I am a reseller thats why I didn't learn about server admin before... and Eddy I don't wonder why customers don't come and I do know what a business plan is and have one... but as I said I am a reseller and want to learn how to admin the server and look into upgrading to a dedicated server when I get more customers

Sorry about that. I am sorry that I generalized.

I wasn't aware that you have a reseller's account. It is just that there are too many new web hosts out there who started out not knowing what is involved in the business but started it anyways because they think it is easy money.

I use VMware for a lot of testing too. Its easy to make backups of the images, so if you totally hose it its no big loss :)

Now all I have to find is the box *rolls eyes*

Just get an oldie off ebay or somethin ;)

why not just dual boot your current computer or...?

or...

Do what we did and get a bunch of old used parts, cram them in an old-style AT case, and throw it on the network.

It is truly a horrible server. But it works for what we use it for!

-David

lol.. Yes thats a possibility ;)

How do I setup a dual boot? Last time I tried that, all it could detect was 1 os and I had two..

The actual setup process for dual booting varies with the distro installed. Some of them use lilo and some use grub. Some you can select the bootloader. Lookup the information on those programs, that should give you more information.

Or tell us what OS's you're trying to get setup and perhaps we can help some more.

-David

I only ever tried it once with a linux distro ive never heard of. I tried Linux/WinME.

Now, if i was to try it, it would be Win2k/Redhat(Or that other one again).

One distro that I can highly reccomend for a beginner would be Mandrake Linux. Very easy and nice install process, great RPM (program) installer named urpmi that fixes most dependancies for you, and more.

That's probably the easiest one I've used. Even works well on my laptop with very little other configuration necessary.

Other good ones that we've used:
RedHat
Debian
FreeBSD (non linux but just great all around)

As far as bootup concerns, just make sure to install windows first then linux. Windows doesn't like to play nicely and will make your computer only boot to windows.

-David

I dual-boot at home, but keep in mind, if you're actually trying to learn how to admin a server, don't install Xwindows, since that kind of make the hole point moot. :)

I don't want to dual-boot because then I would be able to admin it from sitting infront of it and I don't want to do that... I want to connect to the server remotely (Via the Network) and access it via there...

Originally posted by CyberSol
I don't want to dual-boot because then I would be able to admin it from sitting infront of it and I don't want to do that... I want to connect to the server remotely (Via the Network) and access it via there...

I was going to say the same thing CyberSol. Do it over your network.

Also I use a 200Mhz with 32 megs of ram, RedHat 8.0 for a test box.