Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : some newbie help

[matt2kjones]

ok just a couple of questions here :

1. What is plesk? and is it good. I have been on their website, and i have notced that it is free for one domain, which is all i have

2. What email server do u use to send and recieve mail? and is it easy to setup

3. what firewall software do you use, free hopefully, as its a small server.

4. what is a gateway, and what does it do, help on that would be very much apprichiated

Thanx, Matt.

[citrus]

ok just a couple of questions here :

1. What is plesk? and is it good. I have been on their website, and i have notced that it is free for one domain, which is all i have

Plesk is a control Panel. Definition according to plesk -> "Plesk Server Administrator (PSA) software simplifies the configuration and management of UNIX-and Linux-based web servers. The browser-based interface allows administrators and their clients to access server DNS, Mail, FTP and web hosting services from anywhere in the world 24/7."

In my opinion I think plesk is great, but some people have their own personal preferences of control panels such as: http://www.cpanel.net , http://www.ensim.com and there are a whole bunch more. Plesk also has an online forum in which you could ask questions to get more detailed answers...
http://forum.plesk.com/

2. What email server do u use to send and recieve mail? and is it easy to setup

During the installation, plesk installs qmail (mail server) by default, so you don't need to install it.

3. what firewall software do you use, free hopefully, as its a small server.

I myself use IPChains a list of more can be found here: http://www.linux-sec.net/Firewall/
Some more are PortSentry and PMfirewall, (I don't have links handy sorry.)

4. what is a gateway, and what does it do, help on that would be very much apprichiated

Don't really know what you mean by "gateway" here. Maybe someone else could help you on this one. Do you mean merchant gateway, perhaps?


Have a nice day...

[matt2kjones]

hey thanx for all this info its really great

this is what i mean by gateway.

i use to have mandrake linux on a box, so i decided to use their wizards to setup a server.

and at one point it asked me to select the network card that i use for internet network, and it asked for a gateway, and you type it in the same form as an ip number xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

just wondered what it is, and what i need it for.

thanx for all this help though, its great

[davidb]

The easiest way to understand gateway, is to think of it as the device that connects you to the internet. I know there are better definitions, but thats the easiest. Like if you have static IPs with a DSL. You need to set your gateway, and that is the ip of your dsl router/modem whatever you would like to call it.

[matt2kjones]

ok so for the gateway you just give your external ip address?