[ILUG] Need some Advice re-Linux Server(s)\Services

[Rory Browne]

On 7/5/05, Frank Murphy <lists2005 at utvinternet.com> wrote:
> I want to make Win XP clients log onto a Samba Box probably FC4, unless
> someone has a better Distro for this purpose?

I'm not saying anything against FC4, but personally (and for the sake
of avoiding flame war I emphasise _P_E_R_S_O_N_A_L_L_Y_), Fedora would
be my last choice, perfering CentOS(if you're the Redhat Type),
Gentoo(if you're preformance pananoid), or Debian(if you're sane)

> There may be 20-25 client machines.
> Due to lack of finance with this local neighborhood thing.
> I have a budget of Zero, including myself.
> 
> Aside from Samba what services do I need to make sure a client logging
> on is authenticated as legitimate, and not Joe Hacker?
> 
> Files may be kept on the server (which has only 1HD),
> Does every client box need to have their own "Home" setup?,
IIRC, and I haven't done a lot with SAMBA, the home directory setup is
done on the server using %u printf-like variables.

> 
> It will also have to be a email server for client to client internal
> email (possible Internet mail, they don't know as yet?)
> Thinking Postfix because I have "The Definitive Guide, O'Reilly"
I haven't used Postfix, but from what I've heard it's one of the
better ones. Having that said, choice of MTA is a bit like Choice of
Religion. good docs is vital, so going with any reasonable choice(and
postfix is a reasonable choice) that you have good docs for might not
be a bad thing(TM).

> 
> The tech support person they have through the scheme, has an IT Degree,
> but he is not up on  Networking, email servers etc..
> He does know Frontage "The Bees Knees...." nuff said.
> 
> I have done the Samba Server at home myself using 2 Win client to FC3,
> but all the official logging on stuff wasn't required in that case.
> 
> I have Googled and come across expressions such as ldap, acl, but apart
> from that, have no real tuts.
By 'logging' do you mean keeping records, or do you mean
authentication? If you mean the latter, then the easiest way is
probably to google for smbpasswd, or find it in the smb docs. As for
the former, /var/log/samba is I believe where the logs are kept, and I
think it's fair to assume that the logging config is kept in the
smb.conf file.

> 
> I may be able to get a donation of a hardware firewall\router for this
> setup, which everything will go through, or piece together an old Linux
> Firewall\Nat Box running X from my scraps.
> 
> Frank
> --
> Frank's 3D
> http://www.frankly3d.com
> --
> Irish Linux Users' Group
> http://www.linux.ie/mailman/listinfo/ilug/
> 
>