[ILUG] Using a virtual server as a remote back up / mail server.

[David Jamison]

I have been toying with idea for some time now of setting up a virtual 
server to essentially store personal data and files "off-site" as at 
home here I tend to reimage machines and change distro's from time to 
time just .. err.. because I can! The downside of this is that I have to 
back up all datafiles and restore them back on to the new installations.

Another use I could see for a virtual server is as a mail server so that 
not only could mail stay on the server but presumably I could access it 
easily from whereever I happen to be.  Im guessing I would need to move 
from my NTL mail account to having a domain of my own.

One company I had looked at was RedwoodVirtual  
http://www.redwoodvirtual.com/ but interestingly they say they are at 
full capacity at the moment. Anyone know of any contenders hopefully local?

I have done some googling on this but most of the documentation seems to 
be around building rather than configuring so I was wondering has anyone 
set up a system as Ive described and can advise on any gotchas? Does 
anyone know of a souce of documention describing what Im trying to do?

Another point of note is that in the main these servers seem to offer 
Debian as the distro of choice.  As im focusing on Fedora now is this a 
drawback or an issue?

Regards

David