linux server

[Kevin Buettner]

On May 30, 11:05am, Tim Weaver wrote:

> I am wanting to learn/experiment/etc with Apache and NFS and maybe a mail
> server.  Realizing that in the real world, one wouldn't likely have all
> these services on one machine, I am doing it at home for $$ reasons.  Thus
> my question to you:
> 
> How would you advise setting up the box?  Should I create some sort of
> partition for each service or can I just install all the stuff on the HD and
> access the services from the box as needed (does this even make sense)?

I think there are many real world environments where these services
are all enabled on the same machine.  (The reason that some of these
services are sometimes split off to dedicated machines are (primarily)
for security and performance reasons.)  If I were you, I'd just install
all of the stuff you want to play with and then go for it.

If you want the experience of setting up different servers to do different
things, but have only one machine to experiment with, you might consider
using VMWare to give yourself several virtual machines on the same
physical machine.  In the past, I've had as many as five (or so) virtual
machine running concurrently.  (This'll give you a chance to play around
with things like FreeBSD too.)

Kevin