What makes up a Linux Server?

What services do you need to allow your server(s) to support the needs of your organisation? Here at Roxoff Linux Consulting, we have experience of a range of these packages. Here's our look at what is often needed; we can assist with all of these.

Samba. If you're connecting your Linux server to other operating systems, this is the interop service to rule them all. Samba is both reliable and extensive. It allows a range of different configurations, allowing Linux to work hand-in-hand with Windows domains, Windows servers and Windows clients.

Email. Linux has many mail servers, the big ones being Exim, Postfix, Sendmail and Courier-mta. Exim and Postfix have a straightforward configuration, while Sendmail has a reputation for being complex. Courier contains its own mail pop3 and IMAP services, yet for the others a seperate package such as Cyrus or Dovecot would be needed - this kind of interoperability is common in the Linux world.

Web Server. The most prolific of web servers is Apache which runs extremely well from Linux. It has strong support for modern web features, including virtual hosts which allow multiple websites to be hosted on a single server. There are other web servers available, too.

Database. While not common to every Linux server, databases are widely used. SQL is the normal standard for commercial grade databases, and there are both Open Source and fully commercial version available for Linux. Oracle is the major player in this market, with a first class reputation, but there Open Source SQL offerings are moving ahead at pace too. Choice of database supplier can be critical to the larger company, as much can depend on it. The big players in the Open Source arena here are MySQL and PostgreSQL, while in the commercial field Oracle, IBM, Infomix and Sybase all have Linux products available. This is a big market too, and there are plenty of other contributors.

Login and shell services. With the prolferation of backdoors, trojans and other techiques for compromising a computer system, Linux provides fully secured access across insecure networks. These days SSH is usually used to provide this access, it can be bolted down using various methods.

Network Services. These services form the backbone of any network, they include centralised IP address assignment (DHCP), Name Services (DNS), IP filtering and routing (IP tables), printer sharing (Cups), and plenty of others. Getting these services running right doesn't just impact the Linux server, it affects the entire network.

Unix Services. If you have just one Linux server, you may feel this is less useful to you, but as organisations grow, their support systems grow too. These services cover the sharing of filesystems between servers over the LAN (NFS), authentication of users and the sharing of group and user id's across the LAN (NIS, Kerberos, Radius, etc.), remote systems management (SNMP), web-based configurations (Webmin, etc.), and others.