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gharnett

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How to set up linux web/mail server

I have the assignment to plan and perform a website/database move from an offsite commercial solution to an onsite one.  The existing solution is hosted on a Red Hat Linux machine and the site uses php/mysql.  How many hours to complete this project? This will include installing linux on a machine, configuration of database, webserver and mailserver.  Also what Red Hat Linux is suitable and free? Also is there a way of doing this simply like making an image of the existing machine? I am technically inclined and I understand unix pretty well.
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m1tk4
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>> How many hours to complete this project?

4-6 hours for someone who knows what he/she is doing.

>> Also what Red Hat Linux is suitable and free?

The best way would be to use EXACTLY THE SAME as the one on the offsite server

>> Also is there a way of doing this simply like making an image of the existing machine?

Yes, it's more or less manual but should be quite easy.

On the old server, run "rpm -qa > rpmlist" to get the full list of packages installed.

tar everything related to the application wherever it may be (don't forget to stop mysql before tar'ring MySQL db's), and everything in /etc

Inquire if the old system had some software installed not through RPM but throun configure/make/install or has some 3-rd party (non-RedHat) RPMs installed that are needed for your application and if yes, obtain them.

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You probably already have an idea of what you should do with all this info once you install the new server.

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periwinkle
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rahul_a_g

May I suggest the dedicated server at www.serversourcing.com for web hosting? They offer everything that 'periwinkle' has said. We had a similar situation that was handled smoothly by the administrators at serversoucing.

free Red Hat = fedora?  Perhaps so, but I wouldn't recommend that for a production deployment.

Use Centos which is a community rebuild of a certain North American Linux distribution.  You can use the version which is the equivalent of the current install.  Centos 4.3 is the equivalent of RHEL 4 Update 3 for example, see http://www.centos.org

Buy the Linux Quick Fix Notebook, which is Fedora oriented but the instructions apply to Centos as well
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periwinkle,

Nice treatment you gave the question.  The reason we contemplated in house is because we have a database of large images (3000* 350MB).  To upload an image of that size through a php webpage via an html form could be a problem. For example we would need a very large hard drive.  How about that?
That's a lot of data.

Why would you upload those images through a PHP webpage?  Why not use FTP to upload?

However, for that much information to upload at one time, might it make sense to make arrangements to deliver in another way, such as providing a cd/rom, or even a secondary harddrive that could be temporarily hooked up and offloaded?

Alternatively, why not colocoate?  You could preload the data on the computer, and provide to the hosting company?
periwinkle,

it's an existing web application to manage info on inventory where images (1 for web page and another larger 50MB for print) can be uploaded. They now want to upload a 350MB image. For simplicity to the end user it would be ideal to keep the same interface for uploading this image.