One Box to Run them All...

[O'Borg]

...and in the Darkness bind them.

I'm a Linux noob and I'm looking to consolidate the functions of two of my three Windows PCs into one single box. Thanks to the Read This First! thread I know I can get Linux equivalents of just about everything I've got on Windows, but I'm not sure if I can run the whole shebang off one box without it falling over into a heap.

What I need to do is run :

Proxy / Firewall App.
AntiVirus
File Server
Email Server
Backup Utility
Kazaa-type client
Office Apps
Email & Browser Apps

I've got 2 PCs I could use, an AMD Barton XP2500 with 512mb of ram or an AMD XP-64/3200 with 1 gig. Or I could dig out the old XP2000 with 2gigs of PC133...
64-bit Linux would be nice, as I paid for those extra 32 bits of processor so I'd like to use it before it becomes obsolete

[UgoDeschamps]

Hello

All these would be very easy to rin on a simgle machine.

I never personnaly recommend using any personnal application (Kazzaa type) on a server (mail or file) but if these server arent critical, its something any machine would be able to handle quite easely.

I would go for the machine that has most RAM, since none of these app require huge amount of CPU time but again, that personnal preference.

Hope this gives some direction...

[yourname3232]

Well, for the sake of simplicity and security it would be good to run the proxy/firewall on a seperate machine. That way you don't need to mess with advanced iptables rules. I suggust that your lowest powered machine you use as a proxy/firewall using something like smoothwall. Smoothwall is a distro made specifically for being a firewall/proxy. It was a web based interface and everything. You could run everything on one, but it would be much harder than just seperating the firewall.

[O'Borg]

Well, for the sake of simplicity and security it would be good to run the proxy/firewall on a seperate machine.

That's what I have at the moment with a Win2K box with WinRoute - does the job far better than any cheap hardware firewall/router I've tried.

I looked at Smoothwall some time ago, but it appeared to be stripped down so that all it could do was be a firewall, and IIRC the man behind the project was getting very upset with people trying to bolt extras onto it.
If my Proxy/Firewall box is going to run 24/7, I'd like to use it as a fileserver and/or mailserver too and reduce the number of machines I have running all the time.

Is there a forum here for Smoothwall?

[yourname3232]

I don't think so but if you have your heart set on one box to rule them all (I like your analogy) then you might want to look into ClarkConnect. It is a distro with just about EVERY network app I could think of. I am using it right now to do as you are tyring and I am happy with it. It is based on CentOS 4 so getting extras for it is easy too. Good luck.

EDIT: appearently the new version of Clarkconnect (4.0) becomes very expensive if you have more than 10 mailboxes. So if you have less than that then you can use the home version without any issues, but if you need more mailboxes then I suggust looking for the home version of Clarkconnect 3.2 and just add CentOS sources to keep it up to date.

Edit 2: Here you can download most versions of clarkconnect