I have been a windows host for the past 10 years. I will be adding my first Linux server (Red Hat 4 ES enterprise / apache) and I have some basic questions before I start he OS install and select a user/client control panel for this box.

Basic Linux questions:

Red Hat appears to have a nice install routine (anaconda) which gives selectable options. One of which is firewall. Should this be disable on a Linux http server or should http be selected after enabling firewall?

How much (or little) should I install of Red Hat. I assume that a web based user/client hosting control panel will be used to do most of the configuration changes so is it necessary to install a GUI on the server (i.e. how basic an OS install is "typical" for a Linux HTTP web server)? The server is 1 node of a supermicro 6015TW (clean install on new hardware) and it has IPMI / KVM over LAN so will I need the Red Hat GUI to remotely interface with the server?