Help configure a server

[adapa]

Hi All,

My professor has an IBM X Series 236 with SuSE Linux Enterprise Edition 10.1. It has 3GB RAM & 300GB disk space. He wants to me to setup the following system for him.

He is authoring couple of book with the help of his colleagues and students who are spread all over US who would be working on separate sections of these books.

**He wants all of his co-authors and students to be able log onto this server and upload their contributions (additions or edits) on a continuous basis.

**He wants to be able to track their progress.
** He does not want any one to download any of the material from this server .

** He wants to give access to the users only only to the sections they are working on (users should not be able to any other sections of the books other than theirs....he is afraid if some one steal his material)
** Users should be able add their contributions to the server and then log off.

** Most of these users are using Windows XP or 2003 and MS Word and they are not technically savvy.

Currently they are exchanging the material through emails and its been too stressful and time taking to monitor all the sections and different phases. And he feels that exchanging by emails is not secure....so SECURITY is one of his MAIN CONCERNS.

PLEASE HELP ME WHERE TO START, HOW TO START & DESIGN THIS SYSTEM CONSIDERING EFFICIENCY, SECURITY & given short time to develop.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

have a great day,

-adapa

[gogalthorp]

I'd recommend a SVN server. This would allow complete tracking of all changes in the project. I use SVN for collaborative software development and it is great. But I use a server that was setup else where thus I only know about the clients. I use RapidSVN on windows and kdeSVN ( comes with Suse) on Linux though I believe there is a RapidSVN version for Linux also.