Setup Linux environment from scratch

[jimm_1]

Hello everyone.

I have been asked to setup a Linux environment from scratch. I have a general idea of what components are needed (DNS,LDAP,Cobbler, Nagios) but I would like to have some document that I can refer to. Can anyone recommend a book or a white paper from HP ?

That would help if I could have some detailed documentation about an actual setup.

Thanks

[Matti_Kurkela]

This is an *extremely* open-ended question.

Is your Linux environment going to be a group of workstations, or servers? Or a group of embedded mini-systems controlling the timetable screens on all the railway and/or bus stations of a city, networked to receive updates securely over the Internet from a central system? Or a super-cluster for crunching numbers? Or a huge distributed Web service cloud, somewhat like what Google does?

All this and more can be done (and *has* been done) with Linux. Of course, the environment requirements and recommendations are going to be very different depending on what exactly you're planning to do.

It would be much easier to answer your question if you would provide a little more information about the planned size and uses of your environment.

Also, are you already familiar with some Linux distribution(s)? Which one(s)?

Cobbler will certainly cover (re-)installations, but if you are planning to process any significant amount of data, then you'll definitely want a backup solution of some sort.

MK

[jimm_1]

Hello Matti,

The Linux environment is going to be a group of about 30 servers, hosting various application and databases, the applications will process data and communicate with each others and also servers on the outside.

I am familiar with RHEL and HP hardware.
I plan to proceed with building the infrastructure following that order:
1. DNS
2. LDAP
3. Cobbler
4. Nagios
5. Backup

What kind of hardware (HP) would you recommend for those roles and should I have a standalone server for each ?

Thanks

[Modris Bremze]

No need for a standalone server for each service. DNS and LDAP should not be too resource-hungry, so hosting them together should not be aproblem. It all depends on the hardware, of course, but even adding Nagios and NTP should not be a problem.

Finding the magic how-to for all the services you need might be difficult. Finding guides on setting up separate services, however, should be pretty easy.

[Pieter 't Hart]

As you plan to deplay about 30 servers you may consider using some virtualization platform?

using some 4 physical (multicore/multicpu) servers you've got so much computing power you can possibly run all 30 servers as virtual machines.

Instead of needing to build redundancy in separate servers, you build redundancy in these 4 hosts.

Resources (cpu, memory) can be more flexibly devided between VM's than between physical servers.

[Kesava]

Since you have mentioned that you will be going for 30 Servers in total, I would prefer all to be virtualized by using multicore hosts (ESX). But again, you need to keep in mind the future growth of your application/db needs. Its not going to stop with 30 servers. Plan it accordingly.

*) I am running two nagios servers in total for my entire environment of around 3000+ clients. Nagios is very effective and 1 VM is more than enough with 1 cpu 2 gb memory.

*) NTP you can use the next router itself as the NTP device. You might need to check with your network admin

*) DNS, you havent specified is it going to be external or for your internal purpose. I would suggest to go with AD environment for this.

*) Backup, this depends on how the growth of your IT is going to be. Initially, I would suggest for a server connected with a tape library and you can use Omni for backup service.

*) For the DB servers, you might need additional storage. If ur IT can spend money, you can implement NetApp solution (which you can use it for backup too).