Have a little headless IBM celeron out the back not doing much I got really cheap. Unfortunately it has on board video and no AGP/PCIe slot for a better video card, so gaming is out. Thus came the birth of my own in house server again.

The last server was a twin PIII 450. I still have it with its 3, 8Gbyte wide SCSI HDD, although it has not had power to it for some time. It is sitting next to my happy little Pentium Pro 150 Server ... That still runs.

This time though, I wanted to do a bit better. The last one was just basic storage and a dial up gateway, fairly simple in its task, and it did it for 6 years. 1998 to around early 2005 when we got ADSL in our sleepy little town of Yallourn North.

There was a little article/blog in Tech Republic of a chap who was trying to build a Linux version of the Microsoft Home server. With quite a few features, I thought I'd have a go. But I do have some skills in Linux, so I wont say this is for the beginner, but if you are, I hope my info may help.

First, what are the parameters of the task, and what is this server going to do

Parameters.

Well because this system has limited hardware, such as the video card issue, I was not worried about TV out stuff, which will have the same impact if I used Microsoft. Next, all software used must be Open Source and/or GPL ... as in Free. This is a distict advantage of Linux, and should out way, to a certain degree, ... the pain of setting up. Down side is ... what software to use. This is one advantage of selecting the commercial product out of the box. No development, minimal learning curve .. etc.

Server Task.

1. Web hosting

2. Email hosting

3. Backup repository

4. Video Streaming on local network. Maybe TV streaming with the last available PCI slot.

Minor stuff but more technical.

DNS, DHCP and wireless security, SSH, VNC, Backups.

Next article .... The software chosen for the first part.