Server for small office scenario

[woodchipper]

We have a small office with 4-5 computers and would like to set up a machine to act primarily as a file server. Most of the desktops are using windows.

What would I need in terms of a computer to handle file server capability and would we be able to also host our web site from that same machine?

Thanks.

[hictio]

We have a small office with 4-5 computers and would like to set up a machine to act primarily as a file server. Most of the desktops are using windows.

What would I need in terms of a computer to handle file server capability and would we be able to also host our web site from that same machine?

Thanks.

Samba, I guess will be enough, for the file server.
For the webserver, you'll need Apache, the web server.
Are you planning on hosting what type of web site on the box, say, a public website of you company, or it'll be an internal website, accessible only from within you office?

[woodchipper]

It would be a public website.

Recommendations on hardware?

[hictio]

Leaving the hardware aside, at least for the moment, I wouldn't mix those two services on the same box.
Think that the files'll be on the same box that it is accessible over the internet.

[lykwydchykyn]

It would be a public website.

Recommendations on hardware?

You don't need powerful hardware for something like this, though it depends some on how much traffic you get on the website.

The biggest thing is having a reliable piece of hardware with some redundant systems and RAID. What's your budget?

[v1ad]

yes think of the budget, if its only a network area storage, look into NAT's and the file server you can just host off bluehost or something for 4 bucks a mo

[HermanAB]

A simple website doesn't take much resources. You can do everything on one machine, but it can become a maintenance head-ache.

So I would suggest that you install Virtualbox or VMware Player and make a virtual machine for the web server, another VM for Email and a third one for Samba, just to keep things separated. The other advantage is that when things grow and you need more computing power, it is easy to move a VM to another machine.

If you are really lazy, then you can download preconfigured VMs from the VMware web site for all of these.

[waloshin]

yes think of the budget, if its only a network area storage, look into NAT's and the file server you can just host off bluehost or something for 4 bucks a mo

I just set up my website a couple of days ago and almost everyday I am getting cpu throttled.




Also Bluehost has high cpu load too.



And it seems mysql is using 96.4% cpu time.

[v1ad]

o that i didn't know, thats terrible, then i would go with HermanAB's advice.

[zaphod777]

A simple website doesn't take much resources. You can do everything on one machine, but it can become a maintenance head-ache.

So I would suggest that you install Virtualbox or VMware Player and make a virtual machine for the web server, another VM for Email and a third one for Samba, just to keep things separated. The other advantage is that when things grow and you need more computing power, it is easy to move a VM to another machine.

If you are really lazy, then you can download preconfigured VMs from the VMware web site for all of these.

Virtual box is ok but I would recommend VMWARE ESXi
https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/ind...urce=hp&q=esxi
That way you can upgrade to ESX if needed later.

I would recommend one virtual server running a standard LAMP (Linux, Apache, MYSQL, PHP), and another one running samba.