I love Virtualmin!

[#1]

After using Virtualmin GPL for my VPS I decided to try it on my Linux server at home. It is so easy.
Install the Linux base system, CentOS in my case.
Run yum -y update
Download and run install.sh from the Virtualmin website.
A complete Linux Web, mail, ftp, dns server in a couple of hours. So much easier than doing everything through the command line like I did the last time.
I suppose it is cheating though but I don't care!

[#2]

man, whatever floats your boat.;D

[#3]

Just had a quick look at virtualmin .. and for someone on a linux platform that would be very useful
Like the integration with Webmin .. interesting to see what you think of it in a few weeks time..
adie:quote

[#4]

Its free and easy to install. It comes with Webmin and Usermin which are both very good. I have used Webmin before which is why I tried Virtualmin.
Basicaly I went round in circles for a long time trying to get mail and dns servers working properly on Linux until I tried Virtualmin which is why I like it so much.

[#5]

Sean, does the dns server run with a mysql backend or does it use zone files?
Also does the mail server simply send or does it receive too?
Currently I'm running a WAMP setup off a usb drive under WinXP. I have Apache 1.3, Mysql4, php4 and fakesendmail. I've got them all setup to run of dynamic file paths - IE no drive letter is necessary in the config files. On top of this the host OS is a virtual machine so I can move the entire setup over to another physical machine if I need to easily without reconfiguring it all. To add the icing to the cake I wrote some .bat files to install apache and mysql as services so that they run when the host os is booted (or as a VM resumed). fakesendmail is executed by php as and when needed silently so it does the same thing.
Unfortunately however I've hit a glitch.... I can't find a decent pop3 server which will run from a relative path and as a system service. As for a DNS server on windows with a database driven backend thats pretty near impossible. Reading your post however gave me another idea: I could run a LAMP setup instead using linux in a VM which could then run everything - apache, php, mysql, sendmail, bind (with mysql) etc.
Any tips?

[#6]

The dns server is using zone files, quite new to dns servers but I will have to look into trying Mysql. May not use this machine for dns though. If I host dns elsewhere it means I can have backup MX records for my mail. That would give me peace of mind as I could take the server down whenever I wished without worrying about my mail going awol.
The mailserver receives also currently with a test email address that I have forwarded all my other addresses to. This is not a permenant setup as I have a new machine for this server to replace the existing dual P3. Just have to swap a couple of motherboards, hard disks around in different cases.
The new server will be:
P4 2.4Ghz
1Gb RAM
1 x 40Gb HDD
2 x 80 GB HDD (RAID 1)
Got most of it from a friend, not bad for the price of a couple of pints.
From reading your post it sounds like you have put a lot of effort into trying to turn a Windows XP machine into a Linux web server. I guarantee it would have been easier to install and use linux. (-:
All of the packages you are using are native to Linux and will run better on Linux not to mention the increase in performance and stability over a windows server.
You obviously have good knowledge of web servers so I cannot really give you any tips. Configuring Apache etc is pretty much the same on a linux server as windows.
If you have never used Linux before I personally recommend Centos for a web server although you will find countless threads debating different distros. Also take a little time to learn about the filesystem i.e. no drive letters etc as that is one of the confusing things when comming from Windows. It is much better when you get used to it.
And of course try Virtualmin as it makes it all easy. Don't rely on it though, it is good to have a selection of commonly used commands up your sleve. Don't install a graphical desktop as it provides absolutely no function on a server. Just do a basic install with no extras and virtualmin install script will install everything else you need.

[#7]

Don't know if you've heard of them but freedns is pretty good - http://freedns.afraid.org
Its free and you can update any dynamic IPs via a call to a special url or using other methods/programs. It's very handy and very reliable.
I personally would never run a DNS server on a large scale using zone files as when making amendments (EG A record IP's) you then have to restart bind and let it reload the files. Using a mysql back end the changes are instant as the server just queries the DB for the info it needs with every request. In reality it could check zone files with every request too but that wouldn't work for large scale dns servers.
Yeah I figured linux was the machine of choice for a webserver but unfortunately my knowledge of linux is awful! I have used it in the past but never really got to grips with it. Being a windows man I figured "in for a penny in for a pound" and went with a WAMP setup instead. The windows machine I'm using is purely used for programming and running the webserver. No other uses so stability wise it's pretty solid. In the future I intend to use a dedicated machine just for the purpose of hosting and not sharing my programming machine. Heck I've got enough redundant machines laying around here but at the moment I've not really managed to motivate myself...
Must be said though, whatever OS I use to host it all it will definitely be used as a virtual machine. It certainly makes it far easier for crash recovery (IE hardware failure). Just copy the VM to another machine with a player installed and boot it up again!