The Server Soon Will Live!

The parts I’d ordered arrived today! What does this mean? Eventually I’ll have a new server box.

Upon beginning the installation of RedHat 9 tonight, I’ve been encountering problems namely with the video refresh/resolution. After some time, I got that problem fixed, but then (after going through the package selection process several times) the system first hung up (first attempt), and then (on successive attempts) would return fatal errors when installing random packages.

As I actually did run the media test, this surprises me. I will perhaps have to try a different CD-ROM drive, as it seems like it could be something of that nature. Although, as an alternative, I could install the bare minimum stuff and manually install packages with RPM (which might not be a terrible idea after all).

But I realized shortly after beginning this endeavor that more in-depth planning would be necessary. Namely, which services am I moving to the new server box? Which are staying on the old box? Do I want the new box to be the gateway machine?

My initial plan was to move most every service to the new box and use it as the current server/gateway box, leaving the old server as a backup machine just for storing and making backups.

However, my plan now is to probably do something like this:

• Install new 10/100 NIC in existing (old) server, configure, and remove one of the old 10bT cards (replaced by the new 100bTX).
• Set up new server with most services (yet TBD). This would include everything currently on the existing server box, with the exception of the ipchains/iptables stuff and possibly time service.
• Get services configured and working correctly. This will include complete dictd support (no more querying), DNS and DHCP, amongst others I’ve left out.
• Make last backup of configuration files necessary for the existing server.
• Wipe & reinstall existing server with RedHat 9, installing bare minimum features and only configuring iptables, time, and whatever else I feel needs to remain public.

The entire purpose of having a second server box (aside from the significant gain in speed) is to keep private things private…and minimize the number of ‘holes’ in to the network. Furthermore, I’m hoping to build a more robust firewall this way.

But, this is a journey just begun…

This post was upgraded to the MZ Online Blog on 8/20/07