Which os for a webserver

[kopite]

Hi guys,

I am in the process of purchasing a dedicated server for hosting my websites and was just wondering what peoples prefered os is?

The list available from the hosting company is as follows

* Debian
* Ubuntu Server
* Open Suse
* Free BSD
* Fedora Core
* CentOS
* Gentoo
* Slackware
* Windows 2003 Basic
* Windows 2003 Pro


I have used debian on my current hosting but was curious what other peoples os of choice is?

Im going to be having a combined mail and webserver running EXIm for the email and apache, PHP and Mysql for the web browsing

[Moby-Dick]

well if you are going with xAMP for the hosting , a linux server would probably make the most sense.

if you where writing .net type code then go with windows.

otherwise its most likely down to what you are comfortable with.

[kopite]

ITs gonna a lamp server.

Im just interested in what other people use.

NAgios have a graph on their site showing the breakdown of different os`s and Redhat was top.

I have always used debian up till not but just wondering,.

[Jay]

I would use Ubuntu but thats just me.

[Moby-Dick]

Redhats dominance (relatively speaking ) is probably because it was available with commercial support packages ?

[kopite]

Thats a good point....

[TheAnimus]

if someone wanted to host with php and mysql (on the same box?!) i'd be looking at a BSD because its a better designed kernel imo.

But as a .Net bunny, if it was upto me entirely the whole system, it would be .Net on IIS under win 2k3.

If you had any load on it at all, the performance increase of .Net over PHP (even if it was just phlangered (the php to .Net compiler)) would pay for the windows license. Its worth noting you can run it under Mono on BSD/Linux too.

[TiG]

if someone wanted to host with php and mysql (on the same box?!) i'd be looking at a BSD because its a better designed kernel imo.

But as a .Net bunny, if it was upto me entirely the whole system, it would be .Net on IIS under win 2k3.

If you had any load on it at all, the performance increase of .Net over PHP (even if it was just phlangered (the php to .Net compiler)) would pay for the windows license. Its worth noting you can run it under Mono on BSD/Linux too.

Just to echo above. Only way i'd go too.

TiG

[Mutley]

OpenSolaris....

[-iceblade^]

if you're a current student you can hit up Dreamspark and get windows Server 2003 for free...

https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/

try that, or use some variant of linux

[peterb]

Personally I'd use a linux OS (doesn't really matter which one) and the latest version of Apache. You can run apache on a windows environment, but is is considered to be slightly less secure. Apache on Windows is considered to be somewhat more secure than IIS because of the way IIS interacts with the kernel, and has to start with system privileges - leading to a (small) risk of privilege escalation, but I don't know how open to exploitation that risk is. That may nor be true of the later versions Windows server worth while doing some research. The links/references below are agood starting point.

As with all applications of this sort - misconfiguration can negate all security measures, so you do need to examine the configuration very carefully. This is true regardless of the hosting OS.

If you aren't familiar with apache

Welcome! - The Apache HTTP Server Project

has lots of info. O'Reilly also sell a very good guide to Apache which also explains some of the potential vulnerabilities.

O'Reilly Media | Apache: The Definitive Guide available from Amazon

[kopite]

Im pretty comfortable using apache so thats not a problem. My current virtual server hosts about 10 websites with their own areas.

Its more the underlying part i`m interested in. As I said I have been using debian so far and Again I feel comfortable with it. i was just wondering if any of the other OS's out there offered anything over debian in terms of security etc

[peterb]

If debian and apache is what you are used to - and comfortable with - I would stick to that You could use Fedora and get to grips with SElinux extensions which has the potential to affer significant security enhancements (including policies to create multi-level secure systems) but that is a VERY steep learning curve, and again lots of scope for misconfiguration. (Its not something I have bothered with)

[TheAnimus]

Personally I'd use a linux OS (doesn't really matter which one) and the latest version of Apache. You can run apache on a windows environment, but is is considered to be slightly less secure. Apache on Windows is considered to be somewhat more secure than IIS because of the way IIS interacts with the kernel, and has to start with system privileges - leading to a (small) risk of privilege escalation, but I don't know how open to exploitation that risk is. That may nor be true of the later versions Windows server worth while doing some research. The links/references below are agood starting point.

As Appache is often set to run under a user with impersination privledges, its not immune. IIS has elements running in kernel mode for performance sake, but under 2008 this risk is reduced (not that one single exploit has been published) due to the vista style kernel.

if your really worried about security, you could try:
OpenBSD
thou don't belive the bullsh!t some people throw around over this project, its got its flaws just like everyone else. Fact is, its undenyably one of the best. (Plus BSD is just generally more advanced than linux in many ways, and with modern CPUs the performance hit is minimal, even so hello world is about twice the number of instructions!)