On Tuesday 28 March 2006 03:59, Yves Glodt wrote:

> Myles Wakeham wrote:
> > I'm in the process of evaluating platforms for deploying a large scale
> > PHP4 application with FB 1.5, and I'm tempted to install this on Linux
> > rather than Windows. This is a colocated solution that I believe would
> > be easier to manage on Linux.
> >
> > With that said, I'm no Linux expert. I have installed and managed UNIX
> > systems before, and have a small Linux system installed at my home. But
> > this will be on a commercial grade server that I have to build and ship
> > to my colocation facility for production deployment. I know that I won't
> > really see much of a difference with PHP applications, and my main
> > development environment for this is Zend and Dreamweaver. So I'll do all
> > my development as normal on Windows, and simply ship up the files to the
> > Linux server.
> >
> > But what I'm looking for are some tips as to where the best Linux
> > discussion groups are for Linux server security, management, maintenance,
> > etc. Also any tips for FB on Linux (although I have installed that
> > before without any major issues), and what the best distros would be for
> > PHP & FB on Linux. I'm leaning towards Fedora Core 5, but I'm not sure if
> > this application would benefit from RedHat Enterprise or not.
>
> Hi Myles,
>
> speaking of distributions I would recommend debian sarge, for the simple
> reason that it comes with all you need out-of-the-box. It has apache
> 2.0.54, php 4.3.10, and firebird 1.5.1.

Not to start a holy war, but I like Gentoo myself. Both Gentoo and Debian have
nice package management systems, but I like gentoo better, because the
packages are compiled with exactly the options we want.
There is the compilation argument, some say it's ricing, others claim a real
improvement and blah blah, but in a production server you won't really push
the optimization options, as it could make it less stable. The good thing is,
like I said before, the option of tailoring the packages with the features we
want, without the useless cruft.
It takes some time getting used to portage though, especially when you have to
update the files on /etc after a package upgrade.
Regardless of the distro, you must pay close attention to security updates.

>
> These versions might sound a little outdated, and I agree... So
> depending of when your server will have to be ready, you could even head
> for the upcoming (release june 6) ubuntu dapper, or even the upcoming
> (no date known) debian etch.
>
> Fedora, as most other distributions, suffers from not shipping firebird
> and nor php-interbase extension, that's why I would discourage using it
> in this special case, except if you want to live with the charge of
> compiling at least the php extension by yourself. this pf course is not
> a big problem, but be aware that each security update for php will need
> you to recompile the extension.
>
> As for FB on Linux, I have seen no distro shipping amd64 builds so far.
> I would try to get an good SMP machine, and opt for a 32 bit
> installation of the OS, and use firebird-classic.
>
> Best regards,
> Yves
>
> > Anyone care to suggest some good reference sites, books, etc. so that I
> > can research this deployment?

A few basic links with important information:

www.tldp.org - The Linux Documentation Project
http://lartc.org/howto - Will get you started on iptables and firewalls, and
QoS too

> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Myles
> >
> >
> > ============================
> > Myles Wakeham
> > Director of Engineering
> > Tech Solutions US, Inc.
> > Scottsdale, Arizona USA
> > Phone (480) 451-7440
> > www.techsol.org