RUNNING YOUR OWN SERVER ? windows ? linux ?

what server are you using?

[philooo]

I want to have my own server to run SMTP service and also have a place to backup and organize my files.

What do you think is the best platform ?
Windows NT ? XP pro ? or Linux based ?

I am absolutly a newbie on this, any help is appreciated.

Philooo

[chris_f]

I am running Win2k for my servers and XP for my PC. Your question is too broad for a detailed answer. Can you be more specific to what this machine will do.

Chris.

[EliteWeb]

Without saying which Operating System for a server is better I believe its based around comfortness in the enviornment you are working in. For instance you do not want to be put on a UNIX system when you have only used NT prior, it would be out of place.

If the comfort level is high then you have to decide if YOU will be running the server. By the title of the topic it states 'YOUR OWN SERVER' thus you need administrative skills under that OS.

Then you need to decide what the server will be used for, that will be what depends on what hardware you will use. At that point you can check to see if the hardware is supported by the operating system.

I use a nice slim server, one of those 1u rackmounts co-located at some huge Internet facility by the water (better bandwidth on the coast) running UNIX (Debian Linux) handling Mail, DNS, and web.

I chose this operating system because it was free and from my experience had better handling than NT for the uses I intended to utilize it for. I saved me hundreds of bucks by not using a operating system, all the softwares didn't cost me anything, the web server is the most supported one that I've used.

[txbakers]

I run a web hosting set up on W2K without a problem. I have a mailserver, ftp server, PERL, mySQL, remote admin and more. I run mostly ASP and ASP.NET now, though if I wanted to I could install TomCat and run JSP and J2EE.

I like the ease of administration and familiar interface.

No complaints.

[nobodyiswritingthis]

Why is it than whenever anyone asks this question, it's always which OS is better, rather than which Server Platform is better? It seems to me that as the years progress in the direction they have been, soon the OS won't matter at all. In fact, it can even be debated that this is already the case. So with that in mind, the rest of the issue is religion.

Religion you say?
Yes.

Since most major database platforms (and some of the minor ones as well, mSQL is a good example of this), and most scripting languages are now platform agnostic (including ASP to some extent), and bandwidth consumption is now more dependant on how you write your applications and web pages rather than the type of server you put them on, the only issue that's left to discuss is which do you prefer?

[littleman]

If you take seo seriously there is no substitute for apache.

[nobodyiswritingthis]

Okay,
I disagree.
I run a SEO service on a Windows 2000 box with MySQL and have had great results.
But what is your basis for saying that?

[nobodyiswritingthis]

Sorry about that,
It's late. What I meant to say was that my SEO service runs IIS 5, ASP/Vbscript and MySQL on the back end. I have a good portion of it (85 percent presently) automated, and it works marvelously. My target market is large data driven web sites for the most part, so maybe we're talking about two different things.

I fail to see how a server platform would make any difference if your programmers/optimizers know what they're doing.

[littleman]

What makes apache such a power house for seo work is mod_rewrite. Basically anything you want to do is possible with mod_rewrite and some imagination. For instance I could have all page requests default to a single script and then break down the request uri instead of having to have a long drawn out query string.

I could have some pages with .html extensions be a perl script and have other pages in the same directory be static. I could cloak without a cloaking script. And I do not need server administration level access to do any of this.

I am not saying it is impossible to do what you need to do to get good ranking is a microsoft environment, but it is always a lot more work.

[richlowe]

I use both Apache (on Windows 2000, red hat linux and freebsd) and IIS (on Windows NT 4.0 and 2000), and they are really functionally equivalent.

IIS is much easier for the novice as it is all gui based, but Windows 2000 costs a fortune (server version) in comparison. On the other hand, there are several excellent Gui's available for Apache which hide most of the complexity.

IIS has a far better security model (based upon NTFS, which is extremely flexible), but on the other hand, IIS has had a large number of security vulnerabilities of late requiring patching.

IIS does NOT have the equivilent of HTACCESS. You can, in theory, do it all in ISAPI filters, but those are a real pain to non-programmer types.

According to several reports that I've come across lately (from the Gartner group - a non-free report) IIS is more efficient than Apache. My own testing has led me to conclude the performance of the two is roughly the same for static pages.

Windows 2000 requires a bigger box than Apache.

Microsoft has worked hard on load balancing, so there are more options available for IIS and Windows 2000 for this than other operating systems.

IIS and apache both support CGI, SSI and PERL (ActivePerl on IIS is excellent). IIS natively supports ASP and I'm sure you could find PHP if you looked (I have not).

Both web platforms are rock solid stable. I have run apache servers which have stayed up for longer than a year without a reboot, and my IIS servers have run for years with the only rebooting required is the occasional service pack and security patch. Neither web platform (or OS for that matter) has even once crashed due to a bug.

IIS and Windows 2000 is a more "integrated" environment than Apache, since IIS is targeted specifically for the OS. This has the advantage that the GUI and controls of IIS look and feel the same as every other tool on Windows.

SMTP on IIS is primitive but functional. Apache does not support SMTP (sendmail), although it usually is provided on Linux and Unix boxes.

DNS on Windows 2000 is far, far superior to anything available on Unix or Linux. On the other hand, my experience with DNS servers indicates the best solution is a dedicated DNS application box.

There is NO difference as far as search engines are concerned between Apache and IIS (or any other web server, for that matter).

I'm sure I could write for hours and hours about this subject (and perhaps I will in an article on my own web site). Basically, IIS and Apache do the same thing. They have a vastly different design philosophy, however, and the underlying operating systems have even wider differences.

My experience is that Linux and Unix people prefer apache, and windows people prefer IIS.

To me, the choice of webserver really comes down to "what are you and your group comfortable with?" If your experience is with apache, linux or unix, then you probably want to stick with Apache. If your experience is with Windows, then you will probably be uncomfortable with Apache.

I've used both (and several others) and quite frankly, to me, it does not matter. Drop me on a server running apache or IIS, and I will feel at home.

Richard Lowe

[nobodyiswritingthis]

What an interesting perspective. I would not have thought to put it like that, but I did agree with most of your points. I am wondering if there is an unbiased comparison chart or the features between the two platforms. I'm curious the see points of contrast.

[richlowe]

I've been thinking about putting one together. It would be interesting...

Richard Lowe