FreeBSD On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 8:31 AM, Polytropon <free...@edvax.de> wrote: > On Sun, 04 Sep 2011 23:47:03 -0400, Pierre-Luc Drouin wrote: >> Hi, >> >> so I have a friend who is looking for the best OS for a web server, that >> allows to configure services (I guess HTTP, PHP, MySQL and web content) >> and do the OS maintenance (OS & package updates, firewall configuration) >> without having to touch a shell. I was wondering if something like >> PC-BSD + CPanel would be the way to go. Would there be other BSD-based >> alternatives? I always do upgrades and configure services through the >> shell and I am not aware too much about the GUI alternatives... >
FreeBSD and ISPCP do wonders and its not bloated like cpanel, source available and it just works, webmin is junk, and cpanel is resource intensive > There are webbased configuration tools that run on common > service combinations (like Apache + MySQL + PHP) that can > be installed. However _installing_ them requires a skilled > person who is able to administrate a server, which in turn > traditionally implies the ability to use the command line, > even if it's just for that "abstraction job". > > FreeBSD can be the OS running such a combination. > > PC-BSD primarily aims at desktop usage, so for example it > defaults to KDE, office applications, multimedia stuff and > all the things you traditionally won't want on a server. > > Software solutions that come to mind are CPanel or WebMin. > Maybe there are others? I'm not sure as I void those mostly > inflexible, error-prone, overcomplicated and dangerous > piles of bloat whenever possible. :-) > > For managing installed applications (ports), there are > KDE tools for that (at least _have been_ in the past, > not sure if they are still being maintained). The system > cannot be updated by a GUI tool (why should it?), but > it should be a job of max. 30 minutes to create a Tcl/Tk > GUI wrapper for those things. And firewall configuration: > I'm quite sure PC-BSD has something for that, except that > it probably won't give you the flexibility to automatically > change firewall rules depending on different kinds of > attacks the server will encounter. > > Please keep in mind: If you're running a web server, you're > part of the target group of thousands of "villains" across > the Internet who will happily exploit any weakness you are > presenting to them, depending on the services and software > you run. > > What's possible to run will also depend on what kind of > server you have. For example if you run a server without > any GPU, but PC-BSD depends on hardware-accellerated 3D > graphics for managing the firewall, then... you know. :-) > > There still is a question that your friend should give an > answer to himself: Wouldn't it be worth investing in basic > UNIX skills and command line operations to gain knowledge > and experience to professionally administer a server instead > of relying on abstracted layers of abstracted abstractions > that GUIs provide here, maybe paying with speed and security > loss? > > It's like driving a car; you _can_ pay a driver to drive > your car all the time, but maybe you should consider to learn > how to drive yourself. :-) > > > > -- > Polytropon > Magdeburg, Germany > Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 > Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org" > _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
