In general I follow making swap space at 2 times to 4 times the actual RAM. That gives enough space for the swap and leaves room for growth should more RAM be added at a later date. Since SWAP is just using some hard drive space, even at 4 times, you'd only lose 16 GB of disk space which is a trivial number these days.

With only 4 GB RAM, you won't gain anything in using 64-bit vs 32-bit, as all the RAM is addressable under 32-bit. If this is server is for production use, I would use the 32-bit i386 version as it has been the longest and is the most deployed version.

Using a RAID 10 array, the file system sizes and space requirements are not really going to effect performance. You should consider how you may want to maintain the server and possibly upgrade it. For instance do you want a separate file system and mount point for the database? Having it on a separate mount point may allow easier moving of the file system to other drives (on that server or on a different server over the network.) Will separate file systems make backup/restore easier?

As for specific software you have already chosen Apache, Mysql, etc. Other software choices you make will depend on how comfortable you are in installing and maintaining the server. You can do virtual mail with the installed sendmail, but often administrators find that not the easiest to maintain. I would recommend you install the base OS first, then add the additional applications from the ports.

As for which FreeBSD version, look at the end-of-life for the versions:
http://www.freebsd.org/security/
I would go with 6.X and expect to move to 7 when it is released.

        -Derek

At 11:39 PM 11/8/2006, VeeJay wrote:
Hello There,

I wonder if someone from you could spare few minutes and share your
knowledge with me.

I love FreeBSD and use it time to time but I think I am still novice.

I have got an assignment to build a Multi-Task web server.

GOALS:
A Multi Task Web Server for Virtual Hosting running Apache, MySQL, ProFTP,
Mail Program, etc. All on this server. Traffic expected 100,000 visits a
day.

.Ideal Space required for MySQL DBs: 140GB.
(Contents: Many MySQL databases backing name based virtual websites)

.Ideal Space required for Virtual Hosted Websites: 140GB
(Contents: HTML, PHP, Images, Mail, Logs, Sites Backups, etc)

Maximum space required for SWAP to get high performance.


HARDWARE:
1 dell rack server with:
2 x Dual Core Intel(r) Xeon(r) 5160, 4MB Cache, 3.0GHz, 1333FSB
4 GB FB 533MHz Memory (4x1GB dual rank DIMMs)
4 x 146GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15.000 rpm Hard Drives (hot plug)
RAID 10 using PERC 5/i, x6 Backplane, Integrated RAID Controller Card
Intel(r) PRO 1000PT Dual Port Server Adapter, Gigabit NIC, Cu, PCIe x4
etc.


Questions:
1. Which Version of FreeBSD will be the best choice and would be 32bit or
64bit?

2. How can I get required Space when doing partition during installation?

3. What would be ideal SWAP space to get performance?

4. Which Mail Program is secure and easy to configure for Virtual Hosting?

5. What is the flow of installation when preparing a machine for Virtual
Hosting? I mean which program should be installed first and how should they
setup (apache, ftp, mysql, mail) to talk with each other for a specific
virtual name-based host?


--
Thanks!

BR / vj
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