O/H Grant Peel ΞΞ³Ο�Ξ±Ο�Ξ΅:
Hello,
I do use Webmin/Usermin for User front ends and Admin back ends, but
I doubt
these will come into play with MS.
I prefer sticking my hands in the console rather than trusting a third
party GUI to do the job for me. I've seen some horrors with webmin so I
just avoid it. Yes, in windows you have a generic application (microsoft
console) that handles various pluggable configuration GUIs. You can have
multiple views of such GUIs but despite my experience I rarely find them
intuitive.
Question 1:
Dell offers many of thier server with MS Server 2003 pre loaded.
On our BSD servers, we offer:
Web Serving (Apache)
Email SMTP and POP (Exim and vm-pop3d)
MySQL
PHP
PERL
Modified Usermin (for the domain owners to manage thier pieces of the
server).
and all the necessary supporting libraries.
Windows 2003 Server Small Business, offers
IIS for web serving
Exchange server for email and collaboration
MSSQL
Installing PHP will not be a problem
Installing Perl will not be a problem
Terminal Services (RDP) in administration mode allows two administrators
to log in concurrently, using remote desktop connection.
It is also cheaper than Windows 2003 Standard edition but has some
drawbacks (which I hope are fixed by now).
a) you have to promote it to domain controller or it will start
rebooting automagically after some weeks
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Windows_Server_2003/Q_21930609.html
b) you are limited to 75 users accessing the Active Directory services
(irrelevant)
c) �Exchange Server 2003 Computer Takes Longer Than You Expect to Shut
Down�
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/829361
Question 2:
If any of the MS equivalent software does not come with 'Server
2003', what
ones are they, how do you get them?
Answered above
Question 3:
I have never understood MS licensing scheme.
How true
What does this '5 CALs' by default mean? In order for hundreds of
domains to
be on the (MS) server, doe we need to get hendreds of CALs?
AFAIK, [5 CAL] means five client access licenses and it refers to
accessing shared resources (folders/printers/active directory services).
You'll find that windows Xp home allows only five network computer to
connect to its resources and windows xp pro allows ten. This has nothing
to do with web serving because simply the clients connect and access
information anonymously.
Question 4:
Does IIS come with the Front Page extentions still? or is everything
Share
Point now? Does one need to purchase them seperately? Can they coexist on
the same machine?
I do not know about the frontpage extentions. Sharepoint services is
more like a collaboration website where a team of people can oganize
their work ( documents of office XP and above, uses document revisions
too). Office 2003 supports Sharepoint services directly, opening and
saving files directly to the website. Office XP has reduced
functionality compared to 2003.
Question 5:
Is the DNS setup (my servers - ns1 and ns2 are located locally), easy -
seamless?
Yes, the GUI is included. :) Although you will have to fiddle arround to
find your way.
Question 6:
Does Server 2003 have the ability to configure the NIC with multiple IP
aliases? (i.e. can each domain in the MS server have its own IP?).
This is from memory, but all domains share the same IP unless they are
SSL enabled which requires a separate Ip address.
Question 7:
Can IIS handle multiple domains (i.e. like Apache virtual hosting).
Yes
Question 8:
Does IIS handle SSL? same certs and keys as Apache?
It does handle SSL but I haven't been into the webhosting business so I
don't know much. The only thing I would expect, is to have separate
certificates for separate websites (the obvious, but like I said I never
hosted websites).
Question 9:
Does it come with an FTP Daemon of some type? if no, can proftpd be used?
Yes and it is known to work well despite its limited configuration.
Proftpd is *NIX only as the developer website clearly states. I wouldn't
trust a windows port of proftpd anyway :)
Overall, Windows 2003 small business is cheap and you can test it for
your self. Your company, in its course of evaluating services will
afford it. However there are other not well known versions of windows
2003 servers, namely the Windows server 2003 Web Edition for web hosting.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/overview/web.mspx
See a comparison of windows servers here
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/features/comparefeatures.mspx#Web%20and%20Application%20Services
--
RTFM and STFW before anything bad happens
-
Thanasis Rizoulis
Electronic Computing Systems Engineer
Larissa, Greece
Linux User #358384
FreeBSD/PCBSD user
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