Chapter 1. Introduction

In the previous version of this document, I went all overboard on what to do when setting up a Debian server to my criteria.

Since then, my criteria has changed a bit. This is a summation of what is required/wanted from the server.

The server should do/be the following:

• Firewall

• DNS server

• Authentication server

• SMTP server (mail)

• FTP server

• DHCP server

• NFS server

• WWW server

• Database server

• Print server

There is not really any change in what the server must do. The big change is in what I will allow people to do, which is that I have limited other peoples login to only include FTP access.

That simple change massively simplifies any administration and setup of the server, since I no longer need to bother about setting up chroot jails, or worry about people getting to see things they shouldn't.

I have also relaxed the service requirements in this version. This means that I will be more dependent upon the firewall to do it's job properly. Mostly because in most cases I will decide on what ports/addresses a service answers based on how much trouble it is to configure the system to act other than the default way. In some cases the security risk is still to great, and the service is limited, even though it may involve a lot of work.

The order of installation is up to the reader, but as this document closely describes my experiences and choices in setting up the services, it is recommended that You follow the order in which this document is naturally read.

Just to give You something to lean against, My machine has the following basic configuration:

As is seen in the above table, I already have a DNS server, which is nice when I'm setting up the new machine. The new server will later take on the responsibility of being a DNS server to itself.

It can also be seen that I have omitted any kind of external network on the machine. This is because it does not yet have a secondary network interface. Later in the document I will be adding a virtual IP to the existing interface, so that a basic firewall can be configured.

The above described disk is 80 Gb disk, which means it's somewhat smaller, considering the manufacturers idea about what 1 Mb is.