Administration on Systems w/ Lots of Users?

kidlinux asks: "Since I started using Linux I've relied mostly on documentation to learn how to use any given aspect of the system. Up until now, I've been used to setting up systems for myself and a few of my friends. I have recently been hired to setup a system which will have 100+ users. Some will have shell access, some email only, some web access, etc.. When setting up a system for vast amounts of users, are things done differently? What kind of things do I need to consider when configuring the system? Is there any documentation available for setting up large scale systems?"

Comments

Clarifications...

[ameoba]

A few questions need be answered :

Do you want to make email-only users (IE not allow shell access), or are you just expecting some users to limit their use to just that?

What is the intended purpose of this? Is it a money-making venture, or more of a communal-access project?

What do you plan on ppl using their shell accounts for? Interactive access involving compilers &C can create a whole world of headaches.

A few ideas for you to consider...

Disk quotas & process caps are useful in preventing users from using all available system resources (not to mention how a single fork-bomb can ruin an admin's day).

If you plan on having different types of accounts, write scripts to automate account creation proccess. (knowing/learning a scripting language will pay off big).

Resist the urge to run bleeding edge software on the machine. OTOH, you have to keep up w/ security patches.

If you have any say in the hardware the machine is on, spring the extra cash for good hardware. SCSI drives (SCSI pays off bigtime when you have many different users trying to access the drive. ECC RAM is another good idea. "Server-Grade" hardware will usually last longer & be less prone to failures.

Logs, Logs, Logs. Make sure to keep good logs & have a good log-rotation process in place. Not only will they help you identify security problems, but they can be useful for debuging the system (and if you feel like putting the work in, identifying the actual usage paterns of the system to streamline/optimize the system for what it's really being used for)