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Preconfigured Linux Servers for Sale?
a-singularity writes "I work for several small businesses and try to promote Linux and Open Source Software use amongst them. Several of them now use Open Office and have deployed Linux servers. Recently one of them acquired an InstagateEX2 for email serving. A Linux-running closed appliance, that does quite a few things including web serving. It doesn't, however, use MySQL which is something that their website runs. They can't configure a Linux server for themselves, and I don't have the security experience. Is there a place to buy preconfigured Linux servers that will run Apache, PHP, and MySQL out of the box?"
You mentioned that you had no security experience....
First things first - your database server should be behind a firewall. Databaases are big peices of software and it's unreasonable to assume that they are bug/exploit free.
Secondly - and importantly, consider using OpenBSD. It runs MySQL just fine, and importantly, it has good security built in. Instead of noodeling around with a Linux distribution to get it secure, with OpenBSD - you have to explicitly create the security holes yourself. It's no magic bullit but it's a good start.
If OpenBSD, for what ever reason, is not an option, I would still recommend you install Linux yourself - someone at your company needs to understand what it going on, and it looks like the learing experience would help.
If even that is not an option, get someone with Linux experience to do the install for you - it will be a better solution that buying a server and hoping it works out of the box. Someone needs to actually verify that the computer is working process wise, security wise and backup wise. And somthing form a box wont do that - you need sombody competent to verify.
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Most vendors will install Linux on a new system (IBM, Dell, HP/Compaq, etc). It sounds like you probably need RedHat, which just so happens to be the most widely used distro for pre-configured systems.
All you have to do is call one of those vendors (like Dell) and tell em what you need, and that you need Linux pre-installed and what you want with it. This is a pretty standard configuration for small (workstation class) servers. Anything bigger and you should really go with something like an RS/6000 which still has Linux support as well (if you don't wanna use AIX).
He didn't ask how, why, or where to get security experience. He didn't ask which Distribution was best, He didn't want to know anything more then his question. Where can I buy a preconfigured box with this on it. To answer your question I do not know of any off hand. But you may find several at http://dmoz.org/Computers/Hardware/Systems/Linux/
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