Server setup hints

[Collins Richey]

I know there are lots of you on the list who can do this in your
sleep, so I would welcome some hints about a new project I've agreed
to take part in.

One of our local LUG participants is an Oracle employee and a member
of a local not-for-profit group that currently has a hosted Windows
IIS website with very pedestrian static Web pages. My friend would
like to setup a replacement Linux hosted site for them. Oracle and at
least one other big-time player is providing contributions to the
group, and the costs of a new "server" will be provided by a third
party.

The basics of the project are:

1. Setup a Ubuntu based server with Oracle database and tools. Initial
development will use the Oracle XE free tools, but Oracle will provide
a licensed version (goodwill and advertising, you know), and my friend
believes that he can persuade Canonical to cough up a Ubuntu service
contract as well.

2. Initially, the server will replace the Windows IIS static pages
with a Ubuntu server with dynamic webpages using the Oracle backend
and some Oracle tools.

3. Long term, we would like to provide a blog and other content
management stuff, but that's not needed for the additional cutover.

This will be an interesting learning opportunity for me, since I know
from nothing about Oracle and since I've never actually setup a
server.We have a few local heavyweights that I can turn to, but
Ithought this would make an interesting topic for linux-users.

Here's how you can help:

1. The actual Ubuntu server setup is a no brainer. I've already put up
a model on my home machine. 64-bit is out since the Oracle XE toolset
is 32-bit only. The Oracel XE tools go in just fine, and I'm including
a very minimal X and Firefox setup (not started as a rule) for local
checkout.

2. What would be the "best" partitioning setup in terms of moderate
performance (this will not be a barn burner site) and backup for the
server? I'm thinking about a Raid 1 mirroring  environment to provide
some recoverability? What do you think? How should the directories be
split up? Problems with grub in a failover environment?

3. We will probably be using a local Linux-friendly hardware provider,
but it's unlikely that the guy with the checkbook will go for a
front-line server with hardware raid controller, so this will be
softare raid. Probably a couple of moderate size IDE or SATA drives.
Since we don't know the cohosting requirements yet, we don't know
whether this will be a tower or rackmount box.

4.What about Intel vs. AMD for the server? We'll be runniing 32-bit,
but the AMD64 chips run just fine in 32-bit mode.

5.What about backup for this server? Perhaps the cohost facility will
have some sort of a backup scheme, but what should we do if that's not
provided. DVD burner? Tape is probably too expensive? Rsync to an
external site?

6. There will probably not be an external firewall, so iptables on the
server will be used. Shorewall? Firestarter? other suggestions? I
presume that I will make ssh key access available on a non-standard
port to facilitate remote maintenance.

7. What about blog and cms options for the future? Has anyone analyzed
any of these packages to determine how easy it is to convert to a
different database backend? It's doubtful that any of the packages
offer Oracle as a choice, so which ones have the database accesses
properly modularized such that you can easily replace the
MySQL/Postgres stuff with Oracle equivalents?

8. Any other gotchas you can think of?

-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.