Cent OS for mission Critcal server

datchcha

Forum,
I am new to linux, and wanted to know if CentOS is a wise choice for a mission critical servers? Thinking about using CentOS and running Samba for a datastore server.

Thank you

sthomas

There are people on this forum that can answer this question better than myself but I am going to say yes I think it would be a good choice for a mission critical environment. CentOS is pretty much the same as RHEL without the name and support. But to each their own.

datchcha

sthomas wrote:

There are people on this forum that can answer this question better than myself but I am going to say yes I think it would be a good choice for a mission critical environment. CentOS is pretty much the same as RHEL without the name and support. But to each their own.

thanks

Slowhand

CentOS should be just fine for a production (mission-critical) server. Just as with any software, it's important that you make sure you install and configure it properly, but I know from experience that there are lots of companies out there, including ISPs and television stations, that use CentOS for their servers. The only real difference between using CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Server is that Red Hat provides service contracts with their software, so you can get help from them when you run into issues. With the free software, you're on your own.

Hope that helps, and good luck with your server.

rfult001

CentOS = Excellent choice!

We use this for several departments here at the university too.

datchcha

Slowhand wrote:

CentOS should be just fine for a production (mission-critical) server. Just as with any software, it's important that you make sure you install and configure it properly, but I know from experience that there are lots of companies out there, including ISPs and television stations, that use CentOS for their servers. The only real difference between using CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Server is that Red Hat provides service contracts with their software, so you can get help from them when you run into issues. With the free software, you're on your own.

Hope that helps, and good luck with your server.

Thanks alot....this is really good info.

remyforbes777

Not sure if you can use Samba for a datastore server. Are you using it for VMware ESX?

dynamik

remyforbes777 wrote:

Not sure if you can use Samba for a datastore server. Are you using it for VMware ESX?

Why not? That's just standard SMB/CIFS. He'd just have to enable NFS if he wanted to use it for ESX. CentOS would still be a good choice.

remyforbes777

Dynamik,
I think you are misunderstanding what I am trying to say. I was asking if he was using it for a datastore in the VMware sense? If he was, then Samba wouldn't work, he would have to use NFS in order to store his datastores on the server. I know what Samba and I know its just SMB/CIFS. CentOS is an excellent choice. I use it at home as well as at my place of employment.

datchcha

I would like to use it as a database store as well, but i am not using VMWare - will be stand alone CentOS system with no windows os on it.

would it be a wise idea to build my datapartition in NTFS if it plan on saving data across platforms? Not very familure yet with Samba, and the capabilities for the software.

thank you,

undomiel

Samba uses CIFS for sharing data across the network so it doesn't matter what file system you use for your Samba shares as any Windows machine will be able to access it.

remyforbes777

Ok, then yeah you could definitely use CentOS. When you said datastore I immediately thought VMWare because that's what they call the repositories for holding their vmware machines. Database store is a totally different deal. Samba would work great for that.

dynamik

Just remember that you won't be able to use NTFS permissions.

undomiel

Actually you can use NTFS permissions in a way. You need to enable ACLs for the file system and make sure they're enabled in Samba. Then Samba can map NTFS permissions to Unix permissions.

datchcha

undomiel wrote:

Actually you can use NTFS permissions in a way. You need to enable ACLs for the file system and make sure they're enabled in Samba. Then Samba can map NTFS permissions to Unix permissions.

This is excellent...this is what i want to do....

The best, thank you all....
Cheers!!!

Slowhand

There's all kinds of things you can do with Samba, including authenticating Linux/Unix/Mac clients to AD, (with some limitations and hoop-jumping). If you're looking for a little extra help, check out a book that I've bent the spine on quite a bit: Using Samba, 3rd Edition

undomiel

Slowhand wrote:

There's all kinds of things you can do with Samba, including authenticating Linux/Unix/Mac clients to AD, (with some limitations and hoop-jumping). If you're looking for a little extra help, check out a book that I've bent the spine on quite a bit: Using Samba, 3rd Edition

I'll second him on this one as well. +1!