knoppix as a server

hello, all. I recently had a bad experience trying to set up a BSD server (FreeBSD to be exact), and am hoping for a friendlier alternative in Knoppix (basically debian). I am more comfortable with DOS, but am reasonably competent in SH/BASH. I have one smallish disk with 3 paritions [one NTFS with win2k pro, one blank one, i think its NTFS (this is where koppix will go), and one smaller partition for swap], and a larger 40 gb disk for the server root (plus some swap). cPanel should work with knoppix, as its basically debian. Anyway, thats not my question(s). My question(s) are:

a) What is a good way to go about installing Knoppix to my hard drive, but retain the ability to boot in Win2k?

b) Knoppix does have a wget command, right?

c) is Knoppix/Debian a viable option for a webserver? If not, what other linux distros might be?

I am new to these forums, so if this is a duplicate thread, please direct me to it. Thanks in advance.

just thought i'd add that, the reason i was tending to not like my BSD install was that X11 (kde, gnome, etc.) would freeze the computer when trying to load... however, you can run knoppix on dead badger, so no worries there.

If you can run knoppix cd, that you can run it from hdd. :D
a) I would go with Debian like installation:
open konsole:
su
knoppix-installer
I would choose lilo to install to mbr. If anything is wrong and you can't boot Win2K, you can repair it with fdisk /mbr. Ussually lilo will detect your Win2k.

b) Yes knoppix comes with wget

c) Knoppix can run as webserver or any server you want. For webserver, knoppix comes with apache, mysql and php.

Read more on how to create partition, especially the above Doc tab.
:D

shah, what version of Knoppix are those intructions for? Does it matter? I have 3.4, but its really not a problem to get a different version.

3.4 and above. I'm using kanotix, it less painfull. A new release of kanotix just out, equivalent to knoppix 3.6. You might want to check it out. The command for installing kanotix is: kanotix-installer. :D :D

what format should i use for the partition i am installing knoppix on? ext3? ext2?

ext3 or reiserfs.
ext2 has no journaling function, which means risc of dataloss by accident (power-off) is greater, and integrety-checks take longer.
There are even more possibilities, but I didn't try them, and don't know much of them (xfs, ...)

Agree with user unknown.
What I know, knoppix 3.4 will use ext3 eventhough when you select ext2, it will later format it ext3.
I used reiserfs because kanotix has that option. I had several power loss ( black out), accidental switch-off, and I don't have problem with data loss.

It's better for you to create partition first before start with installation. It's better for you to use partition manager that you familiar with ex:partition magic. You can do this from your W2K. Delete those two blank partition so you will have single blank partition. Then from there split it into ext3 and linux swap. This way you will avoid from using extended logical drive partition (dos) that might cause a problem later.

Knoppix do come with qtparted. Actually it wiil detect if you haven't create partition yet and will open qtparted.

My suggestion is to create linux swap partition: at least 250MB
The rest is for knoppix.
:D :D :D :D

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Delete those two blank partition so you will have single blank partition

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This single partition need to be deleted too ( or it will still hook to extended partition by dos ). Only leaving free space. Then create two partition (swap & ext3).

Sorry for the mistake above. :D :D

just an update: I performed a debian-like install of Knoppix to HD, and it works great. LILO even loaded win2k on the first try! I'm so proud. It's server config time.

Here's a question: I've got Knoppix 3.6 HD installed. Since I'm behind a router, how should I go about configuring Knoppix/KDE to use 192.168.1.1 as a gateway to the Internet?

Yes you need to configure your gateway to your router ip. It can be done using network card configuration utility under knoppix icon or manually edit /etc/network/interfaces. Another thing to check is /etc/resolv.conf, this is where your DNS server name reside. Some ISP need you to set their dns so you can surf net.

To run apache, run this command in root konsole : /etc/init.d/apache start.
To start apache on every boot automatically, run in root konsole: update-rc.d apache default
To remove apache from every boot: update-rc.d -f apache remove
Your webpages should be in /var/www by default, only root has access to this directory. You can change this default directory to somewhere else by editing /etc/apache/httpd.conf.

To make live easier while working in kde, you might want to install service menus. I would suggest, Open as root, it makes it easier you to access folder as root. You can get it from http://www.kde-apps.org/

Thats about it. :D :D :D :D

one last linux noob question: i set up my swap partition in PartitionMagic and formatted the target partition as Ext3 in PartitionMagic as well. Now that it's HD installed, is there anything special i have to do to "activate" the swap, or does it do that by itself automatically? (the swap is on 'hda3')

Swap partitions are different.

I didn't use partition-magic for years, but make partitions with fdisk, where I choose a number for a linux-swap from a list - I try to remember it as 83, while normal linux-partitions are 82 - but not sure.

For the swapdrive I then call

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mkswap /dev/hda3

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and finally

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swapon

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heres another question: when i enter:

mkswap /dev/hda3

it works just fine, but when i enter:

swapon /dev/hda3

i get this message:

swapon: /dev/hda3: Device or resource busy

is swap on? how do i tell if it is on? what does this error message mean?

P.S. Thanks everyone for your help thus far.

swapon /dev/something
isn't used, but

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swapon -a

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my suggestion (swapon solely) wasn't correct too.

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swapon -s

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shows if it's used.

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swapon: /dev/hda3: Device or resource busy

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Your swap partition being used by knoppix. Usually knoppix will autodetect swap partition and use it.
:D :D

thanks for the help, my knoppbox runs great now! I now have a few apache-related questions.

I've used apache before under Win2k Pro, but never before under *nix. I'm getting some weird errors when i start apache:

root@knoppbox:~# /etc/init.d/apache start
Starting web server: apache[Thu Sep 23 23:19:11 2004] [warn] module ssl_module is already loaded, skipping
failed

I am trying to run virtual servers. Could they be interfering in some way? Any other ideas?

Addtionally, does Knoppix come with an FTP server? If not, what's a good one, and where/how can I get it? Also, what about SMTP/POP3?

Quote:

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root@knoppbox:~# /etc/init.d/apache start
Starting web server: apache[Thu Sep 23 23:19:11 2004] [warn] module ssl_module is already loaded, skipping
failed

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I believed it has something to do with your httpd.conf, please check, maybe your path is wrong, maybe your virtual host.

I'm using kanotix, it comes with ftpd as ftp server. I think knoppix do comes with it to. Try : locate ftpd. A good one, I don't know.

Knoppix comes with smail. But I never use it. It's too complicated. I used xmail as my smtp/pop3 server.Plenty of filter to use. It's very good and easy to setup, plus they have good forum like this one.
xmailserver.org/
This is a good guide how to setup xmail;
http://www.ubaight.com/xmail/BeginnersGuide.html

For webmail, I use uebimiau, php based imap/pop.
http://www.uebimiau.org/

:D :D :D :D

type

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apropos ftp

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and you see ftp-related programs, with brief description, which should tell you, which of them is a server.