What server os can I get by with?

[johnspack]

I've been running a remote server in the states for many years now, but we are stepping it up. Just upgraded to a 10gb/s connection, and are getting ready to set up websites, gaming and teamspeak servers ect. It won't be too heavy at first. But I need a reliable os to handle the new, probably much higher traffic. Currently running win7 home, which plagues me constantly, I'm trying to convince the owner to upgrade to a server os, but he's complaining about the price. So what can I use that won't cost an arm and a leg that will make my life easier?

 

[Red_Machine]

Home Server 2011?

 

[johnspack]

Hmm, didn't think of that one!

 

[Red_Machine]

I have a spare license key for it if you can't find a copy anywhere. We can discuss a price in PMs if you decide it's suitable for your needs.

 

[johnspack]

Well it will be for commercial purposes, so I definitely will need a key. I may be pming you soon.

 

[Kursah]

I've been running a remote server in the states for many years now, but we are stepping it up. Just upgraded to a 10gb/s connection, and are getting ready to set up websites, gaming and teamspeak servers ect. It won't be too heavy at first. But I need a reliable os to handle the new, probably much higher traffic. Currently running win7 home, which plagues me constantly, I'm trying to convince the owner to upgrade to a server os, but he's complaining about the price. So what can I use that won't cost an arm and a leg that will make my life easier?

Go Linux server if want free and have time to learn it. It is a good way to go but can take a lot of time and headache to achieve the final results one would seek. Debian and Ubuntu Server are good places to start IMHO for those less familiar with Linux server environments. You might check out CentOS as well.

Go Windows Server 2012R2 or 2016 if you want a Windows server OS for a commercial environment. SBS and Home Server versions have restrictions that may or may not be an issue for you in a hosted environment, and generally I've seen more issues with those versions than not. But if you get a good deal or free on a key from above, go for it! It'll still likely be better than hosting those services on a Windows 7 Home installation.

Complaining about the price makes little difference if the owner is expecting enterprise-grade results. If he expects those results, he needs to pay for it, period. That's like buying a Fiat from 1970 and expecting it to run like the brand new La Ferrari.

You can however run Windows Server 2012R2 unactivated using a KMS key from Microsoft (Google "Microsoft KMS Key"), and it will allow operation and OS security updates. You will be somewhat limited on other product updates, and if your business faces a Microsoft audit, will be fined for not having a license or any CAL's for the environment you're in.

There are some registry tweaks you can make to Windows 7 (I believe Pro) that can allow it to be a better file server. Frankly I'd go with Server 2012R2, it's stable, aging well, and widely supported still.

I run 2012R2 Datacenter (key from my College IT courses years ago), and have about 8-12 VM's. I have Plex, TeamSpeak3, several Minecraft servers in one MineOS VM, website, OpenVPN, PFSense, WDS test VM's, etc. on various deployments. Some VM's are Server 2012R2, some are Linux Server. A good way to go is to setup Hyper-V and run your actual server that hosts your services as VM, then you can backup the VM to a NAS or at least USB hard drive, so if the physical "core" server kicks the bucket, you can spool up the VM on another physical server and get back up and running much faster.

You don't need a separate VM for each task or hosted situation, it might not hurt to split some of them up. I could run 3-5VM's in my lab environment to do all the things I do with 8-12.

Do you plan to host a domain environment as well?

 

[jaggerwild]

Doesn't STEAM offer an OS for running servers off of? Or your not running a steam game I assume? What about Ubuntu, or similar?

 

[stinger608]

@johnspack , if you are looking for a professional server OS and Linux isn't going to work, tell your employer that I have a Server 2012R2 Datacenter spare key.

If that is something he or she would be interested in, I'd make you a smoking deal on the key. PM if interested and we can discuss.

 

[remixedcat]

Server 2012 has been great. As for Linux based OSes CentOS is the best one. Most datacenters use it. That and RHEL.

If you need help with cpanel on cent let me know.

 

[johnspack]

Sorry, stupid server went down, teamviewer stopped working. I need rdp! I may pm you stinger shortly... I'm getting tired of this...

 

[stinger608]

Also, @johnspack , I just responded to your PM with an incredible deal from a pal of mine!!!!!!!

 

[johnspack]

Such a dam good deal! But he's cheap. And now I want the server under linux. Windows is so evil. I just hate windows so much now..... if I could just finish figuring out all the wine crap to
run all the windows servers... very close now too. I'm having so much fun with ubuntu, I keep forgetting I'm supposed to be learning crap for my boss.... but so close now.
Ubuntu really is fantastic, both as a client and as a server.

 

[StrayKAT]

Server 2012 has been great. As for Linux based OSes CentOS is the best one. Most datacenters use it. That and RHEL.

If you need help with cpanel on cent let me know.

Datacenters really use it? Not skeptical. Just surprised they wouldn't lean more towards Red Hat (for support).

 

[Solaris17]

Server 2012 has been great. As for Linux based OSes CentOS is the best one. Most datacenters use it. That and RHEL.

If you need help with cpanel on cent let me know.

Actually. The server market is dominated by Windows. Only certain things are Linux based and that usually falls to web hosting. Most of it is actually virtualized too. Not many of us install bare metal.

Here are the 2016 Stats for those curious. https://community.spiceworks.com/networking/articles/2462-server-virtualization-and-os-trends

EDIT: While CENT is used RHEL and SUSE actually make up most of the linux usage.

 

[notb]

Datacenters really use it? Not skeptical. Just surprised they wouldn't lean more towards Red Hat (for support).

CentOS is clearly not in top 3 most used and I doubt it would make to top 5, considering there are: Windows Server, RHEL (obviously), SUSE, Oracle Linux and - lately - Ubuntu Server.

Dell, Lenovo and HP by default won't even provide CentOS as factory-installed OS. Just the 5 above + hypervisors.

I don't see why any datacenter manager would replace an enterprise-level OS with a community-driven one. It basically means he's taking the risk on his team, so he would have to employ additional people and so on. Clearly, not a cheap option. And not the safest one.

 

[ShiBDiB]

ubuntu 16.04 or whatever the latest is.

Ubuntu is stable, has a shit ton of community support and guides out there. And it's free.

I know for a fact you can host websites, game servers (it's steam module is fairly easy to use as well), and TS/Mumble from it with ease. You can run it using the desktop platform but I'd recommend getting comfortable with the CLI and using that.

 

[Solaris17]

CentOS is clearly not in top 3 most used and I doubt it would make to top 4, considering there are: Windows Server, RHEL (obviously), SUSE, Oracle Linux and - lately - Ubuntu Server.

Dell, Lenovo and HP by default won't even provide CentOS as factory-installed OS. Just the 5 above + hypervisors.

I don't see why any datacenter manager would replace an enterprise-level OS with a community-driven one. It basically means he's taking the risk on his team, so he would have to employ additional people and so on. Clearly, not a cheap option. And not the safest one.

Pretty much. Risk assessment is that its a bad idea. Anything other then a plaything is payed for when services are on the line. Especially for a biz.

 

[StrayKAT]

CentOS is clearly not in top 3 most used and I doubt it would make to top 5, considering there are: Windows Server, RHEL (obviously), SUSE, Oracle Linux and - lately - Ubuntu Server.

Dell, Lenovo and HP by default won't even provide CentOS as factory-installed OS. Just the 5 above + hypervisors.

I don't see why any datacenter manager would replace an enterprise-level OS with a community-driven one. It basically means he's taking the risk on his team, so he would have to employ additional people and so on. Clearly, not a cheap option. And not the safest one.

Cool. I didn't know Oracle Linux was that accepted now though... but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

 

[remixedcat]

 

[notb]

Cool. I didn't know Oracle Linux was that accepted now though... but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Oracle Linux is very useful combined with Oracle DB. Nice tools for DB management, nice integration. It also makes Oracle's DB support a bit easier. And it's helping during audits as well.
Other than that, it's just a modified RHEL. So there's not much sense in getting it without the DB.

[cut]

Source:
https://news.netcraft.com/archives/...e-hosting-company-sites-in-november-2017.html
Still, I doubt this is useful for OP.
If you look at reports from previous 2 months, you'll see they're pretty random. I.e. this shows some 10 lucky winners from possibly hundreds of reliable providers.
And f course they don't inform which distro is used...

And some more statistics on this site can be found here (still hardly relevant in this discussion, but at least interesting ):
https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2017/10/26/october-2017-web-server-survey-13.html
It lists host engines and when you contemplate that most (including the leading Apache and nginx) can run on Windows - and they most likely do in some cases - it just shows how underestimated Windows position is. People tend to think it's just Linux out there.

 

[Solaris17]

View attachment 94917

No that’s hosting companies. Not data centers. In data centers you can choose what you are going to run. With hosting companies sometimes you get a choice of OS (all *nix based) but generally are just provided a control panel for managing it so teenagers dont need to know BSD to get there blog or minecraft server running. Hosting companies also save a ton on licensing fees this way. It’s cheaper. We are talking about doing actual work with servers though. Not hosting a blog and having "cpanels".

 

[johnspack]

Darn, so even linux servers, except Ubuntu, cost money. And looks like I have the choice between rhel and suse enterprise. Wish I could test out both to see which one works the best. Is there any kind of comparison distro I could try? Redhat based free distros don't exsist I don't think, and I have Leap, but that's not server.....

 

[Solaris17]

Darn, so even linux servers, except Ubuntu, cost money. And looks like I have the choice between rhel and suse enterprise. Wish I could test out both to see which one works the best. Is there any kind of comparison distro I could try? Redhat based free distros don't exsist I don't think, and I have Leap, but that's not server.....

Fedora or CENT are as close as you are going to get to RHEL

 

[johnspack]

Yeah, testing Fedora now, will grab Cent next. Also have reached out to Rh sales and will be phoning them for more info. Is having xserver running that bad on a server?
There are a lot of graphical apps that if I could run would make the server more usable....

 

[Solaris17]

Yeah, testing Fedora now, will grab Cent next. Also have reached out to Rh sales and will be phoning them for more info. Is having xserver running that bad on a server?
There are a lot of graphical apps that if I could run would make the server more usable....

Yes and No. You will get new Admins that think no xserver is old hat . You will have Old sysadmins that like the GUI. The reality is much more straight forward.

Given time I am MUCH faster at troublshooting and fixing problems via CLI. Even on my windows servers I love the GUI but im always in powershell. I know how to do it through the interfaces its just faster.

Secondly, some issues do NOT have a way to fix via GUI and if you are seriously running a production server reformatting is usually NOT an option.

Thirdly, xservers and GUI in general even in windows land while stable because of there server nature still have quirks. Default boxes being checked during an install but not actually flagged because "checked" is just how the box looks by default. GUI crashing because server is under load, glitches because video rendering is poor on baked in ASPEED controllers or remote sessions are glichy and slow because video frame buffer is bugged.

Fourth space and process usage.

PRetty much when the shit hits the fan and people are on the phone or IMing you because something isnt working sometimes its just easier to see

>$ What is fucked?
>$ This is broken
>$ This is broken --help
>$ To fix things that are %Broken% you need to restart service X and reconfigure serviceX.ini to include the line "Dont run out of memory"

Of course. you could ALWAYS experiment yourself. install one see if you like it. blah blah blah and otherwise uninstall it if you think you are proficient enough to use CLI, you can even do it backwards and use CLI first. While I reccomend its usage in the *nix world above any kind of xserver I wasnt awesome at BSD CLI my entire life. I once used a GUI. No one can fault you either way. I can only point out the dangers. Part of being a system administrator is assessing risk and owning it if you mess up.