Is Crunchbang a good server distro?

It is just as good, in that it is not different in any fundamental way that would negatively impact it's ability to perform well as a server. But as much as I love #!, OpenBSD is the only thing I'd ever willingly run on a server, particularly if that server is going to be exposed to the network at large rather than just my LAN.

What type of server are you planning to run? I think any *nix server is fine, So I don't see why #! can't be a good server, since it is based on Debian.

If you are going to run a server which will be expose to the Internet, then I have the following suggestion

1) Have two server, One to be Primary, another as a backup, in case the Primary goes down. The backup one must be the same spec as the primary so you can make an image and dump in on when you need to. Or even better have 3 server, one as primary, the other one as a dedicate server in case the primary is down, and the 3rd as a testing server.

2) Read this as your bible if you are running a Web app server. https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Project

3) Also do network layer testing using either Nessus or OpenVAS, then use metasploit confirm if you are really vulnerable. And fix all the problem before putting your server online. So if you have new application or setting you want to add to the primary, do the testing on the secondary server or your third server (testing environment).

4) If you are running Web app server, test it with w3af, skipfish, sqlninja, sqlmap, nikto and Websecurify (My buddy pdp created this).

5) Put AIDE on it.

6) Use http://wiki.debian.org/SELinux

Good luck

KB

I don't want to be discouraging, but be prepared. BSD unix is very, very different from Linux in a great many ways, and OpenBSD even more so. I'd compare it to the difference in a driving a stick shift and an automatic transmission, but that's hardly fair. You see while BSD might assume you know how to drive or are at least willing to learn, OpenBSD assumes you've been on the autobahn before, and know just what you can get out of your car. If you don't tough shit, OpenBSD knows what will keep you alive out there and your going to have to live with it, or at least change the defaults.

That's really the fundamental difference you'll be facing. While OpenBSD will be no more difficult to administer than what your used to, you will genuinely be surprised. The way a system handles has a lot to do with the default settings, and OpenBSD's "secure by default" philosophy has presented a significant hurdle to many. By all means test it out, give it a chance and see what you think. But I think far to many people go into it with the wrong attitude and expecting convenience fail to recognize it's strengths. It's made for servers, it's made for security, fuck convenience and a user-friendly interface.

Honestly how many other popular operating systems can you name that still provide support for installation via floppy? and they need to as well because OpenBSD runs on a great many machines where a floppy is practically the only option,

@ggarron: You could try PC-BSD first (It is based on FreeBSD), Have a play on that first, as a stepping stone, before going after that spikey fish.

Last edited by kowloonboy (2012-02-04 09:36:36)