Dedicated Servers

[The Thracian]

we are looking at buying our first server pre installed with windows 2003 to run servers and web pages for tmn and tmu. I have previously set my own computer up with firewall xp and tmn and tmu servers, aseco, fast etc. Not having had any experience with a dedicated server though can anyone explain how connection to remote servers is done before i dive in at the deep end? Also I believe I will have to install a software firewall but having no idea how connection takes place to a dedicated server would I not just get cut off on restart unable to "click allow" on reconnect?

Anyway anything anyone can tell me about buying a dedicated server would be appreciated.

[Freddie]

we are looking at buying our first server pre installed with windows 2003 to run servers and web pages for tmn and tmu. I have previously set my own computer up with firewall xp and tmn and tmu servers, aseco, fast etc. Not having had any experience with a dedicated server though can anyone explain how connection to remote servers is done before i dive in at the deep end? Also I believe I will have to install a software firewall but having no idea how connection takes place to a dedicated server would I not just get cut off on restart unable to "click allow" on reconnect?

Anyway anything anyone can tell me about buying a dedicated server would be appreciated.

We use VNC at work to get access to our servers in London. I don’t mind VNC it works just like remote desktop, but it’s a lot slower but you can have a VNC server running in background so you will always be able access it.

[Simetrical]

First of all, where is the server being hosted? At a data center or on-site? Do you plan on connecting remotely, or configuring it as you would a desktop? Are you comfortable with command lines and configuration files or are GUIs necessary? Do you need scripting or database capabilities? What organization is this for?

Second of all, for servers I would strongly recommend using Linux if possible. It's considerably more secure, and significantly cheaper. The usual choice if you need support contracts is Red Hat Enterprise Linux. You definitely want a 64-bit version of whatever operating system you use.

Connecting to dedicated servers is pretty simple. If you're using a command line, which is good for server performance (running a GUI can use up a fairly large amount of memory and other resources), you log in with a command like

$ ssh username@example.com

and then proceed just as if you were working at the computer itself.

A note on command lines vs. GUIs. Command lines do take some getting used to, but they can allow you to get things done much more quickly if you know what you're doing. Windows doesn't (from what I've heard) let you work effectively with command lines, and tends to favor GUIs heavily. In Linux, it's most common to use a command line, but it allows you to use a GUI for most things, too. Official GUI configuration editors are available for most of Linux itself (here I'm considering Red Hat "official" enough) and for MySQL, while unofficial GUI configuration editors are available for software like Apache and PHP. Instructions for how to change a setting in Linux are almost always going to be in terms of command lines, so in practice you do need some familiarity with them to be able to administer a Linux server well.

Okay, enough of the Linux proselytizing. I realize you might need GUIs or might not have an option as to what OS you choose. So to answer your question about firewalls. Basically, server firewalls behave differently from desktop firewalls. On desktops you can assume that whenever the computer is active, there's a user sitting there, so you have "allow" buttons to click. For servers, appropriate lists are expected to be set up in advance, and generally they are by default. I've never really noticed my firewall when administering my server, to be honest. It's set up so that all the programs I need are permitted, as far as I can tell. I've only ever had to adjust it when it came to installing relatively unusual programs like Subversion that needed unusual ports to be open.

Any more questions and I'll be happy to answer. I'm afraid I don't know much about Windows specifically, however.