Combining Severs on 1 PC

[chkmg]

Hi, please pardon my stupid question but I really am curious about it. How many servers (DNS, DHCP, FTP, Apache, File etc.) can we run on a single PC ( even with plenty of NICs)?. Some of above might not even be possible to be run on a single system but atleast by asking this question I will clear the doubts.
I am talking about a P4 3.2 GHz with 512 MB Ram and Scsi drives. Hope someone would take some time out to clear the doubts in my mind. Many thanks in advance, take care!

 

[thedaver]

You haven't provided enough information as to number of services, number of users, network traffic, disk space requirements, etc. However, I'll say this.

Linux will happily run all sorts of services together at the same time if you feed it the resources you need. Your processor is an excellent start since linux typically needs less processor to do work. SCSI drives help immensely. You may find that you're short on RAM if you really start loading up the server.

DNS, DHCP, FTP are all very small memory footprint services. FTP can obviously have some significant implications on system load when you factor-in actual users and disk/network load.

Apache is a wild card since (i) apache is highly configurable into how it spawns and uses memory, and (ii) is often complemented with a database like MySQL, which opens an entirely different can of resource management issues (to the plus side!).

The short answer is that you're OK to run a whole bunch of services. The longer answer is that you need to realistically understand what your system load will be and prepare for it - again I'd first add RAM. That prevents linux from paging memory and allows for more caching. Both of which lessen load on drives and tend to speed overall system response.

Your mileage may vary.

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[chkmg]

Thanks alot TheDaver, I am sorry to have not supplied you with enough information. Say we want to do it for 400 users on LAN, disk quota is 100 MB and the bandwidth on WAN side is 35 Mbps. If you think its not a good idea to have all the servers on same Computer then please group for 3 available computers and add Firewall features too.
Now we have 3 computers and all these servers to be configured. Should the Firewall be dedicated one, sitting solely on a single computer? Once again I thank you in advance, take care!

Regards,
Chkmg

 

[stefanwagner]

I guess '400 users' and bandwith '35 Mbps' is still not enough information.

If the users search the web from time to time, doing their mail and not much more, you would have about 1 Mbps/ user if there are mostly not more than 10% online.

40 users doing massive video- and audio-streaming will perhaps need much more bandwith, if allways 30% of them are online.

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[unixfreak]

I would say that PC can easily do the job.
Give it a go - if it's working a bit too hard you can always add memory. The processor is well fast enough!

 

[chkmg]

Many thanks guys. I have a clear picture of linux's capabilities now. I have another question about Apache server but I think I should ask that in a new thread so that others can also refer to it, take care!

Regards,
Chkmg