[ShaneHale]

Hey all, new to this section of the board, but have been trying to read up on everything that might pertain to my situation.

I have been building a server, with a Beige G3 Motherboard (300mhz) as a base, and am looking at maxing out the RAM for it. I want to run server just to play with at first. I want to see if it will work for my application and if so, it will become a key component in my business. I currently use outside web hosts and would like those to be internal, and resell my space. We also do a lot of graphic design work, and document preparation (resumes, business plans, reports, letters etc) for small business america.

What I would like it to do is the following:

- Serve as a webserver for multiple domains, as well as provided FTP and
mail services for my customers.

- Serve as a file storage device for projects. This would be roughly 1000- 5000 Word Documents, 25-100 Graphic Files (EPS, JPG, GIF, TIFF etc.)
I have 3 PC's that are in the office which need to talk to it as well,
and through a standard 'open' command. Takes to long to FTP access.

Rather then simply downloading X-Server, is there a cheap alternative to simply install the additional software packages on to OS-X? Would the 10 user pack limit me only having 10 web pages hosted? Any suggestions?

Don't know much about server yet, but willing to learn.

Shane Hale

[Camelot]

You can do everything you describe here with the standard Mac OS X installation (not server). What you'll gain by using Mac OS X Server is easier administration (especially in the web, mail and ftp accounts area) and better reliability and scaling.

The big question is really how many domains/users you expect to support and how comfortable you are in editing text files.

If you're only handling a couple of domains, then Apache's <VirtualHost> directive will handle your web serving, and it's pretty straightforward. However, if you're likely to be constantly adding/deleting/updating users, domains, etc. you might find the time you save with Mac OS X's admin tools is worth the $$s.

Mac OS X Server's user limit doesn't apply to the web server, only local accounts on the system (i.e. logged in users)