Looking for Tutorials

[GreekGoddess]

I've been browsing Google for a while now searching for tutorials on building a web server from a 486. Maybe I'm just not choosing the right keywords or something, but all I seem to bring up are articles that discuss it, what people have done with their 486's, but none on how exactly to do it. If anyone has any documentation on this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[geepod]

Well what is specific about a web server on a 486 ? Do you mean how to build a web server ?
it is software orientated not processor, you install and configure and maintain a web server the same on a pentium as you do a 486 ?
Do you mean what software can you use ? well you can install linux and use apache or you can use nt 4.0 and install iis or personal web server ?
Does this help or do you mean something else ?
I went to ask.com and found loads on installing linux etc on 486's as web servrers ?

[aeallison]

What kind of webserver do you need, or better yet what type of pages are you going to serve? A 486 is not going to offer the processing power needed to serve most of today's popular platforms. I would make a nice e-mail server for a couple of hundred e-mail addys, but would never be able to run anything secure with todays standards. Is it not possible to obtain a better CPU/mobo combo with at least 256mb ram?

[meister]

i'm sorry if i don't understand you correctly.
if you want to set up a webserver on an old pc (386,486, etc.) what about dos or linux versions? they both don't need a lot of ressources. i run a webserver on an old 486 in dos
for a tut try: http://home.hccnet.nl/w.knevel/
and i think there are also tuts for setting up webserver with linux

[GreekGoddess]

It's for a learning project, just trying to make use of a couple of old computers I have. I'm not really looking for power, more just trying to see if I can do it, play with configurations and such. I already have linux installed, I'm looking for how-to's with different type of software configurations to host a small amount of space on the web. Even forums that are specific to people who have done this before, where I can hang out and ask questions and get help on any problems I encounter trying to set things up. I'm probably going to use it to host my personal site, or at least try to, as it really isn't that large. Maybe try more advanced things, see how much flexibility I can get out of an old machine.

But like I said, I've been unable to find any specific resources, just...do this and that, nothing really explanatory.

The other box is probably going to be a firewall. I have had no problem obtaining tutorials on how to set that up.

[aeallison]

Really! GG I comend you on your efforts, I can offer you my support in hardware/configs, I am sure there are others here who could help you with the software/configs...

Is AO not the best resource for this information?

[GreekGoddess]

It is, but I would still like to find someone who has done this, that could give me some pointers and maybe a good kick in the right direction.

Here's what I would like to see, and what I've been looking for in more detail. An in depth tutorial on what I'm trying to do. Maybe some different scenarios, different distros running off a 486, and a stat comparison in how they handled different situations. Cause when I do this, I do want to find the most effective way to go about it. I want to see what sort of things people who have done this installed, what they chose not to install, and tips and tricks they could offer me, and so forth.

[aeallison]

Have you concidered Apache yet? I understand it is a webserver in a box, and there is a Tut here on setting the machine up. As for your hardware, how many boxes can you put together to form a small group of networked computers, in this way you can draw much of the processor demand off to another box say one for a database, another for e-mail, one for web, and say one more for DNS?

<edit>here is the link to set up Apache by Jethro </edit>

[Tedob1]

How much memory and drive pace does this thing have?

[roswell1329]

GG -- Here are some links I found that may relate a bit to what you're trying to do:

Web Server Performance Comparisons -- tells you how each of the big web servers out there compare, resource-wise. Did a google search with the following: <"web server" performance system 486>

Teach Yourself Web Publishing -- This tutorial is actually a little dated, so it would definitely apply to 486/early pentium range stuff. Did a google search with the following: <"running a web server" 486 CPU>

And just a quick quote for you to show you the power of a 486/33 as a web server:

Quoted from here.

Denny used a test environment in which the client and the server were connected by an ethernet cable to factor out client network delays. Denny's analysis shows that even a low cost Pentium-90 PC can saturate a T-1 line, and a 486/33 notebook computer (an IBM Thinkpad) keeps up with 18 requests per second.

The above quote came from Webmasters: Expert Solutions

Hope that's enough to get you started. Sorry I couldn't come up with more, but I really wouldn't worry too much about the differences between a 486 versus today's computers when it comes to configuration. You may need to trim your configs down a lot, but the basics should be roughly comparable. Good luck! Sounds like a fun project!