Table of Contents
The configuration wizards, which come with Mandrake Linux, are made to configure a server located between a local network and the Internet. They give you the ability to make configurations quickly and efficiently for most common services in a local network as well as Internet Web and FTP services. In this chapter, we will suppose that your network is as shown in Figure 1.1, and that Mandrake Linux is installed on the server. Configuring and bringing up the Internet connection (if you have one) is beyond the scope of this chapter.
Wizards can help you configure the following:
the section called “Domain Name Server”: configuring name resolutions for machines outside the private network;
the section called “Time Configuration”: your machine can also give time to other machines using the NTP protocol (Network Time Protocol); this wizard will help you configure this service.
the section called “Web Server Configuration”: here you will be able to specify whether your web server will be reachable from the outside network, or from the internal network, or both;
the section called “Adding a DNS Entry”: identifying static machines names and IPs inside your local network;
the section called “Postfix server configuration”: configuring your mail domain for sending and receiving mail from the outside;
the section called “FTP server configuration”: as for the web server configuration, you will be able to specify from where your FTP server should be reachable;
the section called “News Server configuration”: you can make your server act as a local mirror of an external news server;
the section called “DHCP Server”: your server will be able to dynamically assign IP addresses to new machines on the network;
the section called “Proxy Server Configuration”: configuring your server to act as a Web proxy cache. This speeds up Web browsing while limiting the bandwidth on the Internet;
the section called “Samba Server Configuration”: if the server is to act as a file or print server for Windows machines, this wizard will help you setup public shared files and printers, and announce their names into the Windows network;
Note
For experienced users: wizards are limited to configure only C class networks, and only the basic configuration is handled for each service. This should be enough for most situations, but if you wish for a more fine-tuned configuration, you will have to edit the configuration files by hand.
The server configuration wizards are available through the Control Center. When the wizdrake package is installed, a new menu entry appears in the Mandrake Control Center menu (Figure 1.2).
You will be able to access wizards individually by clicking on the corresponding button. In this chapter wizards are described in no particular order, but the first one is required to be run first before other wizards.