The Brennan Home Server HOWTO

[Timothy Murphy]

Miles Brennan said:
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Although the document was written to suit Fedora Core, I tried to
maintain generic configuration and commands where possible so other
distros could also benefit from it. Also stayed away from the GUIs.

Converting the plain HTML version of the document to wiki format was
much more painful than first anticipated. I wanted to keep the feel of
the original HOWTO styled document, as I believe they are much easier to
read and follow than the current wiki construct. However the wiki code
does not easily support the formatting of tables, cells, preformatted
text and other basis formatting. Working in RAW wiki code was very time
consuming.

Here is the draft of the HOWTO I worked on:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/ServerInstallationGuide

I installed moinmoin on my own server to work on the formatting issues a
little easier and found I needed to make some significant changes to the
CSS for the document to look and feel the way I wanted it to. It was
also mentioned at the time that FDP would be moving to a Plone and Zope
based system, making these type of migrations easier. Although I had no
experience with these two applications, I was happy to try something
new. I eventually gave up on transferring the documentation because the
new system has not been implemented and I found the wiki frustrating.

If FDP is still willing to accept the documentation, I am happy to
change the licensing and Tim is prepared to start some work on it.
Perhaps we start a new thread on updating the HOWTO and moving it into
the FDP.

Open to suggestions.
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I'm not quite sure if I am the Tim referred to here,
but if I am then I would be happy to try my hand at bringing the HOWTO
into the Fedora Documentation Project.

On the content side, there are a couple of points that I wondered about:

1. You talk a little about PPPoE in chapter 5.
Is this still necessary?
I had the impression that all *DSL modems now do this for you,
and basically give an Ethernet connection to the Internet?

2. Does one have to understand IPtables any more (chapter 6)?
I use shorewall, which seems to me to make this bit of life much easier.
Am I right in thinking shorewall is more or less the default Fedora firewall
nowadays?

3. Do people still use FTP (chapter 14)?

4. I wonder if a chapter on SVN might be worth while?

But these are probably better discussed off the list,
if indeed I am given the task of trying to bring your HOWTO
(and it would remain your HOWTO) into the FDP?

Tim