Linux Annoyances for Geeks

Chapter 9. Servicing Servers

This chapter solves annoyances related to specific services, such as web access, FTP, and email. A lot of these services, even though they have zillions of configuration options, can be enabled through the check of a box during Linux installation and often work satisfactorily without any tweaking. On the other hand, some of the common annoyances covered in this chapter are hard to puzzle out using the standard documentation for the services. So this chapter doesn’t try to replace the basic configuration instructions that come with each service, but just provides enough information to get you over the hump of particularly common and poorly documented problems.

Too Many Options for Services

As you can tell from a glance at sites such as SourceForge that offer free software applications, the free-flowing creativity of the free software community has led to an explosion of choice. Developers have created for Linux users a broad selection of choices for the Web, FTP file sharing, email, remote access, and more. You may find a dozen or more options for running a service such as a web server. While Apache is the dominant web server on the Internet, there are excellent alternatives, including:

• AOLServer (http://www.aolserver.com)

• Boa (http://www.boa.org)

• Caudium (http://www.caudium.net)

• Jigsaw (http://www.w3.org/Jigsaw)

• Resin (http://www.caucho.com)

• Roxen (http://www.roxen.com)

• Zeus (http://www.zeus.com/products/zws).

Because it’s hard to tell how the services differ ...