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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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What distro do you use for your servers? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've only ever used desktop Linux and don't have server admin experience (unless you count hosting Minecraft servers on my personal machine lol). Currently using Artix and Void for my desktop computers as I've grown fond of runit.

I'm going to get a VPS for some personal projects and am at the point of deciding what distro I want to use. While I imagine that systemd is generally the best for servers due to the far more widespread support (therefore it's better for the stability needs of a server), I have a somewhat high threat model compared to most people so I was wondering if maybe I should use something like runit instead which is much smaller and less vulnerable. Security needs are also the reason why I'm leaning away from using something like Debian, because how outdated the packages are would likely leave me open to vulnerabilities. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding any of that though.

Other than that I'm not sure what considerations there are to make for my server distro. Maybe a more mainstream distro would be more likely to have the software in its repos that I need to host my various projects. On the other hand, I don't have any experience with, say, Fedora, and it'd probably be a lot easier for me to stick to something I know.

In terms of what I want to do with the VPS, it'll be more general-purpose and hosting a few different projects. Currently thinking of hosting a Matrix instance, a Mastodon instance, a NextCloud instance, an SMTP server, and a light website, but I'm sure I'll want to stick more miscellaneous stuff on there too.

So what distro do you use for your server hosting? What things should I consider when picking a distro?

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[–] asap 19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

uCore spin of Fedora CoreOS:

https://github.com/ublue-os/ucore

SELinux
Supports secure boot
Immutable root partition (can't be tampered with)
Rootless Podman (significantly more secure than Docker)
Everything runs in containers
Smart and secure opinionated defaults
Fedora base is very up-to-date, compared to something like Debian

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

How did you set up the intial system?
From what I've seen, FCOS needs an ignition file and has no Anaconda installer. I would like to set it up soon too, but it looked like a huge hazzle...

[–] asap 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Yes you need an ignition file, but you just need to put it on any web accessible (local) host.

I used a docker one-liner on my laptop to host the server:

docker run -p 5080:80 --name quick-webserver -v "$PWD":/var/www/html php:7.2-apache

And put this Ignition file in the directory I ran the above command from: https://github.com/ublue-os/ucore/blob/main/examples/ucore-autorebase.butane

You could equally put the Ignition file on some other web host you have, or even Github.

That's it, that's the only steps.

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