HELP! Installation Questions

[Lowell Gilbert]

VeeJay <maanjee at gmail.com> writes:

> Hello There,
>
> I wonder if someone from you could spare few minutes and share your
> knowledge with me.
>
> I love FreeBSD and use it time to time but I think I am still novice.
>
> I have got an assignment to build a Multi-Task web server.
>
> GOALS:
> A Multi Task Web Server for Virtual Hosting running Apache, MySQL, ProFTP,
> Mail Program, etc. All on this server. Traffic expected 100,000 visits a
> day.
>
> .Ideal Space required for MySQL DBs: 140GB.
> (Contents: Many MySQL databases backing name based virtual websites)
>
> .Ideal Space required for Virtual Hosted Websites: 140GB
> (Contents: HTML, PHP, Images, Mail, Logs, Sites Backups, etc)
>
> Maximum space required for SWAP to get high performance.
>
>
> HARDWARE:
> 1 dell rack server with:
> 2 x Dual Core Intel(r) Xeon(r) 5160, 4MB Cache, 3.0GHz, 1333FSB
> 4 GB FB 533MHz Memory (4x1GB dual rank DIMMs)
> 4 x 146GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15.000 rpm Hard Drives (hot plug)
> RAID 10 using PERC 5/i, x6 Backplane, Integrated RAID Controller Card
> Intel(r) PRO 1000PT Dual Port Server Adapter, Gigabit NIC, Cu, PCIe x4
> etc.
>
>
> Questions:
> 1. Which Version of FreeBSD will be the best choice and would be 32bit or
> 64bit?

The latest release is usually the way to go, and I doubt you'll see
much difference in this application between 64 bit and 32 bit.  Try 64
and drop back to 32 if that turns out to be a problem.

> 2. How can I get required Space when doing partition during installation?

If you don't know what you're required space is, then we don't either.

> 3. What would be ideal SWAP space to get performance?

If in doubt, add more.  Remember, though, that if you're using swap a
lot, you could probably improve performance by adding memory.

> 4. Which Mail Program is secure and easy to configure for Virtual Hosting?

There are many opinions on that.  I'm not fully convinced by any of
them.  

> 5. What is the flow of installation when preparing a machine for Virtual
> Hosting? I mean which program should be installed first and how should they
> setup (apache, ftp, mysql, mail) to talk with each other for a specific
> virtual name-based host?

All of those things are running separately for each virtual host?  I
would recommend using a jail(8) for each...