From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 5 14:56:46 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0A410106564A for ; Mon, 5 Sep 2011 14:56:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jherman@dichotomia.fr) Received: from mail.dichotomia.fr (hydrogen.dichotomia.net [91.121.82.228]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A18C28FC15 for ; Mon, 5 Sep 2011 14:56:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [192.168.0.84] (unknown [178.208.2.9]) (Authenticated sender: kha) by mail.dichotomia.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 457A23DD06D for ; Mon, 5 Sep 2011 16:53:06 +0200 (CEST) Message-ID: <4E64E30E.9000309@dichotomia.fr> Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2011 16:56:14 +0200 From: Jerome Herman User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.20) Gecko/20110805 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.12 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <4E644637.1030500@pldrouin.net> In-Reply-To: <4E644637.1030500@pldrouin.net> X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.2.7 (mail.dichotomia.fr); Mon, 05 Sep 2011 16:53:06 +0200 (CEST) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: Re: Best Server OS for Someone That Does not Want to Touch a Shell on a Regular Basis? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:56:46 -0000 Le 05/09/2011 05:47, Pierre-Luc Drouin a écrit : > Hi, > > so I have a friend who is looking for the best OS for a web server, > that allows to configure services (I guess HTTP, PHP, MySQL and web > content) and do the OS maintenance (OS & package updates, firewall > configuration) without having to touch a shell. I was wondering if > something like PC-BSD + CPanel would be the way to go. Would there be > other BSD-based alternatives? I always do upgrades and configure > services through the shell and I am not aware too much about the GUI > alternatives... > > Thanks! > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" Hello, If your friend prefer to use a GUI rather than command line interface, why not. But I am a little affraid that is real goal is to avoid reading the documentation, and keeping up to date with good practices and security alerts. Truly it doesn't matter what OS you are using and what use you make of it, when your server is exposed to the internet, you must read the doc and check for security alerts. If it is what your friend is trying to avoid, then I would strongly advise him to subscribe to a fully maintained platform, software as a service, or a mutualized box. Any other option will lead to a disaster. On the other hand, if your friend is willing to accept a bit of shell here and there, and a good deal of doc reading, I would recommand using FreeBSD or Debian as the underlying server (lowest maintenance/usage ratio I know). If you go for FreeBSD I would advise to use this doc http://www.bsdguides.org/guides/freebsd/security/harden.php The only easy to configure and to maintain web server I know is Cherokee (http://www.cherokee-project.com/ ). The web admin is quite easy to use, and a lot more intuitive than Apache. Jerome Herman.