Linux Server Hardware Requirements

The minimum specifications for your Linux server hardware depend on the role the server is going to play, what processes will run, how many users it will have and how you intend to configure it (from the command line or from the GUI). Generally speaking the hardware required for a Linux server is found at the lower end of the scale and often ordinary desktop PC components are more than sufficient. Be wary of the slick salesperson trying to sell you a 1RU rackmounted server with all the bells and whistles when all you require is a machine to run your web based customer management system to five users on the office network.

Linux Server Hardware Requirements for a Learning Platform

In this article on Linux server hardware we are going to assume that your intention is to create a server with a specific role or as a learning platform for Linux. A machine that will provide a learning platform may not see a great deal of use in real world conditions and the requirements for this machine are trivial, particularly if it will be configured from the command line. In the instance of a command line configured machine an Intel Pentium III or higher (or equivalent) with 500mb RAM and a hard disk of about 20Gb will be more than sufficient. The same machine will run X Windows (the Linux GUI) quite successfully but may use some degree of swap space and be a little slow off the mark. Increasing the memory to 1000mb will alleviate this somewhat. The Linux server hardware we have described here is hardly cutting edge, in fact you may be hard pressed to find a machine of that vintage still in running condition.

A far better machine for those who wish a learning platform with a bit of zing would be a Intel Pentium IV or higher (or AMD equivalent), 1GB or more of RAM, 80Gb hard disk and a DVD-ROM. Observant readers would note that we are still not looking at current hardware and I feel I should state that there is nothing wrong with just going out and buying a new computer to install Linux on but it is very interesting to see what Linux server hardware we can get away with. You may have a used machine lying around already that will do the job just fine.

Linux Server Hardware Requirements for a Production Server

The hardware required for a production Linux server depends once again on the role it is going to play, what services it will provide and the daemons and processes it will be running. One of the clear advantages of Linux is that in a server role the machine will not require X Windows to be running and this will save valuable memory and some processor power. The vast majority of servers that I have dealt with during my professional career have been housed in data centres where space is a premium, many others have been housed in our private racks where we have our own bandwidth provisioned and all of them have one common thread, they had no monitors, keyboards or mice connected to them. The server is accessed remotely by secure shell (SSH) and configured and controlled from the command line. This means in many instances the machine may only have a monitor plugged into it during the initial installation of the operating system or whenever there is a problem that needs to be addressed directly. Under these circumstances your choice of video card becomes quite unimportant. If you configure and administer your server directly via its GUI (a Graphical User Interface like X Windows) a low end nVidia or ATI card or even the on-board video in many modern motherboards will be more than adequate. Bear in mind that our objective is to build a server and not a workstation or gaming platform, a massive video card is not required.

One thing that your Linux server hardware can cheaply benefit is memory or RAM. RAM is generally one of the more affordable components of your Linux server hardware and Linux servers work best with lots of RAM, not unlike their Windows counterparts. As soon as the operating system has to write data that it has no room for in memory onto the hard disk drive your Linux server will suffer a performance hit. A general rule of thumb for memory is 500mb for a light duties machine, 1000mb for a machine in constant use and 2000mb or more of memory for a machine in constant heavy use.

Your choice of CPU is of course also dependant on how intensively the Linux server is used and also the nature of the load. A file server will not require anywhere near the same processor power as a database server or mail server that has a number of antispam measures that scan each incoming email. For most small business applications and home use a single or dual core processor is more than adequate. There are excellent server processors available for more intensive use however in many instances these will simply not be necessary.

Your selection of hard disks is not limited simply to capacity when choosing suitable Linux server hardware, being the main form of non-volatile storage your Linux server will have. SCSI disks have a good reputation for longevity and the ability to mark bad sectors as unreadable via the SCSI adaptors disk utilities add to their reputation for reliability. Unfortunately SCSI disks of any capacity come with a eye opening price tag. SATA and PATA hard drives have a much lower cost per gigabyte of storage than SCSI but generally have a shorter lifespan, particularly under high load. Protecting your data from accidental loss or component failure is often critical and a daily backup regime is recommended. You might also consider a RAID array to provide additional protection against loss of data by mirroring the data on several different hard disks, an efective method of protecting yourself from hard disk failure.