I’ve been asked to set up a server for a research team at my university. I’ve already had the practice of setting a server at home, so I have a rough idea of how things should be done. Still, I wish to follow best practices when setting up a server for this use case. Plus I would prefer to avoid too much tinkering for the setup since I’m planning to keep the installation as simple as possible.
Following are some rough constraints and considerations for the setup:
- Server computer is a Mac Mini (latest model I think?). I’ve been told they would replace macOS with Linux, still I believe I should ready if they don’t (I don’t have experience with macOS at all)
- Server will be situated in university and provided a static IP address
- Team needs remote access to the server, presumably comfortable with using CLI
- I am unlikely to be permitted access to server myself after setup, so it should be ready to be managed by the team
- Extra hardware and/or paid software could be arranged but to a limited extent and within reason
I don’t think they have really any requirement other than having remote access to the server. I think SSH should suffice, however I was wondering if I could also arrange for backups, GUI server panel etc.
Step one is check with the university IT department. Don’t put random unmanageable shit on other people’s networks.
Why a Mac running Linux? I can’t think of a use case for that.
The server should be no problem to the university as long as it’s set up to do what I was told it would do.
Is it okay to use macOS too? I thought Linux was more prevalent among servers. Although if there is no significant change in operating one compared to Linux, then I’ll just stick to macOS after all.
And why can’t university IT set up the server? No offense but you’re a nobody asking us, also nobodies, how to set up some sort of a funky server on the university network, meanwhile the university pays people to do this for a living.
Where will the server actually be? Will it be in a secure location where only authorized personnel can physically access the machine or will it be behind the trash can in the cafeteria where anyone can access it?
Since you will lose access to it once it’s set up who will monitor the system? Who turns it on in case it somehow gets shut down? Who sets up backups and does rollbacks if something breaks?
What happens to the hardware when research project is over?
To me it all smells like something the IT department should set up. They already know the best practices. They also know whatever security guidelines they need to follow. They will have monitoring systems in place so they could admin the system instead of leaving it without an actual administrator. And they’re probably the ones decommissioning the hardware when the research project is over.
My suggestion is to leave it to the people who are getting paid to do this. It’s one thing to know how to set up a home server on your home network, it’s a different thing to set up a server on an enterprise network.
I think you really need to talk to the research team to find out what they want to use the server for, and how they want to collaborate. That will inform everything else.
Part of the reason why they left so many details vague was to give me some freedom on what to setup in the server based on what I think is right, although I do agree there needs to be clarification for some points.
Could you give me a hint on what I should additionally ask regarding their server needs?
I guess as a starting point most of us in this thread don’t really know what university research teams do.
If they had a laptop or phone, what kinds of things would they want to do that requires a server? Will they need email? Instant messaging? File sharing? Document collaboration? Will there be sensitive information? Do they need specific software? Or put another way, without this server, what can’t they do?
If you can give some hints on that kind of stuff, I’m sure people in this thread can help out more with specifics on software/tech recommendations.
Edit: obviously Unreal Tournament is non-negotiable.
I wasn’t able to get a clear response but I can say that they are primarily going to use it for writing and storing code like a Github repo, plus installation of 2-3 programs whose names I couldn’t recognise.
They could use Github itself, but I know they know this too so but deliberate chose to work this way. I could probably suggest a software like Gitea or Forgejo for this purpose, but I suppose they aren’t in need of that.
