[Sheflug] Lots of colocated Linux box admin questions

[James Wallbank <xxxxx [at] xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Folks,

I have a confession to make. At the moment Lowtech webspace is hosted 
on SUCKY colocated NT4 boxes. They're cheap and convenient but poor, 
though they work most of the time. Please help me put an end to this 
proprietary software madness! I want to move all colocated Lowtech 
domains to Linux ASAP, but it needs to be a smooth changeover.

Routine activities we'll need to do include:

Issuing and deleting FTP accounts (50+ accounts)
Issuing and deleting mail accounts (100+ accounts)
Hosting multiple domains from a single box. (200mB+)
Spawning and deleting subdomains and serving them as well. (20+ subdomains)
Registering and hosting new domains. (20+ domains)
Transferring away old domains.
POP3 for multiple domains. (many - as above)
CGI with Perl & PHP (and more stuff if it seems like a good idea)

At the moment I'm super-happy, because all of these admin issues are 
NOT MY PROBLEM. I can control all of these functions via a stupidly 
simple control panel provided by our web host. Also, security is not 
my problem, which saves me a headache. However, the do-it-yourself 
ethos of Redundant Technology Initiative suggests that we should take 
on as many of these tasks as we can.

And anyway, I'm curious!

If we change over to a dedicated Linux server, then I'll be able to 
connect via ssh to a command line and do admin tasks, but what I'd 
like to know is:

Can I (conveniently) do all of these things (above) from the command 
line, and avoid significant disruption while I learn the system and 
get it operational?

If not (and bear in mind that "conveniently") then is there a good 
web admin tool that I can use via http or a similar GUI in order to 
sort them out?

What distro should I use? (Excuse me while I retire to the bunker)
What daemons should I have turned on?
What remote admin tools should I use?
What security tools should I use?
Is there a reasonably-priced ISP that leases colocated Linux boxes 
that will do the job I require?
If not, and we beg, borrow or build a server, then is there a 
reasonably priced ISP that will give us rack space?
And if the answer to that last one is "Yes" then will *you* help me 
to build and install a server locally so that we can test the setup 
and see how feasible it is to make the changeover smoothly?

By the way, what I mean by "reasonably priced" is pretty flexible, 
but doesn't run to the 100+ quid a month that our current host 
proposes to charge us for a dedicated colocated box. Maybe half that 
would be more like it, and less would be even better!

Cheers,

James
=====
-- 
who: James Wallbank
org: Redundant Technology Initiative
tel: +44 114 2495522
fax: +44 114 2495533
eml: rti [at] lowtech.org
web: www.lowtech.org
loc: Access Space
      1 Sidney Street
      Sheffield
      S1 4RG
      UK
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