discuss: small & silent... services?
Subject:
Re: small & silent... services?
From:
"Rodolfo J. Paiz" ####@####.####
Date:
9 Jun 2004 15:49:12 -0000
Message-Id: <6.1.1.1.0.20040609093730.054619a8@mail.simpaticus.com>
At 08:47 6/9/2004, Christian Schnobrich wrote:
>I'm having some problems with my "small & silent server HOWTO". One is
>the section on services. I'm not sure how how brief or extensive I
>should be.
I suggest that you start small, and simply provide a sentence or two on
what the service *is*, followed by a sentence or two on what advantage
you'd get from running that service yourself rather than depending on your
ISP. You could then have one listing alternatives with the recommended one
(or one with greatest market share or use) in bold, and be done with it.
Later on, when the first draft of your document is finished, you can expand
on that and modify it in whatever way seems best. Adding URL's guiding the
user to further reading seems like one easy enhancement that does not take
much space but adds a great deal of value.
Here's an example paragraph for DNS, attempting to match your writing style:
----snip----
The Internet functions entirely with IP addresses but those are very hard
to remember. DNS (Domain Name Service) translates names (e.g. www.heise.de)
to numbers (193.99.144.71) and vice versa, making the Internet much easier
to use. It is a very necessary service, and all Internet Service Providers
give you DNS service. However, if you want to make a little extra effort,
you can set up your own DNS server; this will give you slightly faster
response times, slightly lower use of your Internet bandwidth, and you will
be able to configure names for the machines on your internal network if you
have one.
DNS packages: *BIND*, djbdns, blah, blah.
----snip----
Hopefully that suggestion will be of some use to you. I think the services
section will likely be very useful.
>the DNS root server issue IMO is important, as many default
>installations "just work" many people might leave it at that without
>even a glance at the docs or other howtos.
Your concern is valid, but that issue seems to be best fixed upstream by
the package provider, no? Better to fix the software than to be forced to
educate the entire planet.
Cheers,
--
Rodolfo J. Paiz
####@####.####
http://www.simpaticus.com
