Advice for 2 web & db ( Dual core Quadcore Xeon )
 

Dear All,

Can somebody here help me with my 2 new servers.

Database server - Quadcore Xeon E5310 1.60 Ghz - 8Gb Memory
Webserver - Dual Quadcore Xeon E5310 1.60 Ghz - 4Gb Memory

Both with 36GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15K RPM Hard Drive

Tomorrow I will get these 2 servers from Dell, and the installation engineer on the datacenter asked me what server initial setup & configuration should be.
Any tips/idea/suggestion? (the best setting for high-traffic forum)

1. What Operating System to install on the Web (PE1950)& DB (PE2950) Server
2. What other services are needed on each servers.
3. Any iptables configuration requirements?
4. Specific version of apache, mysql and any other server software components.
5. Whether or not Webmin is required.

As this is my first time getting my own server (co-lo)

For your info, my forum is have 3000-4000 concurrent users

You already have 3-4k concurrent users and you don't know the answers to these questions? Howe did you manage so far?

the owner of the webhosting company i used.

1. What Operating System to install on the Web (PE1950)& DB (PE2950) Server

I am using freeBSD. Others use various distributions of Linux. Any stable Unix/Linux should be good. People are also using windows servers successfully, but I would advice against it. For the DB server, you may want to avoid BSD and stick to Linux, as many experts advice this, but I am using FreeBSD without any problems.

2. What other services are needed on each servers.

Mail, DNS, ftp, ntp.

3. Any iptables configuration requirements?

For vbulletin - no. But you may (should) install a firewall for security.

4. Specific version of apache, mysql and any other server software components.

Litespeed and LightTPD are reported to give better results than apache for busy vbulletin sites. Any stable version should be good.

If you were previously using MySQL 4.x, then beware before moving to MySQL 5.x - you cannot come back to 4.x. Take the latest release version of whichever branch you choose.

5. Whether or not Webmin is required.

No. You may need it if you do not have the confidence to do things without a control panel, but vbulletin does not need webmin or any other.

You only got one hard drive in each box? That's brave...

With that many concurrent users I'd have RAID 1 or RAID 5 on the web server and RAID 10 (probably with 6 or 8 disks) on the DB server.