Not too sure about this setup

[MisterMoxxie]

Hello!

I have a very interesting, but complicated set up for my computers right now. Ive got two laptops and a desktop, but the desktop is out of commission right now. The main laptop that I use day-to-day is a Sony Vaio, natively running Ubuntu and I have a VM installed running windows XP. My other laptop is an old compaq presario, stock it runs windows 98 (Told you it was old). I recently installed XP on it to see how/if it would work, but I'm having mixed results.

The other key to this combination is my Snap Server Quantum NAS (Network Attatched Storage). If you dont know what NAS is, think of it as a bay of external drives connected over the network, instead of physically to the computer itself. Anyway, here's what I've been wondering.

If I install a small server OS (likely linux-based) on my old compaq, could I essentialy turn my NAS into a web-server? I know it has some form of 'web-server software' in its OS, as I can set up a very basic 'webpage' on the server. However I dont have a lot of experiance with using this outside of extra storage. What I would like to do in the end is run my online RPG off of that setup, where the compaq would basically act as the head for the server.

Here's some more info about everything, in case something I didn't list is important.

Main Laptop - Sony Vaio VGN-CS215J
- Boots into Ubuntu 12.10
- VM Running Windows XP SP3

Old Laptop ( / Server Head?) - Compaq Presario 1688
- Boots into XP currently, built for 98

NAS - Quantum Snap Server 4000 series (model # 70700042-004)
- Running GuardianOS as far as I remember, but I'm not sure which version.

[Blizzard]

Since XP isn't giving you satisfying results and 98 isn't even supported anymore, your best chance is a Linux based OS (as you already mentioned).

You usually don't need a special OS to run a web server. You only have to install the right software. e.g. If you install Apache and PHP on a Windows 7 machine nad setup port forwarding properly, you can already run a website on that machine if somebody connects directly over IP. If you want a text URL to point to your server, you will have to set up name servers along side on the same machine and setup your domain to point there. It's not that complicated if you know what you're doing.

[MisterMoxxie]

Thanks for such a quick reply! 

You usually don't need a special OS to run a web server. You only have to install the right software. e.g. If you install Apache and PHP on a Windows 7 machine nad setup port forwarding properly, you can already run a website on that machine if somebody connects directly over IP. If you want a text URL to point to your server, you will have to set up name servers along side on the same machine and setup your domain to point there. It's not that complicated if you know what you're doing.

That's the thing, I have virtually no experiance with this kind of thing. Ive had the NAS for about a year, but Ive never even played with the web-server side of it. So I have no idea what I'm doing.

Consider this hypotheticall situation. If I were to release an RMX-OS-based game at some point; would I be able to host the 'global client' on the compaq, and have the actual server data ( / game website?) on the NAS? That's my real end-goal here, if it's possible.

[Blizzard]

If you just wanted to run RMX-OS, all you have to do is set up your network properly. RMX-OS has a server written.

[MisterMoxxie]

Yeah, I know that. But That doesn't answer my question. If I host rmx-os on my computer, is it possible to have the actual data on my NAS?

I dont want to run the client off of my main laptop because I dont want it to interfere with my work or vis-versa. The other laptop doesnt have a ton of free storage either, which is why I want to set up the database on the NAS instead.

[Blizzard]

Aha, I misread your question.

If by "data" you mean the MySQL database, yes. In fact it's recommended to have the MySQL server running on the same machine as RMX-OS since that boosts access speed (but likely reduces that number of maximum players it can handle). If you have it set up on a different machine, make sure the machines have a high speed LAN connection to reduce the time required for communication.

SQL databases for RMX-OS rarely become very big. You can expect maybe a few dozen kB per player. Even if you had 100 kB per player, this still isn't that big and you could still have 10000 players with just a 1 GB store space for the database.

[MisterMoxxie]

Aha, I misread your question.

If by "data" you mean the MySQL database, yes. In fact it's recommended to have the MySQL server running on the same machine as RMX-OS since that boosts access speed (but likely reduces that number of maximum players it can handle). If you have it set up on a different machine, make sure the machines have a high speed LAN connection to reduce the time required for communication.

SQL databases for RMX-OS rarely become very big. You can expect maybe a few dozen kB per player. Even if you had 100 kB per player, this still isn't that big and you could still have 10000 players with just a 1 GB store space for the database.

No worries, it happens.

That's a lot lower than I thought it would be. Im not sure why - likely because I'm a total noob with networking / servers / database work even - but I thought it would take up significantly more space than that. Most likely I'll just use the NAS as a webserver then and host the games 'website' there, while the actual database is on the laptop.

I also feel that If I were to put the game files on the NAS, I would need to familiarize myself more with the security features as well.

[Blizzard]

RMX-OS doesn't really need much space. Other games/game engines need a lot more.