If linux was a must then I would personally use Debian. It comes ready
with some HA support from the linux-ha project.

If you can have a flexible choice id say solaris without second thought.

Mario. A. Spinthiras

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed] [mailto:listbounce (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed]]
On Behalf Of Ronald MacDonald
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 11:08 PM
To: Mohammad Halawah
Cc: focus-linux (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed]
Subject: Re: Selecting OS for High-availability/mission-critical web
portal

Hi Mohammad,

Not meaning to turn this into a "my distro's better than yours"
thread, but for stability and security, I'd recommend having a serious
look at Debian. It's easily stripped down to its most essential
components for a nice small footprint and is easy to keep up to date
with the apt system. As for performance, I suppose every
implementation of a distro varies, but I'd it's is pretty adequate.

In terms of hardening the OS, there's obviously a few ways to go about
it. The most foolproof way is just "don't do anything stupid" - don't
run any services you don't need, don't bother with gimmicky
applications, just leave it all at the bare minimum. Also, there's a
lot of good reading out there (more so with linux) as regards to
hardening the OS. Incidentally, Bastille springs to mind - it's a good
starting point to hardening your system.

Regards,
Ronald.

--
Ronald MacDonald
http://www.rmacd.com/
0777 235 1655

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