Help with building a home server

[teccoder]

Hey!

Just as a little background information, I work as a software developer and also do computer security / penetration testing consultation.

I recently bought a couple new laptops so ended up dumping my desktop in some corner of the house.

The desktop is Intel 1.7GHZ with specs modest at best.

Anyway, I decided that I would upgrade the desktop a little bit so that I could use it as a central server in my house.

I intend to use the desktop for the following:

1) Development server (WWW/SMTP/FTP/etc)
2) Testing server for security tests (Intense testing within the network, the server will face heavy loads during those periods)
3) VNC server to access the internal lan
4) File server

I intend to load Ubuntu or some other distribution of linux on it, with a graphical front end.

My question is,

What processor and motherboard would you'll recommend I upgrade to.

I have 1 gb ram and will be upgrading to a 300 GB or 500 GB hardrive.

I am not looking to shell out a lot of money however I would like decent performance out of this machine.

Let me know what processor / motherboard combinations you'll think would fit in well with I need.

Thanks a lot for the time ;)

Regards,
Tec

EDIT: Also would it be possible to somehow reuse the old motherboard, processor and harddrive to build a cheap pc or even to couple with this pc. If so then can someone please tell me what I would need to do this and how.

 

[Impotence]

Hey!
I intend to use the desktop for the following:

1) Development server (WWW/SMTP/FTP/etc)
2) Testing server for security tests (Intense testing within the network, the server will face heavy loads during those periods)
3) VNC server to access the internal lan
4) File server

I intend to load Ubuntu or some other distribution of linux on it, with a graphical front end.

A Graphical front end on a server is normally just a waste of resources, there are web interfaces (that you would access with a username and password from another machine on your network) for just about anything you could need to administer... if you really want a graphical interface use something low resource like xfce.

HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials | The Open Source Howto Development Web Site. is great for guides.

My question is,

What processor and motherboard would you'll recommend I upgrade to.

I have 1 gb ram and will be upgrading to a 300 GB or 500 GB hardrive.

1.7 Ghz will be fine for a home server, upgrade the hard drive if you think you will need the extra space... if you think your going to have very high bandwidth usage, you might want to consider gigabit network cards for all machines (its possible that some of your machines already have gigabit NIC's) and a gigabit switch (Which you would plug into your router, or if your internet access is through one of the machines on the network just plug all the computers together).