Work in progress

These tutorials are being written and refined specifically for this project. They are currently a work in progress and are all subject to change! For the time being, use them at your own risk! Comments and questions welcome!

Understanding Small Business Servers

Small businesses have very specific server needs. Small businesses tend to have one server, hopefully with a dedicated backup. While this kind of setup gives enterprise IT admins nightmares, it is the reality for most small businesses.

Knowing and understanding that reality, this series of tutorials are designed to guide you through installing all of the features a small business typically needs, but more importantly, integrating these services into a cohesive environment that will server your business well for many years to come.

What is presented here is one way of doing this, however these tutorials all use the same format, they all use the same system for access and authentication, they all use the same variables and are otherwise designed to make installing your system easier.

Assumptions and Variables

All of the tutorials in this series use the following assumptions:

1. The companies name is <Office Enterprises>

2. The domain name is: <office.lan>

3. The realm is: <OFFICE.LAN>

4. The Lan's IP network is: <192.168.1.xxx>

5. The Router/Gateway's Lan IP address is: <192.168.1.1>

6. The Router/Gateway's internal FQDN is <router.office.lan>

7. The Main Server's IP address is: <192.168.1.2>

8. The Main Server's FQDN is: <Server1.office.lan>

9. The Long-term release used is: <Ubuntu 20.04>

While it is possible to change any of these, if you are following these tutorials, especially for the first time, you probably should not change any of them other than the company name.

Tutorials in this series

Mandatory Steps

These steps MUST be taken on a fresh install of Ubuntu 20.04, and they must be done in the order presented. Please make sure you have sucessfully completed each step before moving on to the next step in this process.

• Configuring your Router for the Small Business Server environment

• Installing a Long-Term Support release

• Install Samba - This tutorial takes you through the processes of installing Samba.

• Configure and Provision the Samba domain.

• Advanced Samba Configuration

• Setting up NSS

• Setting up PAM

• Setting up network shares for your office.

• Installing and configuring CUPS printing for your domain.

• Installing and configuring a database server

• Set up the server to be able to send emails when needed

• Installing a local web server

• Configuring your initial users

• Installing and configuring essential business software

Optional Steps

The following steps are optional. Some users will need them, while others will not.

• Installing and configuring a SANE network server for your domain

• Installing and configuring AirSane to make Sane scanners available as AirScan devices for all network members.

• Installing and configuring a network FAX system for your domain

• Installing and configuring a RADIUS server and office wifi Access Point(s)

• Installing and configuring a VPN proxy for your internal network

• Installing and configuring a Remote Access system

• Adding a QNAP NAS to the LAN