I have a new toy. Once upon a time, when I was considering taking up web hosting that would give me full access to a server (by way of learning how to run one), I tried to put the same distribution of Linux on a spare box I had at home. Unfortunately the box was spare because it had died, and attempts to revive it failed (even though Debian's installer is probably a little less arduous than the Win98 one).

Yesterday I bought a dirt-cheap hard drive from Overclockers (it had to be a cheap one; I had trouble finding one that wasn't too recent to be compatible with my venerable server-box), today it arrived and this evening I fitted it.
So far it serves SSH (which was the first order of business, since I only have one working monitor and I want to plug it into my Windows machine), and it serves DNS for my local network (both machines :p).

Why do I want DNS on my local network? The plan is this:
At work we have a Windows 2003 Server; specifically it's a Small Business Server (Win2003 + Exchange2003 plus a few other things). We don't ask much of it: it keeps central user accounts so that a user login works on any machine, runs a couple of websites, shares some files and serves mail and some groupware stuff. Oh, and it has linked DHCP and DNS servers...

I want to put together a Debian box that will fulfill all the functions of my employer's SBS. Tomorrow I should be able to put in DHCP and tie it to the DNS server. The web server is easy; done that before. Likewise for the mail, although using IMAP leaves me short of Exchange's groupware functions. Since I'd rather not demand any changes on the client side, getting back the shared calendars and things is likely to be my biggest stumbling-block. Windows-style file-sharing I know where to look for, and I gather one of the Samba forks (possibly even the main stream by now) can be Domain Controller for a Windows-style domain.

It'll be fun, and I'll kepp you posted (whether you like it or not). Wish me luck.