Tail of two servers
Over the past weekend I was asked by a good friend to set up a second linux server for him to do database backups of his primary server linux server I set up a few weeks back. The original server I set up for him was a CentOS 5 server so that he could run MantisBT bug tracking software. Honestly it's a great piece of software for what he is looking to do, which is mainly track trouble tickets from different customers.
When it came to finally getting the second server set up I started to think about it, although I like the install interface of CentOS and I currently love being able to have a GUI interface (personally like using gnome), I decided to use Ubuntu 10.10 server instead this time around. I have to say over all I'm really enjoying how easy it is to get Ubuntu up and running. I felt as though the install of Ubuntu went a lot smoother then the install of CentOS. Even though I didn't run into any issues with the CentOS install the set up of the server components and the upgrade of the components I feel is a lot easier using apt-get instead of yum. Maybe it comes down to personal opinion, but over all it just seems easier to use.
One thing I did decide to do while doing my install of Ubuntu was to set myself up to use putty ssh keys to login instead of the typical login/password. Currently we use the same setup at work to be able to login to each server, and honestly it makes logging in so much easier. The nice thing once all is said and done with both servers is I will be able to log into each without a password, only thing that I will need to remember is which ip address goes to which server. If your looking to set something like this up yourself I highly suggest this tutorial, http://www.howtoforge.com/ssh_key_based_logins_putty.
Well I think I have rambled on for long enough this evening. Its time to take a look and figure out why I am not able to access the Ubuntu mysql server, betting its locked down to only be accessed via localhost.