plug How much RAM do u need to set up a samba server?

[The Thought Assassin]

On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, David Buddrige wrote:
> Hi all,
> Am currently setting up an "experimental" linux network containing a
> linux file-server, and a linux mail server - on two 486 machines we have
> lying around, and am then going to use a third win95 machine as a dummy
> "client" machine... 
> To achieve this, I have a couple of spare 486 machines to play with -
> one with 16mb ram and the other with 4mb... (I was going to get another
> 4mb sim (for $20) and upgrade this to 8 mb)...
> I was wondering, how much RAM would u need to run a samba server?  is
> 4mb enough?  is 8mb ok?
I wouldn't like to do it with 4M though it would certainly possible.
8M is OK, but more RAM allows for better caching, which helps speed and
responsiveness of a fileserver, particularly when it has a lot of users at
a time.
OTOH, the bottleneck is more often the network, anyway.
I would recommend running both services on the 16M machine, actually,
Since neither need RAM all the time, whereas each might like lotsa RAM in
bursts. 

> Would I best use the lower spec machine for samba or mail?
Don't know what you'd do with the 4M/8M machine... donate it to me?
Actually, a good idea might be to run X on the lowspec machine and export
apps from the highspec machine, if you are concerned about running X on
your server (security, stability, performance reasons)
Depending on what your network looks like, you might do well to install it
as a firewall, but then again, you'd probably benefit from doing that on
the bigger machine anyway.

-Greg