Toni Rosa's questions

I'm trying to set up a dedicated server with an ESXi installed on it:

I was given 2 blocks of public IPs

Block A. 1IP = X.X.X.204, used in ESXi vmkernel port IP (and gateway pointing to X.X.X.1)

Block B. 8IPs = Y.Y.Y.232-239 (from 233 to 238 usable) routed to the server vía X.X.X.204

Therefore I can perfectly connect to the ESXi (with the vShpere client) using the X.X.X.204 IP

Then I ask to myself: What network configuration should I use in the VMs I'm just installing?

and I say: I should use one of the Block B IPs

Then, I ask: What gateway IP should I put in them?

I reply: ...mmmm... not sure... may be I could use one IP of the Block B and assign it to the ESXi with a new VMKernel (that is the only way I see that I can specify another IP on the ESXi) and then the VM will use this IP as gateway...

and I further add: If ESXi knows "how to communicate" with the 2 blocks and it only has setup one gateway, the X.X.X.1, in the VMKernel0, the it should definletly work.

But unfortunetly it does not.. It's like ESXi didn't do ip_forwarding between the two networks.

Can anyone point me to a solution? Is it a matter of configuration with the ESXi or Am I missing something? Thanks!

I have added a user to the system via the adduser tool. Then, in /etc/passwd, I tried changing the /bin/bash to /sbin/nologin or to /dev/null, but neither of these worked.

I would like the user not having the option to get an interactive shell, and just to use sftp. Is there a way?

I know it's been asked here before but it seems no-one gave a satisfactory response.

In http://windows.php.net/downloads I couldn't find any x64 built for download. Further I have to choose among "Thread Safe" and "Non Thread Safe" with no explanation whether one is safer than the other or it performs better. The install.txt inside the available ZIPs for download seems out-dated an it doesn't mention anything about this.

In the installation manual found in the PHP site they don't say a word about it either...

Another doubt is once I know what to download (and why), should it be setup as a FastCGI module or as an ISAPI extension?