[CentOS] How fast?
Robert Heller
heller at deepsoft.com
Mon Oct 5 22:51:37 UTC 2009
At Mon, 5 Oct 2009 15:34:38 -0700 (PDT) CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 5 Oct 2009, nate wrote:
>
> > ML wrote:
> >> HI All,
> >>
> >> How fast does a a small DNS Server need to be? I will have about 10
> >> servers and a few workstations. I have a few older Compaq PIII
> >> boxes with 1gb RAM each or I have faster P4 boxes.
> >
> > Your watch is probably sufficient.
>
> Or your phone...
>
> It wasn't THAT long ago that "monster" servers ran 85MHz SPARC 4d's.
> (We had a cool 12-proc unit that auto-failed one cpu so I could say
> with a straight face that I administered the only 11-processor web
> server I knew...)
>
> Seriously, you'd have to look long and hard to find a computer that
> didn't have the horsepower to host DNS, DHCP, NTP and static HTTP
> services.
>
> The bigger issue is ensuring that an older computer has enough disk
> space to house a modern distro and enough RAM to run modern kernels --
> and even then you can tighten things up if you're willing to work with
> a speciality distro.
Right. You'll *have* to get at least a socket-7 motherboard with a K6
processor and DIMM RAM sockets and PCI bus, if only because getting
old-school SIMMs is hard these days. And getting a distro with install
kernels (much less stock kernels) for less than a 586 is getting hard,
unless you opt for something like Slackware or Linux From Scratch. In
practice any still working minimually i686 system with a reasonable
amount of RAM (for just a DNS server, 256meg RAM and a 20-40 GIG IDE
disk, would probably even be enough to install, say, CentOS). I
recently installed CentOS 5.2 on a old Dell box (PII or PIII vintage)
with an 18gig disk. No X11. Just DNS, DHCPD, PPPD, Samba, CUPS, and
little else. This little box is just being used as a dialup 'router'.
It is jacked into a wireless 'router', but the wireless router is just
being used as an accesspoint and Ethernet switch (this is a home setup
-- broadband is not presently available, only dialup internet).
>
--
Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller at deepsoft.com -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
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