I'm a relative newbie to all this so pardon me if the following are all stupid questions.
Firstly, I'm setting up a web server and gone from planning to use Ubuntu (due to some familiarity as a desktop at home) to CentOS based on recommendations by experienced webhosters.
However now that I looked into CentOS, I find myself at a point where it's transitting to a major new version. So the key question for me is, should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just go for 4.4?
Being rather new to Linux, my attempts to try to figure out the differences between the two has been rather futile since I can't readily tell what is really important to me or not. All that I think I'm sure of now is that 5 would support virtualization using Xen and 4.4 doesn't have it. This alone is food for thought since the idea of being able to compartalize each website in their own VM sounds good in the long run.
I'm tempted to wait for 5 since I'm reluctant to run the risk of having to upgrade a live server to version 5 and have it failed specutacularly if I screw it up. On the other hand, it's uncertain when 5 will be out and definitely waiting more than another 2 weeks isn't quite acceptable without compelling reasons.
Hence I'll appreciate it if the knowledgeable folks on this mailing list can advise which is the wiser route to go.
Some additional information which may be relevant to the decision.
1. RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on the server and has noted comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may be better than raid 1 using onboard firmware controllers.
2. Software that would be running on the server would include Apache 2.xwith ASPx support, php 5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim, ProFTPD, Direct Admin (supposed to be developed on RH and one user apparently tested it to work right out of the box with 5 Beta, part of the reason why I decided to go with CentOS)
3. Hardware to be used would be Intel Core 2 Duo on an Asus P5B-VM-D0 (Q965, ICH8-D0, Intel GMA3000 GPU) with SATA hard disks.
4. Network bandwidth control based on request IP or domains (i.e. connections to IP #1 can be limited to 512Kbps, while connections to IP #2 can be limited to 1024Kbps, or connections to www.domainA.com is limited to 256Kbps etc.
Thanks!
On Sat, Mar 31, 2007 at 12:28:38AM +0800, Cen Tos wrote:
I'm tempted to wait for 5 since I'm reluctant to run the risk of having to upgrade a live server to version 5 and have it failed specutacularly if I screw it up. On the other hand, it's uncertain when 5 will be out and definitely waiting more than another 2 weeks isn't quite acceptable without compelling reasons.
One option you might consider would be to install RHEL5 and then when CentOS 5 is released, "convert" (which is generally just a process of pointing your yum repo somewhere else and installing a couple CentOS RPM's, very easy to do on the fly).
CentOS 4.4 of course will be supported for some years to come, but if the Xen stuff is important to you, it's probably worth waiting.
Ray
However now that I looked into CentOS, I find myself at a point where it's transitting to a major new version. So the key question for me is, should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just go for 4.4?
I guess it depends on how conservative you are.
With 2 servers currently running CentOS 4.4, my plan is this: CentOS 4.5, followed by 5.1.
Cen Tos wrote:
I'm a relative newbie to all this so pardon me if the following are all stupid questions.
Firstly, I'm setting up a web server and gone from planning to use Ubuntu (due to some familiarity as a desktop at home) to CentOS based on recommendations by experienced webhosters.
However now that I looked into CentOS, I find myself at a point where it's transitting to a major new version. So the key question for me is, should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just go for 4.4?
Being rather new to Linux, my attempts to try to figure out the differences between the two has been rather futile since I can't readily tell what is really important to me or not. All that I think I'm sure of now is that 5 would support virtualization using Xen and 4.4 doesn't have it. This alone is food for thought since the idea of being able to compartalize each website in their own VM sounds good in the long run.
I'm tempted to wait for 5 since I'm reluctant to run the risk of having to upgrade a live server to version 5 and have it failed specutacularly if I screw it up. On the other hand, it's uncertain when 5 will be out and definitely waiting more than another 2 weeks isn't quite acceptable without compelling reasons.
Hence I'll appreciate it if the knowledgeable folks on this mailing list can advise which is the wiser route to go.
Some additional information which may be relevant to the decision.
- RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on the server and has
noted comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may be better than raid 1 using onboard firmware controllers.
As you will discover reading Linux RAID documentation, onboard RAID is not real hardware RAID (like an add-in card). They call it fakeraid. You will almost certainly be better off with Linux software raid.
- Software that would be running on the server would include Apache 2.x
with ASPx support, php 5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim, ProFTPD, Direct Admin (supposed to be developed on RH and one user apparently tested it to work right out of the box with 5 Beta, part of the reason why I decided to go with CentOS)
- Hardware to be used would be Intel Core 2 Duo on an Asus P5B-VM-D0
(Q965, ICH8-D0, Intel GMA3000 GPU) with SATA hard disks.
Here is where you will run into a bunch o' trouble with CentOS 4.4 -- the kernel for that is 2.6.9. I'm pretty sure you would not be able to support your mb and CPU out-of-the-box without a LOT of headache. Due to your hardware, I suggest you wait a little until CentOS 5 has been used by others with similar hardware. In fact I have a brand new system that uses Abit AB9 QuadGT motherboard (Intel P965 Express north bridge, Intel ICH8R south bridge, JMicron JMB363 for IDE), Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 3 Sata II disks. I fully expect to have my hands full getting this to work even in CentOS 5, and I have tons of experience. So my advice is to let others do the hard work for you and wait for the fruits of their labor. I have recently put together another system that used an Asrock u-ATX mb that uses the Nvidia NF6100-430 AM2 chipset to be used as a firewall/DNS server/Mail server for a small network. This is currently running under CentOS 4.4 .... BUT, I ended up building kernel 2.6.20.1 to better support my hardware (Nvidia onboard SATA controller, onboard Nvidia gigabit LAN [forcedeth]. The system is running great, but it took quite a bit of futzing to get it where it was more or less turnkey. And the newer kernel breaks a couple of things (like hotplug for USB because that subsystem on CentOS 4.4 is incompatible with the 2.6.20)
- Network bandwidth control based on request IP or domains (i.e.
connections to IP #1 can be limited to 512Kbps, while connections to IP #2 can be limited to 1024Kbps, or connections to www.domainA.com http://www.domainA.com is limited to 256Kbps etc.
Netfilter will give you this ... I would suggest looking into the Shorewall firewall [http://shorewall.net] for stuff like this. Really wonderful set of software.
I will keep you updated on my progress with Intel P965/Core 2 Duo system on CentOS 5 once it is released.
As you will discover reading Linux RAID documentation, onboard RAID is not real hardware RAID (like an add-in card). They call it fakeraid. You will almost certainly be better off with Linux software raid.
Yes, that's what got me thinking about not bothering with the onboard RAID, which might make it easier to get things just working instead of perhaps needing to find a driver for the controller. Also the point about replacing raid cards mentioned by Florin reminded me of an unpleasant experience when an old board died and I coudn't get the RAID array back with a new board and new controller.
your hardware, I suggest you wait a little until CentOS 5 has been used
by others with similar hardware. In fact I have a brand new system that uses Abit AB9 QuadGT motherboard (Intel P965 Express north bridge, Intel ICH8R south bridge, JMicron JMB363 for IDE), Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 3 Sata II disks. I fully expect to have my hands full getting this to work even in CentOS 5, and I have tons of experience. So my advice is to let others do the hard work for you and wait for the fruits of their labor.
Unfortunately I might just have to jump into the deep end straight since there's a deadline for the server to be up and running. So either I use 4.4and jump through the hoops to make it work with new hardware, or I use 5.0 and jump through the hoops... well, might as well jump the 5.0 hoops :D
And the newer kernel breaks a couple of things (like hotplug for USB because
that subsystem on CentOS 4.4 is incompatible with the 2.6.20)
I'm not too concerned about USB hotplug or great performance. If I only get 10% out of the NIC, I'm happy enough. We're only getting 2Mbps at the datacenter anyway! :D
Netfilter will give you this ... I would suggest looking into the
Shorewall firewall [http://shorewall.net] for stuff like this. Really wonderful set of software.
Thanks a million, this is a god send, I've been reading the documents on IP Filters and despite thinking I probably know what I'm supposed to do, it's a relief to have something that can read off a human readable table and do what I need!
Cen Tos spake the following on 3/31/2007 11:54 AM:
As you will discover reading Linux RAID documentation, onboard RAID is not real hardware RAID (like an add-in card). They call it fakeraid. You will almost certainly be better off with Linux software raid.Yes, that's what got me thinking about not bothering with the onboard RAID, which might make it easier to get things just working instead of perhaps needing to find a driver for the controller. Also the point about replacing raid cards mentioned by Florin reminded me of an unpleasant experience when an old board died and I coudn't get the RAID array back with a new board and new controller.
your hardware, I suggest you wait a little until CentOS 5 has been used by others with similar hardware. In fact I have a brand new system that uses Abit AB9 QuadGT motherboard (Intel P965 Express north bridge, Intel ICH8R south bridge, JMicron JMB363 for IDE), Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 3 Sata II disks. I fully expect to have my hands full getting this to work even in CentOS 5, and I have tons of experience. So my advice is to let others do the hard work for you and wait for the fruits of their labor.Unfortunately I might just have to jump into the deep end straight since there's a deadline for the server to be up and running. So either I use 4.4 and jump through the hoops to make it work with new hardware, or I use 5.0 and jump through the hoops... well, might as well jump the 5.0 hoops :D
The projected date for release of Centos 5 was announced for April 9th
Cen Tos wrote:
I'm a relative newbie to all this so pardon me if the following are all stupid questions.
Nobody's born knowledgeable.
However now that I looked into CentOS, I find myself at a point where it's transitting to a major new version. So the key question for me is, should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just go for 4.4?
Wait for 5, it'll be out pretty soon now. It has newer software that provides more features in general. Also, the focus of most contributors will move towards 5 very quickly, and you want to stay close to the spotlight, don't you?
- RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on the server and has
noted comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may be better than raid 1 using onboard firmware controllers.
This is a religious war, it's pretty hard to find unbiased opinion.
Both are fine. Soft RAID is quicker to setup and cheaper. Hard RAID gives you more options. If you can't afford a good RAID card that can be replaced quickly in case something happens, use soft RAID. If you do use hard RAID, make sure you back up the card's config and keep the backup in a safe place. Also make sure you either have a cold spare somewhere, or you can quickly purchase an identical card.
- Software that would be running on the server would include Apache 2.x
with ASPx support, php 5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim, ProFTPD, Direct Admin
CentOS 5 and RHEL 5 offer most of those software versions right off the bat. One more reason to wait for 5.
On Friday 30 March 2007, Florin Andrei wrote: ...
- RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on the server and has
noted comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may be better than raid 1 using onboard firmware controllers.
This is a religious war, it's pretty hard to find unbiased opinion.
Both are fine. Soft RAID is quicker to setup and cheaper. Hard RAID gives you more options. If you can't afford a good RAID card that can be replaced quickly in case something happens, use soft RAID. If you do use hard RAID, make sure you back up the card's config and keep the backup in a safe place.
This is probably a good idea anyway, but I'd like to point out that most hardware raid cards (and linux software raid) keeps the array config on the array members themselves. That is, you can typically swap the raid-controller, reboot and see your old arrays.
/Peter
Peter Kjellstrom wrote:
If you do use hard RAID, make sure you back up the card's config and keep the backup in a safe place.
This is probably a good idea anyway, but I'd like to point out that most hardware raid cards (and linux software raid) keeps the array config on the array members themselves. That is, you can typically swap the raid-controller, reboot and see your old arrays.
That is *definitely* the case for 3Ware cards.
Cheers,
Anyone test ORACLE 9i/10G with CentOS 5?
--- Florin Andrei florin@andrei.myip.org 說：
Cen Tos wrote:
I'm a relative newbie to all this so pardon me if
the following are all
stupid questions.
Nobody's born knowledgeable.
However now that I looked into CentOS, I find
myself at a point where
it's transitting to a major new version. So the
key question for me is,
should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just
go for 4.4?
Wait for 5, it'll be out pretty soon now. It has newer software that provides more features in general. Also, the focus of most contributors will move towards 5 very quickly, and you want to stay close to the spotlight, don't you?
- RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on
the server and has
noted comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may
be better than raid 1
using onboard firmware controllers.
This is a religious war, it's pretty hard to find unbiased opinion.
Both are fine. Soft RAID is quicker to setup and cheaper. Hard RAID gives you more options. If you can't afford a good RAID card that can be replaced quickly in case something happens, use soft RAID. If you do use hard RAID, make sure you back up the card's config and keep the backup in a safe place. Also make sure you either have a cold spare somewhere, or you can quickly purchase an identical card.
- Software that would be running on the server
would include Apache 2.x
with ASPx support, php 5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim,
ProFTPD, Direct Admin
CentOS 5 and RHEL 5 offer most of those software versions right off the bat. One more reason to wait for 5.
-- Florin Andrei
http://florin.myip.org/ _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
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mcclnx mcc wrote:
Anyone test ORACLE 9i/10G with CentOS 5?
No, but I have tested other enterprise grade software on RHEL5; DB2, WebSphere App Server and Portal, Tivoli Directory Server... all working just fine.
Morten Torstensen wrote:
mcclnx mcc wrote:
Anyone test ORACLE 9i/10G with CentOS 5?
No, but I have tested other enterprise grade software on RHEL5; DB2, WebSphere App Server and Portal, Tivoli Directory Server... all working just fine.
Pressed "send" too fast....
I would think that Oracle would run pretty much out of the box on RHEL5 (and CentOS 5), as the kernel/glibc is not bleeding edge and Redhat works pretty close with Oracle (as they do with other Enterprise software). That does not mean it is ready for production, but it should be ready for testing and piloting.
Morten Torstensen wrote:
I would think that Oracle would run pretty much out of the box on RHEL5 (and CentOS 5), as the kernel/glibc is not bleeding edge and Redhat works pretty close with Oracle (as they do with other Enterprise software). That does not mean it is ready for production, but it should be ready for testing and piloting.
indeed, I've heard Oracle flat out won't support you if you're running on CentOS 4, even tho its functionally nearly identical to RHEL4 which is supported.
John R Pierce wrote:
Morten Torstensen wrote:
I would think that Oracle would run pretty much out of the box on RHEL5 (and CentOS 5), as the kernel/glibc is not bleeding edge and Redhat works pretty close with Oracle (as they do with other Enterprise software). That does not mean it is ready for production, but it should be ready for testing and piloting.
indeed, I've heard Oracle flat out won't support you if you're running on CentOS 4, even tho its functionally nearly identical to RHEL4 which is supported.
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Hope this doesnt start too much of a flamewar, but I have to ask...
If you can afford an Oracle license, why not just buy a RHEL license?
From my limited understanding, Centos is a rebuild of one variant of
RHEL. RHEL has at least three different versions; Desktop, Advanced and Server. I couldn't find anything on the centos.org page about which of the variants the source is rebuilt from. maybe a collect of all?
just my $0.02
RHEL has at least three different versions; Desktop, Advanced and Server. I couldn't find anything on the centos.org page about which of the variants the source is rebuilt from. maybe a collect of all?
all 3+ RHEL versions are the same code, just different licensing/support contracts, and 'channels' on RHN where you won't get updates or RPMs for components that aren't in your 'channel'.
centos is built from the most inclusive of these, "AS" as there are no subscriptions or other restrictions on updates.
cameron wrote:
If you can afford an Oracle license, why not just buy a RHEL license?
It is a valid point :)
RHEL. RHEL has at least three different versions; Desktop, Advanced and Server. I couldn't find anything on the centos.org page about which of the variants the source is rebuilt from. maybe a collect of all?
CentOS4 is REHL4 AS. RHEL5 is a little different, with the packaging of the cluster stuff seperately.
John R Pierce wrote:
indeed, I've heard Oracle flat out won't support you if you're running on CentOS 4, even tho its functionally nearly identical to RHEL4 which is supported.
No-one wants to support too many things in enterprise environments (and RHEL/CentOS are enterprise grade linux distros). I have worked in that environment for quite some years (never directly with Oracle I am happy to say) and usually there can be some leeway. Sure, RHEL and SLES are ususally the only officially supported versions but there are levels of support. You would probably get support from most if you can reproduce the problem on RHEL, or if it is unlikely that CentOS is part of the problem. Of course, if you are a big customer and want to run CentOS, money talks :)
There is also a big difference between supported as certified, supported as works-here, supported as we-have-no-idea-if-it-works-but-we-will-fix-it-if-it-doesn't. We would also many times just ignore parts of a platform. We can also ignore unsupported parts of a platform if we feel it is irrelevant. Even in enterprise environments you have the human factor for support and personal relations matters.... that is why many big companies stay with a product even if it is not perfect. They know what they have and not what they get, and they can live with the imperfections.
So if a large Oracle customer told Oracle they wanted to run it on CentOS, Oracle would most likely support it. OTOH large companies would just run RHEL -- no real compelling reason for them to choose CentOS.
So how intreresting is it to get Oracle to support it? It should run just as well or bad on CentOS as RHEL. If it is for a small customer, they could not affort much support anyway. For testing, development, stuff like that you don't usually need full support.
--- Morten Torstensen morten@mortent.org wrote:
supported as we-have-no-idea-if-it-works-but-we-will-fix-it-if-it-doesn't.
How about supported as in 'it-should-work-but-if-it-doesn't-you're-on-your-own'?
Sorry for the OT, but I just couldn't resist. The 'we-have-no-idea-if-it-works-but-we-will-fix-it-if-it-doesn't' support is hard to find.
R-C
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Radu-Cristian FOTESCU wrote:
Sorry for the OT, but I just couldn't resist. The 'we-have-no-idea-if-it-works-but-we-will-fix-it-if-it-doesn't' support is hard to find.
It is common and called Premium Support or some such thing. Standard support is we-have-no-idea-if-it-works-but-we-will-try-to-fix-it or -we-might-try-to-fix-it.
On Friday 30 March 2007, Morten Torstensen wrote:
Radu-Cristian FOTESCU wrote:
Sorry for the OT, but I just couldn't resist. The 'we-have-no-idea-if-it-works-but-we-will-fix-it-if-it-doesn't' support is hard to find.
It is common and called Premium Support or some such thing. Standard support is we-have-no-idea-if-it-works-but-we-will-try-to-fix-it or -we-might-try-to-fix-it.
Standard support is more correctly defined as: we-have-no-idea-how-it-works-and-don't-call-us-if-you-use-something-non-standard.
Shawn
On 3/31/07, Cen Tos centos.admin@gmail.com wrote:
I'm a relative newbie to all this so pardon me if the following are all stupid questions.
Nobody borns knowing everything The worse question is the no asked question
Firstly, I'm setting up a web server and gone from planning to use Ubuntu (due to some familiarity as a desktop at home) to CentOS based on recommendations by experienced webhosters.
However now that I looked into CentOS, I find myself at a point where it's transitting to a major new version. So the key question for me is, should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just go for 4.4?
Being rather new to Linux, my attempts to try to figure out the differences between the two has been rather futile since I can't readily tell what is really important to me or not. All that I think I'm sure of now is that 5 would support virtualization using Xen and 4.4 doesn't have it. This alone is food for thought since the idea of being able to compartalize each website in their own VM sounds good in the long run.
I'm tempted to wait for 5 since I'm reluctant to run the risk of having to upgrade a live server to version 5 and have it failed specutacularly if I screw it up. On the other hand, it's uncertain when 5 will be out and definitely waiting more than another 2 weeks isn't quite acceptable without compelling reasons.
Then go with 4.4
Hence I'll appreciate it if the knowledgeable folks on this mailing list can advise which is the wiser route to go.
Some additional information which may be relevant to the decision.
- RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on the server and has noted
comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may be better than raid 1 using onboard firmware controllers.
- Software that would be running on the server would include Apache 2.x
with ASPx support, php 5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim, ProFTPD, Direct Admin (supposed to be developed on RH and one user apparently tested it to work right out of the box with 5 Beta, part of the reason why I decided to go with CentOS)
Then wait for CentOS 5 since CentOS 4 has php4 or php5 if you use centosplus
- Hardware to be used would be Intel Core 2 Duo on an Asus P5B-VM-D0 (Q965,
ICH8-D0, Intel GMA3000 GPU) with SATA hard disks.
- Network bandwidth control based on request IP or domains (i.e.
connections to IP #1 can be limited to 512Kbps, while connections to IP #2 can be limited to 1024Kbps, or connections to www.domainA.com is limited to 256Kbps etc.
Thanks!
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
Cen Tos wrote:
- Hardware to be used would be Intel Core 2 Duo on an Asus P5B-VM-D0
(Q965, ICH8-D0, Intel GMA3000 GPU) with SATA hard disks.
thats a desktop motherboard, not really what I'd consider 'server' grade. Now, if this is just a SOHO 'server', that may not matter, but if this is going into a colocation site to host production websites, I'd want a 1U or 2U server with niceties like hotswap hard drives, redundant power supplies, and ECC memory, perhaps one of the Tyan or SuperMicro servers.
You know the CPU might make a big difference if he were running Windows, but we're running Linux, an performance wise the Dual Core running Linux, will keep up with if not kick butt on a Dual Zeon running Windows 2003 server. Windows by design is a CPU hog, heck it takes several Windows boxes if you listen to Windows tech's to do the same thing as a single Linux box. Microsoft guy's would prefer to have DNS on one box, mail on another and web services on still a third, throw in a SQL db and well add in another Windows server.
I don't know how many times, I've heard from hired Microsoft guru's tell me I can do that, it needs to be on it's own machine.
Back to point, the dual core CPU's today are very close to performance as the Zeon's a series or so back, so if cost is an issue and you can't afford a full Zeon server the dual core will do a great job, even if not a 1U or 2U server with hot swap drives.... Remember the intent of Linux is to keep it cheap, Microsoft on the other hand has the make it cost and cost and cost....
john plemons
John R Pierce wrote:
Cen Tos wrote:
- Hardware to be used would be Intel Core 2 Duo on an Asus P5B-VM-D0
(Q965, ICH8-D0, Intel GMA3000 GPU) with SATA hard disks.
thats a desktop motherboard, not really what I'd consider 'server' grade. Now, if this is just a SOHO 'server', that may not matter, but if this is going into a colocation site to host production websites, I'd want a 1U or 2U server with niceties like hotswap hard drives, redundant power supplies, and ECC memory, perhaps one of the Tyan or SuperMicro servers. _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
John Plemons wrote:
You know the CPU might make a big difference if he were running Windows, but we're running Linux, an performance wise the Dual Core running Linux, will keep up with if not kick butt on a Dual Zeon running Windows 2003 server. Windows by design is a CPU hog, heck it takes several Windows boxes if you listen to Windows tech's to do the same thing as a single Linux box. Microsoft guy's would prefer to have DNS on one box, mail on another and web services on still a third, throw in a SQL db and well add in another Windows server.
I don't know how many times, I've heard from hired Microsoft guru's tell me I can do that, it needs to be on it's own machine.
This isn't so much about performance as the fact that they are always terrified (and often correctly so...) that one application will affect the others in some mysterious way. Or that a future update needed for one application will be incompatible with one or more of the others. Not only that, they need a test box to match each production box since it is rare for a windows app to be able to run different versions of itself at the same time for testing.
On 3/31/07, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
thats a desktop motherboard, not really what I'd consider 'server' grade. Now, if this is just a SOHO 'server', that may not matter, but if this is going into a colocation site to host production websites, I'd want a 1U or 2U server with niceties like hotswap hard drives, redundant power supplies, and ECC memory, perhaps one of the Tyan or SuperMicro servers.
This is going into a 4U chassis with redundant PSU and hotswap :) The remaining hardware is largely constrained by budget. But of course, if anybody has a better suggestion for a reasonably priced board from Asus or Gigabyte that has two NIC, supports Core 2 Duo and ECC with onboard graphics, I'm all game :)
Tyan & SuperMicro are out because it would take the local reseller like a week or two to get the board, I don't want to know what will happen if the board dies. It's far safer and cheaper for me to keep a spare desktop board from Asus/Gigabyte. I have close to zero confidence in Abit boards, little confidence in product quality and after sales support of other brands distributors in my local area. If this wasn't for a server, I would pick an MSI board for cheap pricing and excellent local support.
On another issue, I feel that generic 1P servers are more defined by the redundancy features than the board itself. Raid, Hotswap drives and redundant power supplies are more crucial than the board. I've clients who ran lan gaming shops and I supplied them easily thousands of systems over the past few years. Although they don't run 24/7 like servers, the 12~16 hours or so they are in operation tend to see much more intensive usage compared to what I'm expecting on this setup. Relatively few boards have died compared to numerous fans, drives and power supplies.
Hence even if I can get the budget for it, I'd rather spend it on a standby system, and do this HA heartbeat thing I've been reading up, than spend it on an expensive board from Tyan/SuperMicro.
Cen Tos wrote:
On 3/31/07, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
thats a desktop motherboard, not really what I'd consider 'server' grade. Now, if this is just a SOHO 'server', that may not matter, but if this is going into a colocation site to host production websites, I'd want a 1U or 2U server with niceties like hotswap hard drives, redundant power supplies, and ECC memory, perhaps one of the Tyan or SuperMicro servers.
This is going into a 4U chassis with redundant PSU and hotswap :) The remaining hardware is largely constrained by budget. But of course, if anybody has a better suggestion for a reasonably priced board from Asus or Gigabyte that has two NIC, supports Core 2 Duo and ECC with onboard graphics, I'm all game :)
Tyan & SuperMicro are out because it would take the local reseller like a week or two to get the board, I don't want to know what will happen if the board dies. It's far safer and cheaper for me to keep a spare desktop board from Asus/Gigabyte. I have close to zero confidence in Abit boards, little confidence in product quality and after sales support of other brands distributors in my local area. If this wasn't for a server, I would pick an MSI board for cheap pricing and excellent local support.
On another issue, I feel that generic 1P servers are more defined by the redundancy features than the board itself. Raid, Hotswap drives and redundant power supplies are more crucial than the board. I've clients who ran lan gaming shops and I supplied them easily thousands of systems over the past few years. Although they don't run 24/7 like servers, the 12~16 hours or so they are in operation tend to see much more intensive usage compared to what I'm expecting on this setup. Relatively few boards have died compared to numerous fans, drives and power supplies.
Hence even if I can get the budget for it, I'd rather spend it on a standby system, and do this HA heartbeat thing I've been reading up, than spend it on an expensive board from Tyan/SuperMicro.
I recently read a Goot Trick, might even have been on this list. Bloke has software raid configured involving two internal drives and one firewire (I expect USB 2 would do as well).
He attaches drive, syncs the RAID, removes it. Takes it away for offsite backup.
I already new of some of the ideas here: http://lcic.org/ha.html and my preference is DRBD, but I'd have to redo the research. There's also enbd, which requires a kernel patch, but then my research there's pretty old too. nbd is in the standard kernel source.
Cen Tos wrote:
On 3/31/07, *John R Pierce* <pierce@hogranch.com mailto:pierce@hogranch.com> wrote:
thats a desktop motherboard, not really what I'd consider 'server' grade. Now, if this is just a SOHO 'server', that may not matter, but if this is going into a colocation site to host production websites, I'd want a 1U or 2U server with niceties like hotswap hard drives, redundant power supplies, and ECC memory, perhaps one of the Tyan or SuperMicro servers.This is going into a 4U chassis with redundant PSU and hotswap :) The remaining hardware is largely constrained by budget. But of course, if anybody has a better suggestion for a reasonably priced board from Asus or Gigabyte that has two NIC, supports Core 2 Duo and ECC with onboard graphics, I'm all game :)
I don't think you need confine yourself to motherboards with dual NICs. It is so easy to add an additional PCI NIC card ....
[snip]
On 4/1/07, Peter Gross pag@nanosec.com wrote:
anybody has a better suggestion for a reasonably priced board from Asus or Gigabyte that has two NIC, supports Core 2 Duo and ECC with onboard graphics, I'm all game :)
I don't think you need confine yourself to motherboards with dual NICs. It is so easy to add an additional PCI NIC card ....
I feel like a total idiot after reading that. :D Why on earth did I get locked into the idea that I can only get a 2nd NIC using what's on board is beyond even my own comprehension. Thanks for removing those blinders for me!
Based on your software version requirements (php5, mysql5), I would wait until CentOS 5 comes out. It shouldn't be too much longer now.
Unless you know your raid management software well, I'd recommend software raid. Based on the motherboard, I'm guessing you won't see a performance advantage for the 'hardware' raid.
Thanks.
On 3/30/07, Cen Tos centos.admin@gmail.com wrote:
I'm a relative newbie to all this so pardon me if the following are all stupid questions.
Firstly, I'm setting up a web server and gone from planning to use Ubuntu (due to some familiarity as a desktop at home) to CentOS based on recommendations by experienced webhosters.
However now that I looked into CentOS, I find myself at a point where it's transitting to a major new version. So the key question for me is, should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just go for 4.4?
Being rather new to Linux, my attempts to try to figure out the differences between the two has been rather futile since I can't readily tell what is really important to me or not. All that I think I'm sure of now is that 5 would support virtualization using Xen and 4.4 doesn't have it. This alone is food for thought since the idea of being able to compartalize each website in their own VM sounds good in the long run.
I'm tempted to wait for 5 since I'm reluctant to run the risk of having to upgrade a live server to version 5 and have it failed specutacularly if I screw it up. On the other hand, it's uncertain when 5 will be out and definitely waiting more than another 2 weeks isn't quite acceptable without compelling reasons.
Hence I'll appreciate it if the knowledgeable folks on this mailing list can advise which is the wiser route to go.
Some additional information which may be relevant to the decision.
- RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on the server and has
noted comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may be better than raid 1 using onboard firmware controllers.
- Software that would be running on the server would include Apache 2.xwith ASPx support, php
5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim, ProFTPD, Direct Admin (supposed to be developed on RH and one user apparently tested it to work right out of the box with 5 Beta, part of the reason why I decided to go with CentOS)
- Hardware to be used would be Intel Core 2 Duo on an Asus P5B-VM-D0
(Q965, ICH8-D0, Intel GMA3000 GPU) with SATA hard disks.
- Network bandwidth control based on request IP or domains (i.e.
connections to IP #1 can be limited to 512Kbps, while connections to IP #2 can be limited to 1024Kbps, or connections to www.domainA.com is limited to 256Kbps etc.
Thanks!
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
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Just tossing my $0.02.
On Sat, Mar 31, 2007 at 12:28:38AM +0800, Cen Tos wrote:
However now that I looked into CentOS, I find myself at a point where it's transitting to a major new version. So the key question for me is, should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just go for 4.4?
I, for one, won't be migrating or installing new servers with CentOS 5 for a while yet. I'll be probably only doing tests and adapting script and procedures during the next 1 or 2 months.
Jumping to a new version on a prodution server right after it is released is a bit too risky for my tastes.
- RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on the server and has noted
comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may be better than raid 1 using onboard firmware controllers.
3ware :)
- Software that would be running on the server would include Apache 2.x with
ASPx support, php 5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim, ProFTPD, Direct Admin (supposed to be developed on RH and one user apparently tested it to work right out of the box with 5 Beta, part of the reason why I decided to go with CentOS)
If you want php 5.x and MySQL 5.x, you definitively should wait for CentOS 5.
- Network bandwidth control based on request IP or domains (i.e. connections
to IP #1 can be limited to 512Kbps, while connections to IP #2 can be limited to 1024Kbps, or connections to www.domainA.com is limited to 256Kbps etc.
As far as I'm concerned, this kind of thing should be no different in either of the 2 versions.
- -- Rodrigo Barbosa "Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur" "Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns)
I, for one, won't be migrating or installing new servers with CentOS 5 for a while yet. I'll be probably only doing tests and adapting script and procedures during the next 1 or 2 months. Jumping to a new version on a prodution server right after it is released is a bit too risky for my tastes. Rodrigo Barbosa
Rodrigo,
Where is your sense of adventure? We all know it will be rock solid for almost all basic Internet server needs right out of the gate!
(bok bok) Chicken!
Ill be jumping on board with CentOS 5 for at least one production box immediately.
:-)
- rh
-- Robert - Abba Communications http://www.abbacomm.net/
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On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 11:02:58PM -0700, R Lists06 wrote:
I, for one, won't be migrating or installing new servers with CentOS 5 for a while yet. I'll be probably only doing tests and adapting script and procedures during the next 1 or 2 months. Jumping to a new version on a prodution server right after it is released is a bit too risky for my tastes. Rodrigo Barbosa
Where is your sense of adventure? We all know it will be rock solid for almost all basic Internet server needs right out of the gate!
(bok bok) Chicken!
Ill be jumping on board with CentOS 5 for at least one production box immediately.
My sense of adventure is fed enough by my self rolled packages on these servers, specially some including some patches made by myself :)
My first box to be converted is my notebook :)
[]s
- -- Rodrigo Barbosa "Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur" "Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns)
Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
Ill be jumping on board with CentOS 5 for at least one production box immediately.
My sense of adventure is fed enough by my self rolled packages on these servers, specially some including some patches made by myself :)
Mine is getting java and maybe tomcat to run. Is there any reason to think that will be easier this time around? Is there a way to just remove all the non-Sun attempts to second-guess things and those alternatives symlinks and get the real things in your normal PATH?
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Les Mikesell wrote:
Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
My sense of adventure is fed enough by my self rolled packages on these servers, specially some including some patches made by myself :)
Mine is getting java and maybe tomcat to run. Is there any reason to think that will be easier this time around? Is there a way to just remove all the non-Sun attempts to second-guess things and those alternatives symlinks and get the real things in your normal PATH?
I've completely punted with Tomcat. I just make a /opt/tomcat tree, shove both Sun's JRE and Apache's Tomcat in there, create a custom /etc/init.d/tomcat script, and call it good. I keep a tarball of the tree and all relevant configs on a network drive, available for kickstart %post installation. Getting the gcj-compiled version of Tomcat to work with Java keystores was an exercise in futility.
Paul Heinlein wrote:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Les Mikesell wrote:
I've completely punted with Tomcat. I just make a /opt/tomcat tree, shove both Sun's JRE and Apache's Tomcat in there, create a custom /etc/init.d/tomcat script, and call it good. I keep a tarball of the tree and all relevant configs on a network drive, available for kickstart %post installation. Getting the gcj-compiled version of Tomcat to work with Java keystores was an exercise in futility.
I've been playing with java a little on my laptop, I have some code I wrote when java 1.1 was current and I used to compile with Jikes.
I discovered generics (opensuse ships Sun's JDE 1.5), and thought I'd try the code on a Debian box to see whether there's a realistic alternative to Sun/IBM Java.
If there is, Debian hasn't found it. gcj doesn't do generics, and I'm not going back. Nore does it recognise '-cp.'
Jikes/sable-vm doesn't match up either.
On Sat, 2007-03-31 at 12:23 -0700, Paul Heinlein wrote:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2007, Les Mikesell wrote:
Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
My sense of adventure is fed enough by my self rolled packages on these servers, specially some including some patches made by myself :)
Mine is getting java and maybe tomcat to run. Is there any reason to think that will be easier this time around? Is there a way to just remove all the non-Sun attempts to second-guess things and those alternatives symlinks and get the real things in your normal PATH?
I've completely punted with Tomcat. I just make a /opt/tomcat tree, shove both Sun's JRE and Apache's Tomcat in there, create a custom /etc/init.d/tomcat script, and call it good. I keep a tarball of the tree and all relevant configs on a network drive, available for kickstart %post installation. Getting the gcj-compiled version of Tomcat to work with Java keystores was an exercise in futility.
Exactly the approach I use too ...
Cen Tos wrote:
I'm a relative newbie to all this so pardon me if the following are all stupid questions.
Firstly, I'm setting up a web server and gone from planning to use Ubuntu (due to some familiarity as a desktop at home) to CentOS based on recommendations by experienced webhosters.
My main objection to the Ubuntu family is that, while there's an enormous supply of packages available, there's only a relatively small set that's supported with security ubdates. Likely, that set probably compares fairly well with RHEL and SLE{S,D}, it's awfully easy to get stuff from universe because it's there, and forget its lack of support.
Debian's a good alternative to Ubuntu; while it doesn't have the polish, some has definitely rubbed off, and all of Debian's supported.
OTOH, if anyone mocks Debian for never releasing a new release, well, Debian has earned that reputation. It announced a new release for Dec 2006, but it hasn't actually appeared yet.
All that said, I do have some Debian systems, and I don't intend to replace them with anything different. Debian's kinder to more modest hardware.
However now that I looked into CentOS, I find myself at a point where it's transitting to a major new version. So the key question for me is, should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just go for 4.4?
Well C5 will last longer - it will be supported after C4 isn't, Supposedly C5 is better than C4 - why else would RH be promoting RHEL5?
It seems you don't have a particular reason to go with C4 - no legacy apps etc.
fwiw I plan to install C5 on my laptop.
Being rather new to Linux, my attempts to try to figure out the differences between the two has been rather futile since I can't readily tell what is really important to me or not. All that I think I'm sure of now is that 5 would support virtualization using Xen and 4.4 doesn't have it. This alone is food for thought since the idea of being able to compartalize each website in their own VM sounds good in the long run.
Yes, but don't get too carried away with that. atm one needs real RAM for each guest. On zSeries folk run guests in 64 Mbytes virtual, but their VM has been evolving for around 40 years, and it runs on damned good hardware.
I'm tempted to wait for 5 since I'm reluctant to run the risk of having to upgrade a live server to version 5 and have it failed specutacularly if I screw it up. On the other hand, it's uncertain when 5 will be out and definitely waiting more than another 2 weeks isn't quite acceptable without compelling reasons.
Plan for 5, it will probably be ready before you.
Hence I'll appreciate it if the knowledgeable folks on this mailing list can advise which is the wiser route to go.
Some additional information which may be relevant to the decision.
- RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on the server and has noted
comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may be better than raid 1 using onboard firmware controllers.
- Software that would be running on the server would include Apache
2.xwith ASPx support, php 5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim, ProFTPD, Direct Admin (supposed to be developed on RH
Do you know how to use Exim? If not, I suggest you settle for postfix.
and one user apparently tested it to work right out of the box with 5 Beta, part of the reason why I decided to go with CentOS)
Do check that any third-party stuff you might consider supports all these new releases. You do have the option of running C5 and C4 if necessary.
- Hardware to be used would be Intel Core 2 Duo on an Asus P5B-VM-D0
(Q965, ICH8-D0, Intel GMA3000 GPU) with SATA hard disks.
- Network bandwidth control based on request IP or domains (i.e.
connections to IP #1 can be limited to 512Kbps, while connections to IP #2 can be limited to 1024Kbps, or connections to www.domainA.com is limited to 256Kbps etc.
Thanks!
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 3/31/07, John Summerfield debian@herakles.homelinux.org wrote:
Yes, but don't get too carried away with that. atm one needs real RAM for each guest. On zSeries folk run guests in 64 Mbytes virtual, but their VM has been evolving for around 40 years, and it runs on damned good hardware.
The thing in my head is the idea of having lower priority sites in one VM with 512MB and fewer but important sites on another with 512MB or more. That way I could probably control bandwidth allocation better as well as not worry about some runaway script or something bringing down the more important sites. Or at least that's what I think the VM thing would benefit me! :D
Plan for 5, it will probably be ready before you.
Hopefully! I'll be getting the hardware after this weekend and likely throwing C5 Beta on it first and see how that works out.
- Software that would be running on the server would include Apache
2.xwith ASPx support, php 5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim, ProFTPD, Direct Admin (supposed to be developed on
RH
Do you know how to use Exim? If not, I suggest you settle for postfix.
Never touched it before, but that's apparently what DA will use by default. So I sort of have to go along with it. Plus if I didn't misread it, Exim can be setup to work with storing user accounts in sql db. I'm rather more comfortable with adding email users using sql than with CLI.
Do check that any third-party stuff you might consider supports all
these new releases. You do have the option of running C5 and C4 if necessary.
Together on the same machine?
Cen Tos wrote:
On 3/31/07, John Summerfield debian@herakles.homelinux.org wrote:
Do you know how to use Exim? If not, I suggest you settle for postfix.
Never touched it before, but that's apparently what DA will use by default. So I sort of have to go along with it. Plus if I didn't misread it, Exim can be setup to work with storing user accounts in sql db. I'm rather more comfortable with adding email users using sql than with CLI.
postfix does that too. and LDAP and sasl. See www.postfix.org.
Do check that any third-party stuff you might consider supports all
these new releases. You do have the option of running C5 and C4 if necessary.
Together on the same machine?
That's what xen does.
Just an update, I didn't get the board I wanted originally, it was out of stock. So as an alternative, I got the Intel DQ965 instead, which appears to be practically identically to the Asus P5B-VM-DO.
Apart from a noob mistake thinking I didn't need GRUB if this was an going to be a single OS system, everything appeared to work right. All my worries about the problems I found online regarding the Intel 82566DM Gigabit controller turned out to be unfound. Since I also used a SATA DVDRW to install, there was no issue with the Q965 chipset not having native IDE support.
Now I just need to add another NIC and figure out the rest of the stuff like getting httpd and mysql to start on their own :)
Thanks for all the responses!
-
cameron -
Cen Tos -
chrism＠imntv.com -
Florin Andrei -
Gary Richardson -
John Plemons -
John R Pierce -
John Summerfield -
Johnny Hughes -
Leonel -
Les Mikesell -
mcclnx mcc -
Morten Torstensen -
Paul Heinlein -
Peter Gross -
Peter Kjellstrom -
R Lists06 -
Radu-Cristian FOTESCU -
Ray Van Dolson -
Rodrigo Barbosa -
Scott Silva -
Shawn Everett -
swsnyder＠insightbb.com