From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Ixmjr-00063y-7z for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:59:47 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.2/8.14.0) with SMTP id lATGwQH5011613; Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:58:26 GMT Received: from rn-out-0102.google.com (rn-out-0910.google.com [64.233.170.189]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.2/8.14.0) with ESMTP id lATGrwKk006325 for ; Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:53:58 GMT Received: by rn-out-0102.google.com with SMTP id e24so402460rng for ; Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:53:57 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.150.200.8 with SMTP id x8mr1613499ybf.1196355237146; Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:53:57 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.151.8.19 with HTTP; Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:53:57 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <1a410e090711290853h34c2416eva578088a204c3a99@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:53:57 -0500 From: "Derek Bodner" To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side In-Reply-To: <20071129093643.zvz0kg9i8g80o8k0@box251.bluehost.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_Part_724_31319667.1196355237134" References: <642958cc0711281345j48779db4v59cc0a60050512f3@mail.gmail.com> <474DE646.50708@robertspahr.com> <474E48D2.8060606@gonoph.net> <474EC13D.90508@gmail.com> <20071129093643.zvz0kg9i8g80o8k0@box251.bluehost.com> X-Archives-Salt: 06f1078f-3b5a-4c75-977f-3373a1cbed4f X-Archives-Hash: 50f73343d0c1b0177fe2ed32a58a8041 ------=_Part_724_31319667.1196355237134 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline After having used RHEL/CentOS and Debian in the past (for a binary system, I really like Debian), I'm at the point where I get frustrated working on a non-gentoo server. I had used Gentoo in the past, but in the last 6 months my place of employment has been deploying more and more gentoo servers. These started off as mainly development environments, but have since used them as mailservers, postgres servers, dns servers, ldap servers, and a dhcp server. After having used Gentoo at my employment, I converted all 3 of my personal servers from CentOS to Gentoo. While I love the power of portage on my desktop, it's become absolutely incredible from a server perspective. It's the flexibility of compiling everything by hand, but far easier maintenance and ease of use. As others have said, updates are the biggest drawback. For the most part, I stay away from system wide updates. I update: - When I need an update - When there's a security vulnerability fixed in an update For the security vulnerabilities, setup a glsa-check weekly cron (run after an emerge sync): http://gentoo-wiki.com/SECURITY_Getting_GLSAs_by_Email Also, revdep-rebuild is your friend (in gentoolkit). When you emerge something, always use emerge -av to see what is goign to be installed/re-installed. etc-update can cause you some problems if you're not paying attention. There have been times where I've merged a change without looking at it, because I thought I never hand-edited that config file, but in the end I did and just forgot about it (it was an init script). It's generally a good idea to review the changes for all files that it wants to merge. Some sysadmins worry about having a compiler installed on a production system, and there are valid reasons to be concerned, but most of those can be averted with a little extra care. In the end, I think the worry about a compiler is sometimes overblown. Finally, if there isn't a time of day that will be a "down" time of day traffic-wise, you may be worried about compiling apps will slow down performance on the server. Setting up distcc and having portage use that could be a huge help. Gentoo's a great potential system for a server. It's really flexible, and really customizable. The power or portage is an absolutely incredible tool, but it is slightly different than binary based GNU/Linux distros, and may require a little bit of a learning curve. As others have said, installed it in a virtualized environment so you can test things out could be of great benefit. ---- Derek Bodner subscribedlists@derekbodner.com On 11/29/07, Billy Holmes wrote: > > Quoting Wayn0 : > > > Mirror the setup in a virtual machine ;-) > > linux virtualization > > some links: > > http://virt.kernelnewbies.org/ > http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/01/26/xen.html > > linux-vserver looks pretty neat, too > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux-VServer > > -- > gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list > > ------=_Part_724_31319667.1196355237134 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline After having used RHEL/CentOS and Debian in the past (for a binary system, I really like Debian), I'm at the point where I get frustrated working on a non-gentoo server.  I had used Gentoo in the past, but in the last 6 months my place of employment has been deploying more and more gentoo servers.  These started off as mainly development environments, but have since used them as mailservers, postgres servers, dns servers, ldap servers, and a dhcp server.  After having used Gentoo at my employment, I converted all 3 of my personal servers  from CentOS to Gentoo.  While I love the power of portage on my desktop, it's become absolutely incredible from a server perspective.  It's the flexibility of compiling everything by hand, but far easier maintenance and ease of use.

As others have said, updates are the biggest drawback.  For the most part, I stay away from system wide updates.  I update:
- When I need an update
- When there's a security vulnerability fixed in an update

For the security vulnerabilities, setup a glsa-check weekly cron (run after an emerge sync):
http://gentoo-wiki.com/SECURITY_Getting_GLSAs_by_Email

Also, revdep-rebuild is your friend (in gentoolkit).

When you emerge something, always use emerge -av to see what is goign to be installed/re-installed.

etc-update can cause you some problems if you're not paying attention.  There have been times where I've merged a change without looking at it, because I thought I never hand-edited that config file, but in the end I did and just forgot about it (it was an init script).  It's generally a good idea to review the changes for all files that it wants to merge.

Some sysadmins worry about having a compiler installed on a production system, and there are valid reasons to be concerned, but most of those can be averted with a little extra care.  In the end, I think the worry about a compiler is sometimes overblown.

Finally, if there isn't a time of day that will be a "down" time of day traffic-wise, you may be worried about compiling apps will slow down performance on the server.  Setting up distcc and having portage use that could be a huge help.

Gentoo's a great potential system for a server.  It's really flexible, and really customizable.  The power or portage is an absolutely incredible tool, but it is slightly different than binary based GNU/Linux distros, and may require a little bit of a learning curve.  As others have said, installed it in a virtualized environment so you can test things out could be of great benefit.

----
Derek Bodner
subscribedlists@derekbodner.com

On 11/29/07, Billy Holmes < billy@gonoph.net> wrote:
Quoting Wayn0 < wayn0.ml@gmail.com>:

> Mirror the setup in a virtual machine ;-)

linux virtualization

some links:

http://virt.kernelnewbies.org/
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/01/26/xen.html

linux-vserver looks pretty neat, too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux-VServer

--
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