[gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Rafael Barrera Oro]

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   The issue is, as you should already must have guessed, if its a good idea
to deploy Gentoo in a server. For the first time, i have the opportunity to
install Gentoo on a properly set (almost pimped out) server and i wanted to
be sure i know what i am doing before getting on with it. Where i work at,
the tradition is to go with FreeBSD (which is, without a doubt, very stable)
but since our FreeBSD guru parted i've been juggling the idea of starting to
use Gentoo on servers instead of using it only on desktops.
   I have always found very useful stuff in www.gentoo.org, however, i have
not found a specific server side faq. Does anyone know where i could get
such documentation?

Any pointers, opinions, faqs, insights, etc will be greatly appreciated

best wishes

Rafael

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Mark Shields]

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I run Gentoo on a server, but it's just a hobby, low-end one.  Athlon XP
processor, 1.5 gigs of ram, raid 1 (hardware-controlled).  I have a few
daemons/servers on it, such as Apache, snmp, and an MTA.  Runs fine.

You might try talking to some of the web hosts who run dedicated Gentoo
servers.  Links are on the main Gentoo website to some of these hosts.

On Nov 28, 2007 1:01 PM, Rafael Barrera Oro <borafael@gmail.com> wrote:

>    The issue is, as you should already must have guessed, if its a good
> idea to deploy Gentoo in a server. For the first time, i have the
> opportunity to install Gentoo on a properly set (almost pimped out) server
> and i wanted to be sure i know what i am doing before getting on with it.
> Where i work at, the tradition is to go with FreeBSD (which is, without a
> doubt, very stable) but since our FreeBSD guru parted i've been juggling the
> idea of starting to use Gentoo on servers instead of using it only on
> desktops.
>    I have always found very useful stuff in www.gentoo.org, however, i
> have not found a specific server side faq. Does anyone know where i could
> get such documentation?
>
> Any pointers, opinions, faqs, insights, etc will be greatly appreciated
>
> best wishes
>
> Rafael
>
>


-- 
- Mark Shields

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Arturo 'Buanzo' Busleiman]

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I run Gentoo on 5+ servers (the rest are Ubuntu Linux servers and OpenBSD). I have to admit that the
upgrading procedure and certain Java/libs issues are making it a little painful to maintain, but on
the other side, I LOVE webapp-config. It makes wordpress (for example) upgrading for 200+
installations a quick and painless task.

- --
Arturo "Buanzo" Busleiman - Consultor Independiente en Seguridad Informatica
Apoye la Musica Libre - Vote Futurabanda desde: (ver sgte. linea)
http://www.frecuenciazero.com.ar/realityrock/votar.htm
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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Billy Holmes]

Robert Spahr wrote:
> I have been running these gentoo servers since 2003, with very few
> problems. Although I am conservative in doing my updates.
>   

I've run gentoo on several servers from dual intels running dns, squid,
routing, to web servers, to quad opterons running as terminal servers.

The secret to all of that is what Robert said.. update conservatively.

The update from apache 1.x to 2.x broke some things (good idea to follow
the update faqs, or as I did, rebuild the config files by hand), as did
when the gentoo apache package managers decided to change the config
file layout to better match other distros.

Also, beware of some of the library updates. They can break other things
that revdep-rebuild will have to fix.

It's a good idea to look up via google or whatever to figure out what's
being updated and why (read the changelog).

It will take a bit to get used to, but after awhile you'll just eyeball
it and know which packages are non-issues, and which should be looked
closely.

It's also a good idea to have a staging server where you can test the
updates and trash it if you need to (virtualization will help with this
a lot).

Also, some updates don't fully manifest themselves till you restart all
the processes or restart the machine. Processes that were running before
a library update still have an internal image of the previous version's
library.
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Rafael Barrera Oro]

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   First of all, thanks to everybody for sharing your experiences, very
helpful information indeed, specially now that i need some guidance.
   For now, the conclusion i can reach is that Gentoo is perfectly adequate
to use on a server with the only downside of the need to have special care
with updates.
   Ricardo, i find really encouraging the fact that your lab uses Gentoo for
their servers. Nevertheless it would be great if you could tell us a little
about your lab's experience with updates, which seems to be the only issue
when using Gentoo on a server.
   Another thing i noticed is that some of you recommend to have a secondary
server to perform tests, i totally agree with this. Unfortunately i do not
think that having such thing will be possible since the server will be
charged to a client and i do not think they will agree to buy a second
server (even if its the right thing to do, which i believe so), in such
case, would you still recommend Gentoo?.

Again, thanks to everybody for the information.

2007/11/29, Billy Holmes <billy@gonoph.net>:
>
> Robert Spahr wrote:
> > I have been running these gentoo servers since 2003, with very few
> > problems. Although I am conservative in doing my updates.
> >
>
> I've run gentoo on several servers from dual intels running dns, squid,
> routing, to web servers, to quad opterons running as terminal servers.
>
> The secret to all of that is what Robert said.. update conservatively.
>
> The update from apache 1.x to 2.x broke some things (good idea to follow
> the update faqs, or as I did, rebuild the config files by hand), as did
> when the gentoo apache package managers decided to change the config
> file layout to better match other distros.
>
> Also, beware of some of the library updates. They can break other things
> that revdep-rebuild will have to fix.
>
> It's a good idea to look up via google or whatever to figure out what's
> being updated and why (read the changelog).
>
> It will take a bit to get used to, but after awhile you'll just eyeball
> it and know which packages are non-issues, and which should be looked
> closely.
>
> It's also a good idea to have a staging server where you can test the
> updates and trash it if you need to (virtualization will help with this
> a lot).
>
> Also, some updates don't fully manifest themselves till you restart all
> the processes or restart the machine. Processes that were running before
> a library update still have an internal image of the previous version's
> library.
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Wayn0]

Rafael Barrera Oro wrote:
>    First of all, thanks to everybody for sharing your experiences, very 
> helpful information indeed, specially now that i need some guidance.
>    For now, the conclusion i can reach is that Gentoo is perfectly 
> adequate to use on a server with the only downside of the need to have 
> special care with updates.
>    Ricardo, i find really encouraging the fact that your lab uses Gentoo 
> for their servers. Nevertheless it would be great if you could tell us a 
> little about your lab's experience with updates, which seems to be the 
> only issue when using Gentoo on a server.
>    Another thing i noticed is that some of you recommend to have a 
> secondary server to perform tests, i totally agree with this. 
> Unfortunately i do not think that having such thing will be possible 
> since the server will be charged to a client and i do not think they 
> will agree to buy a second server (even if its the right thing to do, 
> which i believe so), in such case, would you still recommend Gentoo?.

Mirror the setup in a virtual machine ;-)

Those things can be life savers!

--
Wayn0
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Billy Holmes]

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

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Derek Bodner]

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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
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:53:57 -0500, Derek Bodner wrote:

> 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.

Both of these can be addressed by not compiling on the live server at
all. Compile on another box with FEATURES="buildpkg" and, after testing,
roll out to the live server with emerge --usepkgonly.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

The best things in life are free, but the expensive ones are still worth a look.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Galevsky]

It mainly depends on your own feelings. I think that a debian stable
is a very good choice for a prod' server, but I really dislike the way
Debian manages daemon and prefer the Gentoo approach. Updates are not
painless...for sure, but you have to consider your needs first (what
tools do you need ? typical web services ? extra lib from different
languages ? any time reserved for maintenance or the server cannot be
off ?). Then, updating is not a must. Believe me, an up-to-date
machine is nice .... when you want brand new lib/features/softwares.
Do your server need to be so.. up-to-date ?

Finally, if you take time to estimate what should be updated prior to
emerge the whole world, you can plan your updates and organize the way
to go back if required.... and updates are not nightmares. (But have a
look at the handbook:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2). You
also need tools like dispatch-conf to undo easily your conf files
changes.

Gal'


On Nov 29, 2007 2:10 PM, Rafael Barrera Oro <borafael@gmail.com> wrote:
>    First of all, thanks to everybody for sharing your experiences, very
> helpful information indeed, specially now that i need some guidance.
>    For now, the conclusion i can reach is that Gentoo is perfectly adequate
> to use on a server with the only downside of the need to have special care
> with updates.
>    Ricardo, i find really encouraging the fact that your lab uses Gentoo for
> their servers. Nevertheless it would be great if you could tell us a little
> about your lab's experience with updates, which seems to be the only issue
> when using Gentoo on a server.
>    Another thing i noticed is that some of you recommend to have a secondary
> server to perform tests, i totally agree with this. Unfortunately i do not
> think that having such thing will be possible since the server will be
> charged to a client and i do not think they will agree to buy a second
> server (even if its the right thing to do, which i believe so), in such
> case, would you still recommend Gentoo?.
>
> Again, thanks to everybody for the information.
>
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Jason Carson]

I have been using Gentoo for my server for several years. Just a hobby but
I run the following services...

Apache, MySQL, Qmail, VSFTPD, SAMBA, BIND, Squid and Courier Imap.

Use Webmin for configuration and setting it up is easy as pie.

>    The issue is, as you should already must have guessed, if its a good
> idea
> to deploy Gentoo in a server. For the first time, i have the opportunity
> to
> install Gentoo on a properly set (almost pimped out) server and i wanted
> to
> be sure i know what i am doing before getting on with it. Where i work at,
> the tradition is to go with FreeBSD (which is, without a doubt, very
> stable)
> but since our FreeBSD guru parted i've been juggling the idea of starting
> to
> use Gentoo on servers instead of using it only on desktops.
>    I have always found very useful stuff in www.gentoo.org, however, i
> have
> not found a specific server side faq. Does anyone know where i could get
> such documentation?
>
> Any pointers, opinions, faqs, insights, etc will be greatly appreciated
>
> best wishes
>
> Rafael
>


-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Ricardo Saffi Marques]

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Our main server, which hosts the Latin America Official Gentoo Mirror runs
Gentoo. So does our Web-server. So does our Backup server. So does our
datacenter. By "our" I mean the laboratory I work at (check signature). I
see no major issue on running Gentoo on servers.

On 11/28/07, Jason Carson <jay@canuckster.org> wrote:
>
> I have been using Gentoo for my server for several years. Just a hobby but
> I run the following services...
>
> Apache, MySQL, Qmail, VSFTPD, SAMBA, BIND, Squid and Courier Imap.
>
> Use Webmin for configuration and setting it up is easy as pie.
>
> >    The issue is, as you should already must have guessed, if its a good
> > idea
> > to deploy Gentoo in a server. For the first time, i have the opportunity
> > to
> > install Gentoo on a properly set (almost pimped out) server and i wanted
> > to
> > be sure i know what i am doing before getting on with it. Where i work
> at,
> > the tradition is to go with FreeBSD (which is, without a doubt, very
> > stable)
> > but since our FreeBSD guru parted i've been juggling the idea of
> starting
> > to
> > use Gentoo on servers instead of using it only on desktops.
> >    I have always found very useful stuff in www.gentoo.org, however, i
> > have
> > not found a specific server side faq. Does anyone know where i could get
> > such documentation?
> >
> > Any pointers, opinions, faqs, insights, etc will be greatly appreciated
> >
> > best wishes
> >
> > Rafael
> >
>
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>


-- 
*Ricardo Saffi Marques*
Laboratório de Administração e Segurança de Sistemas (LAS/IC)
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)
*Cell:* +55 (19) 8128-0435
*Skype:* ricardo_saffi_marques
*Website:* *http://www.rsaffi.com*

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Ric de France]

I can't claim to have done anything as fancy as Ricardo, but in my
previous place of work I used Gentoo on three different servers to:

Apache, PHP, Perl, MySQL, Squid, SVN, and other bits and pieces...

Generally things ran smoothly... but upgrades did take some time...
and I only trusted a small subset of the team to upgrade the PCs...
Still... it meant that some areas got to move up from the technology
that was offered with Red Hat 7.1 to more current technologies /
versions...

Never saw a problem with it... most major upgrades were done out of
hours, and most of the customers were informed if there was going to
be any loss of service. Fortunately they weren't 24/7 systems...
mainly business hours 9-5...

...Ric

On 29/11/2007, Ricardo Saffi Marques <saffi@las.ic.unicamp.br> wrote:
> Our main server, which hosts the Latin America Official Gentoo Mirror runs
> Gentoo. So does our Web-server. So does our Backup server. So does our
> datacenter. By "our" I mean the laboratory I work at (check signature). I
> see no major issue on running Gentoo on servers.

-- 
Ric de France
Ph: +61412945554 (international) or 0412945554 (Australia)
 ==> Do you, uh... Gentoo? Gentoooo-hooo!! <==
==> http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/about.xml <==
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Mark Kirkwood]

Rafael Barrera Oro wrote:
>    The issue is, as you should already must have guessed, if its a 
> good idea to deploy Gentoo in a server. For the first time, i have the 
> opportunity to install Gentoo on a properly set (almost pimped out) 
> server and i wanted to be sure i know what i am doing before getting 
> on with it. Where i work at, the tradition is to go with FreeBSD 
> (which is, without a doubt, very stable) but since our FreeBSD guru 
> parted i've been juggling the idea of starting to use Gentoo on 
> servers instead of using it only on desktops.
>    I have always found very useful stuff in www.gentoo.org 
> <http://www.gentoo.org>, however, i have not found a specific server 
> side faq. Does anyone know where i could get such documentation?
>
> Any pointers, opinions, faqs, insights, etc will be greatly appreciated

I use 2 Gentoo servers for my work activities (I need at least 2 Linux 
deploy hosts for the database cluster product I participate in building).

Since using Gentoo early in 2006, I haven't had any stability issues, 
and I'm fairly aggressive with updates - every month.

Cheers

Mark

P.s: Funny - I use FreeBSD as my workstation os...
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Aniruddha]

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Rafael Barrera Oro wrote:
>    The issue is, as you should already must have guessed, if its a
> good idea to deploy Gentoo in a server. For the first time, i have the
> opportunity to install Gentoo on a properly set (almost pimped out)
> server and i wanted to be sure i know what i am doing before getting
> on with it. Where i work at, the tradition is to go with FreeBSD
> (which is, without a doubt, very stable) but since our FreeBSD guru
> parted i've been juggling the idea of starting to use Gentoo on
> servers instead of using it only on desktops.
>    I have always found very useful stuff in www.gentoo.org
> <http://www.gentoo.org>, however, i have not found a specific server
> side faq. Does anyone know where i could get such documentation?
>
> Any pointers, opinions, faqs, insights, etc will be greatly appreciated
>
> best wishes
>
> Rafael
>
Don't forget to subscribe to gentoo-announce and gentoo-server
mailinglists. And off course is Gentoo suited for server! One of the
largest Dutch social networking sites (hyves.nl) uses Gentoo Linux for
it's servers, here are the specs:

Hyves.nl servers:

450 64-bits Linux servers (Gentoo)
35 miljoen pageviews per day

http://forum.nedlinux.nl/viewtopic.php?id=25934


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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Dan Farrell]

On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:01:19 -0300
"Rafael Barrera Oro" <borafael@gmail.com> wrote:

>    The issue is, as you should already must have guessed, if its a
> good idea to deploy Gentoo in a server. For the first time, i have
> the opportunity to install Gentoo on a properly set (almost pimped
> out) server and i wanted to be sure i know what i am doing before
> getting on with it. Where i work at, the tradition is to go with
> FreeBSD (which is, without a doubt, very stable) but since our
> FreeBSD guru parted i've been juggling the idea of starting to use
> Gentoo on servers instead of using it only on desktops. I have always
> found very useful stuff in www.gentoo.org, however, i have not found
> a specific server side faq. Does anyone know where i could get such
> documentation?
> 
> Any pointers, opinions, faqs, insights, etc will be greatly
> appreciated
> 
> best wishes
> 
> Rafael

I wasn't going to chime in until some real deployments have been
mentioned.  

I run a home network that's pretty much gentoo-only.  The server
provides DNS, DHCP, LAMP, Posfix SMTP, IMAPS (courier), TFTP (bsd),
SAMBA, NFS.  

I am currently pursuing a career in IT and expect to bring up some
public servers towards the end of the year.  needless to say, they'll
be running gentoo too.  I don't forsee any problems.

I want to echo Ricardo's warning -- update conservatively!  He's right
-- after a while, you know which packages you can update safely and
which are potential problems.  Staging environment is crucial for
gentoo becasue you'll be running binaries that have never really been
tested ... or run ... ever.  

That having been said, gentoo has a nice habit of providing a really
comfortable environment for the deployment of just about anything.  And
unlike Fedora / Redhat, Debian, and some others I've used, there aren't
any surprises when you go to configure anything.  

That, combined with it's performance and security, make gentoo the only
choice for me.  It's as stable as I want to make it and I expect it to
scale well for my needs.  
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Alan]

> I wasn't going to chime in until some real deployments have been
> mentioned.  

Ditto.

> I run a home network that's pretty much gentoo-only.  The server
> provides DNS, DHCP, LAMP, Posfix SMTP, IMAPS (courier), TFTP (bsd),
> SAMBA, NFS.  
> 
> I am currently pursuing a career in IT and expect to bring up some
> public servers towards the end of the year.  needless to say, they'll
> be running gentoo too.  I don't forsee any problems.
> 
> I want to echo Ricardo's warning -- update conservatively!  He's right
> -- after a while, you know which packages you can update safely and
> which are potential problems.  Staging environment is crucial for
> gentoo becasue you'll be running binaries that have never really been
> tested ... or run ... ever.  

I run a home server under gentoo as well, which serves me fine as a
personal box, and I also run a public server which runs on a fairly
beefy server and hosts a few websites, including a TDI (the VW car)
forum which is insanely popular and we push about 250G/month on it
alone.

This used to be a debian system and was moved over to gentoo about 4
years ago when I had been spending lots of time with gentoo on my
desktop at home.  I like gentoo, however I would exercise caution if
you're deploying on "real" systems.  

The issue is the "updating conservatively" part mentioned above.  As
anyone who has run a server that other people are depending on knows,
you REALLY want to update as little as possible.  The less updates, the
less surprises and the less chance you'll somehow accidently break
someone's site doing a simple update late some night.  Gentoo is still a
fairly moving target in this respect.

I upgrade packages maybe once a week and since I have fallen behind in
some, I'm scared as hell to upgrade.  I still have apache 1.3 running,
and because it'd deprecated I can't update any of the packages that go
along with it, meaning that to upgrade to the latest apache files, I
have to upgrade EVERYTHING associated with apache with no really good
rollback plan.  Apache, php, modules, mod_perl, etc.  No biggie at all
if it's your home server, but that's potentially a lot of downtime (ie:
a couple of hours) as I compile, test, re-jig the config files, test
more, etc.  I'm in the same boat with postfix, running a 2.0.x when 2.2
or 2.3 is available, glib, mysql (I did an upgrade where some new utf8
flags were enabled and suddenly a bunch of databases were invalid
because the encoding was different), postgres, sqlite (more that I'm not
sure what they link to that might be affected) and some other system
packages.

Now most likely nothing will happen on upgrade, but with some users who 
do business and lots of mail of the server, I'd rather not take the chance 
if the current setup is working fine.

Maybe I'm being overly paranoid and sensitive, but I've worked as a
sysadmin long enough to have seen (and caused) way more "oh oh" moments
when an upgrade of something did something it really wasn't supposed to.

The source nature of gentoo doesn't help here either.  IE: I'm unable to
upgrade curl or net-snmp on my server as both of those link to php, and
because my php is "old" and non-upgradeable due to the deprecated apache
I still have installed, upgrading curl or net-snmp would (and has)
broken php and therefor apache and therefor I got a call late at night
wondering why things were suddenly broken.

Now here gentoo also made it (fairly) easy to rollback, as I just copied
curl-$newversion.ebuild to curl-$previousversion.ebuild (the old version
was long gone IIRC), recompiled and it all worked.  This would have been
impossible with say, debian if a binary package had broken something as
there's no real way to backout to a package you don't have anymore (and
that exact thing bit me when my server was running debian and partially
why I switched *to* gentoo!).

So while you want to upgrade conservatively, you can't be too
conservative or else your current package versions will disappear from
out from under you. 

> That having been said, gentoo has a nice habit of providing a really
> comfortable environment for the deployment of just about anything.  And
> unlike Fedora / Redhat, Debian, and some others I've used, there aren't
> any surprises when you go to configure anything.  

Another "yes and no" from me.  The "no" part comes from package
re-organization by maintainers which bit users a while back with the
apache config re-org and before that something similar done to X.  Not a
problem exclusive to gentoo, but still an issue if the distro is doing
major shifts here and there.

I hope no one thinks I'm slamming gentoo here.  I really do like it and
have been running it and being a faithful user for years.  I've just
also been a sysadmin long enough to be a bit paranoid about production
servers which have too many things being upgraded too often.

I think the secret is that if you run with gentoo you have to be
prepared to upgrade EVERYTHING fairly often, and not bit by bit if
you're uncomfortable with something it might be upgrading. 

HTH, or at least maybe puts a different perspective on it for people.

And yes, I do plan to just bit the bullet and backup, upgrade everything 
and then deal with any upgrade "pains" as they come.  Just not sure
quite when :)

Alan


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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Eray Aslan]

On 01.12.2007 09:03, Alan wrote:
> This used to be a debian system and was moved over to gentoo about 4
> years ago when I had been spending lots of time with gentoo on my
> desktop at home.  I like gentoo, however I would exercise caution if
> you're deploying on "real" systems.  

We have also moved from binary distros to Gentoo a few years ago.
Basically it was a choice between linux (gentoo) and *BSD.

[...]
> The less updates, the
> less surprises and the less chance you'll somehow accidently break
> someone's site doing a simple update late some night.  Gentoo is still a
> fairly moving target in this respect.

Agree with the moving target bit.

> I think the secret is that if you run with gentoo you have to be
> prepared to upgrade EVERYTHING fairly often, and not bit by bit if
> you're uncomfortable with something it might be upgrading. 

I find that there are really two relatively pain-free upgrade policies
for a production system.  Either upgrade fairly often or "forklift
upgrade" i.e. remove the old server and intall the new one.

> And yes, I do plan to just bit the bullet and backup, upgrade everything 
> and then deal with any upgrade "pains" as they come.  Just not sure
> quite when :)

Good luck :)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on the server side

[Billy Holmes]

Alan wrote:
> rollback plan.  Apache, php, modules, mod_perl, etc.  No biggie at all
> if it's your home server, but that's potentially a lot of downtime (ie:
> a couple of hours) as I compile, test, re-jig the config files, test
> more, etc.  I'm in the same boat with postfix, running a 2.0.x when 2.2
>   

if you're able, I'd look at linux-vserver or something similar where you
can run a virtual machine (possibly using the same kernel), but in a
different directory. Then you can copy a few websites/databases, perform
the upgrades, fix what you need, document it (automate it), and then you
can perform the REAL update.

I had to do the same thing with the mysql upgrade from 3.x to 4.x. My
apache upgrade, I just had to redo the configs by hand. php4 to php5
might be a bit more tricky. Currently that's the reason I have php5
masked...
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Re: [gentoo-user] PHP 5 masked notice (was: Gentoo on the server side)

[Jil Larner]

 > I had to do the same thing with the mysql upgrade from 3.x to 4.x. My
> apache upgrade, I just had to redo the configs by hand. php4 to php5
> might be a bit more tricky. Currently that's the reason I have php5
> masked...

PHP 4 won't be maintained after 8/8/8 (August, 8 2008) and so should be
of php 5.0 and 5.1. Just to warn those who don't know (I believe you do
know ;) ).
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Re: [gentoo-user] PHP 5 masked notice (was: Gentoo on the server side)

[Alan]

On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 11:58:46PM +0100, Jil Larner wrote:
>  > I had to do the same thing with the mysql upgrade from 3.x to 4.x. My
> > apache upgrade, I just had to redo the configs by hand. php4 to php5
> > might be a bit more tricky. Currently that's the reason I have php5
> > masked...
> 
> PHP 4 won't be maintained after 8/8/8 (August, 8 2008) and so should be
> of php 5.0 and 5.1. Just to warn those who don't know (I believe you do
> know ;) ).

Actually I hadn't seen that, thanks for the notice.  I'm pretty sure
I'll have things all upgraded by then though :) (I hope!)

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Re: [gentoo-user] PHP 5 masked notice (was: Gentoo on the server side)

[Billy Holmes]

Quoting Alan <alan@ufies.org>:


>> PHP 4 won't be maintained after 8/8/8 (August, 8 2008) and so should be
>> of php 5.0 and 5.1. Just to warn those who don't know (I believe you do
>> know ;) ).
> Actually I hadn't seen that, thanks for the notice.  I'm pretty sure
> I'll have things all upgraded by then though :) (I hope!)

but then you'll have to upgrade for the pending y2k38 problem!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

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