From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1N9P7c-0008Dv-3A for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:21:24 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A9ECAE096A for ; Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:21:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ey-out-1920.google.com (ey-out-1920.google.com [74.125.78.149]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD283E07A6 for ; Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:27:55 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ey-out-1920.google.com with SMTP id 3so1133256eyh.40 for ; Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:27:55 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:to:subject:date :user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:message-id; bh=TF92+k2Q9vK5Bzp/sRNRmkDuAjEz/k2y38ceMNffsLk=; b=KJOMUXAIaonwJQQLjqUfzJTfDuqbxK3NJp3HBCNh+PgGslxf1ZgTq5f5NgYfYrTCf1 WOBHPas1a/8fDPSi4LHoa9wwsUvc2zcEx4W5YcXyHf9uXbJYYhgCM5i4MDcAJ7yINk3A g9BQX86h+k17JrqdJ2Dbo366AN0Vshe/2Rf00= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; b=dK0zqvaz7KuheTReZj89TLm4RCdlUbGejPsC1fpD7MsbC+IOziVDqeoK447Ccjul/d KxuLDWPQbpNh59gTCqsHmu8gkM6uGxGx0vOfU/8vmJOPK10rLnTNQ2aXspmsdCi2Ex3/ lSvaIBzdRoCTAURwcaAbzGJcPbwZM4B/D1QVI= Received: by 10.213.2.70 with SMTP id 6mr883090ebi.25.1258226875205; Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:27:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from nazgul.localnet (196-210-153-114-rrdg-esr-2.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.153.114]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 7sm2734271eyb.24.2009.11.14.11.27.53 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:27:54 -0800 (PST) From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: Gentoo for many servers (was: Re: [gentoo-user] executing commands on lots of servers at once) Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:26:52 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.12.90 (Linux/2.6.31-zen7; KDE/4.3.74; x86_64; ; ) References: <200910292057.51103.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> <200911141836.06468.wonko@wonkology.org> In-Reply-To: <200911141836.06468.wonko@wonkology.org> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200911142126.52438.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: a5b8f6cc-5257-45cd-ab23-84257eff276e X-Archives-Hash: ce052e288295fb62b90ed16b7a034814 On Saturday 14 November 2009 19:36:06 Alex Schuster wrote: > Alan McKinnon wrote: > > clusterssh will let you log into many machines at once and run emerge > > -avuND world everywhere > > This is way cool. I just started using it on eight Fedora servers I am > administrating. Nice, now this is an improvement over my 'for $h in > $HOSTS; do ssh $h "yum install foo"; done' approach. I feel your pain :-) We used to have the same problem adding new admins to 87 machines. Now we have a bespoke provisioner that does it all. > What do you guys think about using Gentoo for servers? At the institute I > partially work we chose Fedora. There is no special reason for that - we > already had some Fedora machines, the setup seemed to work, the reputation > was good, so we kept it. That was okay for me, why choose many different > environments and learn everything again. I mentioned Gentoo, but did not > really suggest to actually use it. Maybe I should have. I'm a huge fan of Gentoo and all my personal machines (except the new netbook) have run it for the last 5 years. But I will never install Gentoo on a production server at work. Why? Because it is too time consuming, because no two machines are set up the same, because I can't trust that other admins used the flags they should have. So updates become a case of logging into 80+ machines individually and doing emerge world by hand. Gentoo allows you to customize things to the nth degree - that is it's strength - so people WILL use this one discriminating factor. If OTOH I had a server farm of 80+ machines, all identical, I'd put Gentoo on them in a flash. But I don't have that > These 8 servers I mentioned are basically clones of the one I installed > manually. Instead of doing this again, I boot a live-cd on a new one, > create partitions, and extract tar files of the first server's partitions. > Then I do some extra configuration, like hostname and network setup. Done. > > My plan for updating them is to take the first server down, and upgrade > the installation (if that works - I had some trouble with that before, so > maybe it will be better to reinstall from scratch). Then I will create a > snapshot of the new setup, transfer that to the other hosts, and unpack it > in new logical volumes. I plan to script this so I do not have to do it > manually every time - but that was before I knew ClusterSSH. When all is > done and there is some time to take the servers down, I will reboot into > the new system. > > Now I am thinking about a Gentoo installation instead. > > Pros: > - Continuous updates, no downtime for upgrading, only when I decide to > install a new kernel. This is really really cool. I fear the upgrade from > Fedora 10 to 12 which has to be done soon. Do not upgrade, especially not with a version jump of 2 or more. If you have a lot of machines, I assume you are a decent shop, and that you have some form of formal process for upgrades and changes. What you do instead is a formal migration - copy the data off, reinstall, restore data. If you can't afford to do that every six or twleve months, then I have to ask - what the hell is the organization doing using a distro that is unsupported after 12 months? > - Some improvement in speed. Those machines do A LOT of numbercrunching, > which jobs often lasting for days, so even small improvements would be > nice. Don't fool yourself. Unless you need what Google needs, there is very little speed difference between Gentoo and Fedora. I/O improvements you need can be easily gotten by fiddling the kernel tuning knobs. > - Easier debugging. When things do not work, I think it's easier to dig > into the problem. No fancy, but sometimes buggy GUIs hiding basic > functionality. Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Fedora does not require a GUI :-) > - Heck, Gentoo is _cooler_ than typical distributions. And emerging with > distcc on about 8*4 cores would be fun :) Can't argue with that. But that is your ego talking and the machines do not belong to you but to the institute. Your ego has no place in that. > - I am probably the only one who can administrate them. This is not a benefit. It is a severe liability. Where I work, I get fired for trying that :-( > Cons: > - If something will not work with this not so common (meta)distribution, > people will say "always trouble with your Gentoo Schmentoo, it works fine > in Fedora". Fedora is more mainstream, if something does not work there, > then it's okay for the people to accept it. Those same people are likely to say the same about linux vs windows. > - I fear that big packages like Matlab are made for and tested on the > typical distributions, and may have problems with the not-so-common > Gentoo. I think someone here just had such a problem with Mathematica > (which we do currently not use). One or two persons had problems. Many many more replied that they had no problems at all. In Fedora-land, the ratio is the same. > - I am probably the only one who can administrate them. I think Gentoo is > easier to maintain in the long run, but only when you take the time to > learn it. With Fedora, you do not need much more than the 'yum install' > command. There is no need to read complicated X.org upgrade guides and > such. > > I think I already made my decision, but I am still interested in your > opinions, maybe some of you are in a similar position and like to share > your experiences. Whether I will be allowed to use Gentoo is another > question, I guess my boss will not like my idea at first, and I am not > even sure if he is right. But maybe I can test-install Gentoo on one > machine in a chroot, and see if things work fine. Depends how critical these machines are. If you want to change them just because you feel like it, then I do not see how that can possibly be a valid reason. Remember, the institute's needs and desires trump yours every time -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com