[gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

! Pls don't flame me :-) !

Don't misunderstand ... I happily trust gentoo on most of my customers
servers.

A customer of mine chose SLES 10 back then to run a VMware-Server
installation (1.0.x back then) because they had some big
company-license-pool available.

That server is to be replaced and I asked them if they still want to use
SLES because of that. Answer: no ... no more licenses available/paid.

So they asked me for alternatives and I told them about gentoo.

My question:

how would you guys compare the 2 choices to report it back to them?

People buy stuff like SLES to get/feel the feeling that all the choice
and review of changes is done for them .... we didn't need one
support-call in the last few years. And the gentoo-community is a
helpful and competent one (yes, thank you!).

So I tend to do the job with gentoo ... better they pay my work than
some never-used support-contract ;-)

I just plan to use stable gentoo there, be conservative with changes and
keep the system up-to-date regularly ... as I use ~amd64 on my main
machines I think I am rather informed about any *bigger* or problematic
upgrades.

It's gonna be a QEMU/KVM-host .. this and some rather powerful server
should speed up those smallish and dusty VMs.

Any thoughts? How to professionally deploy gentoo linux as a one-man-show?

;-)

Best regards, Stefan

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 05/08/2013 23:20, Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
> 
> ! Pls don't flame me :-) !
> 
> Don't misunderstand ... I happily trust gentoo on most of my customers
> servers.
> 
> A customer of mine chose SLES 10 back then to run a VMware-Server
> installation (1.0.x back then) because they had some big
> company-license-pool available.
> 
> That server is to be replaced and I asked them if they still want to use
> SLES because of that. Answer: no ... no more licenses available/paid.
> 
> So they asked me for alternatives and I told them about gentoo.
> 
> My question:
> 
> how would you guys compare the 2 choices to report it back to them?
> 
> People buy stuff like SLES to get/feel the feeling that all the choice
> and review of changes is done for them .... we didn't need one
> support-call in the last few years. And the gentoo-community is a
> helpful and competent one (yes, thank you!).
> 
> So I tend to do the job with gentoo ... better they pay my work than
> some never-used support-contract ;-)
> 
> I just plan to use stable gentoo there, be conservative with changes and
> keep the system up-to-date regularly ... as I use ~amd64 on my main
> machines I think I am rather informed about any *bigger* or problematic
> upgrades.
> 
> It's gonna be a QEMU/KVM-host .. this and some rather powerful server
> should speed up those smallish and dusty VMs.
> 
> Any thoughts? How to professionally deploy gentoo linux as a one-man-show?
> 
> ;-)
> 
> Best regards, Stefan
> 


I despise SLES intensely[1]. Even more than Windows. So this may be biased.

The primary question as I see it is

Who will maintain this installation?

If the answer is you and 1|2 guys you train yourself, by all means go
right ahead and use gentoo. You already know it well so the quality of
service you offer a customer is likely to be better than if you went say
Centos.

If the answer is you plus other guys but you don't know who they are or
how good they are or if you get to train them, then gentoo starts
getting risky. You don't want a gentoo box where the admin is the
"emerge world && reboot" and walk away kind of guy.

I think you fall in the first class. And our Infrastructure team has
also never had to log a VMware service call. Our managed service team
that faces clients - very different story and not applicable here.

I find that gentoo does not scale well in corporates where machines are
a mix of everything. It takes too much brain power to update them. It
also doesn't work well if you have to give admin rights to people of
little skill.

Where gentoo shines is

- small installs that need something none standard
- large pools of identical hosts that are somehow non-standard so you
get to build what you want once and deploy it many times
- embedded. Your tools let you automate the build end-to-end



[1] A predecessor used SLES 9 & 10 for everything coz he thought it was
awesome. Nothing could ever get updated as it was always manual,
SuSEconfig kept biting us in the teeth hard and it was just awful for
anyone used to working on *nix at any leveol. Fine for Windows admins
moving over though...

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Am 05.08.2013 23:55, schrieb Alan McKinnon:
> On 05/08/2013 23:20, Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
>>
>> ! Pls don't flame me :-) !
>>
>> Don't misunderstand ... I happily trust gentoo on most of my customers
>> servers.
>>
>> A customer of mine chose SLES 10 back then to run a VMware-Server
>> installation (1.0.x back then) because they had some big
>> company-license-pool available.
>>
>> That server is to be replaced and I asked them if they still want to use
>> SLES because of that. Answer: no ... no more licenses available/paid.
>>
>> So they asked me for alternatives and I told them about gentoo.
>>
>> My question:
>>
>> how would you guys compare the 2 choices to report it back to them?
>>
>> People buy stuff like SLES to get/feel the feeling that all the choice
>> and review of changes is done for them .... we didn't need one
>> support-call in the last few years. And the gentoo-community is a
>> helpful and competent one (yes, thank you!).
>>
>> So I tend to do the job with gentoo ... better they pay my work than
>> some never-used support-contract ;-)
>>
>> I just plan to use stable gentoo there, be conservative with changes and
>> keep the system up-to-date regularly ... as I use ~amd64 on my main
>> machines I think I am rather informed about any *bigger* or problematic
>> upgrades.
>>
>> It's gonna be a QEMU/KVM-host .. this and some rather powerful server
>> should speed up those smallish and dusty VMs.
>>
>> Any thoughts? How to professionally deploy gentoo linux as a one-man-show?
>>
>> ;-)
>>
>> Best regards, Stefan
>>
> 
> 
> I despise SLES intensely[1]. Even more than Windows. So this may be biased.
> 
> The primary question as I see it is
> 
> Who will maintain this installation?
> 
> If the answer is you and 1|2 guys you train yourself, by all means go
> right ahead and use gentoo. You already know it well so the quality of
> service you offer a customer is likely to be better than if you went say
> Centos.
> 
> If the answer is you plus other guys but you don't know who they are or
> how good they are or if you get to train them, then gentoo starts
> getting risky. You don't want a gentoo box where the admin is the
> "emerge world && reboot" and walk away kind of guy.
> 
> I think you fall in the first class. And our Infrastructure team has
> also never had to log a VMware service call. Our managed service team
> that faces clients - very different story and not applicable here.
> 
> I find that gentoo does not scale well in corporates where machines are
> a mix of everything. It takes too much brain power to update them. It
> also doesn't work well if you have to give admin rights to people of
> little skill.
> 
> Where gentoo shines is
> 
> - small installs that need something none standard
> - large pools of identical hosts that are somehow non-standard so you
> get to build what you want once and deploy it many times
> - embedded. Your tools let you automate the build end-to-end
> 
> 
> 
> [1] A predecessor used SLES 9 & 10 for everything coz he thought it was
> awesome. Nothing could ever get updated as it was always manual,
> SuSEconfig kept biting us in the teeth hard and it was just awful for
> anyone used to working on *nix at any leveol. Fine for Windows admins
> moving over though...


Thanks. That's what I wanted to read and fished for ;-)

Stefan

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

We now get into choosing hardware for that shiny new gentoo-server ...

as mentioned this will be a KVM-host and we look at a HP Proliant DL385p
... 2 AMD Opteron 6344 ... 32 GB RAM, 8 disks (the customer has some
bigger contract with hp, so we are a bit biased to hp here).

For the server that runs the VMs right now we back then chose 2 smaller
SAS-disks for the OS (speed, expensive) and installed SLES on a mirror
built on those 2 disks. The other 8 (?) SATA-disks run in a RAID-6 ...

Now I ask myself if I want to do that again:

2 smaller disks, fast, RAID1 -> OS/ Gentoo (SSD? I think, no)

6 bigger disks, maybe 7200rpm, SATA -> RAID6 -> LVM -> space for VMs
(maybe straight LVs for the VM-disks ... performs well, nice backups)

Or should I go for all 8 disks in a RAID6 ... ?

I'd like to discuss that and hear your opinions and experiences.

Thanks!

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Pandu Poluan]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1158 bytes --]

On Aug 26, 2013 9:02 PM, "Stefan G. Weichinger" <lists@xunil.at> wrote:
>
>
> We now get into choosing hardware for that shiny new gentoo-server ...
>
> as mentioned this will be a KVM-host and we look at a HP Proliant DL385p
> ... 2 AMD Opteron 6344 ... 32 GB RAM, 8 disks (the customer has some
> bigger contract with hp, so we are a bit biased to hp here).
>
> For the server that runs the VMs right now we back then chose 2 smaller
> SAS-disks for the OS (speed, expensive) and installed SLES on a mirror
> built on those 2 disks. The other 8 (?) SATA-disks run in a RAID-6 ...
>
> Now I ask myself if I want to do that again:
>
> 2 smaller disks, fast, RAID1 -> OS/ Gentoo (SSD? I think, no)
>
> 6 bigger disks, maybe 7200rpm, SATA -> RAID6 -> LVM -> space for VMs
> (maybe straight LVs for the VM-disks ... performs well, nice backups)
>
> Or should I go for all 8 disks in a RAID6 ... ?
>
> I'd like to discuss that and hear your opinions and experiences.
>
> Thanks!
>
>

2 smallest disks in RAID1 configuration for booting.

Then the 6 disks as JBOD and use it within a RAIDZ2 array.

Or, 6 disks in JBOD, add them a 3 ZFS mirror vdev's.


Rgds,
--

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Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Am 26.08.2013 17:51, schrieb Pandu Poluan:

> 2 smallest disks in RAID1 configuration for booting.
> 
> Then the 6 disks as JBOD and use it within a RAIDZ2 array.
> 
> Or, 6 disks in JBOD, add them a 3 ZFS mirror vdev's.

Interesting suggestion.

I don't know if I dare ... I wonder how VMs would perform on
ZFS-filesystems ... I should test that before actually setting that up.
The system will run ~800km away from me so it should be rather
bullet-proof ;-)

I trust ZFS, sure ... but I don't have experience with it as a storage
for KVM-virtualization.

But I consider it, thanks!

Stefan

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Pandu Poluan]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1024 bytes --]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 11:11 PM, Stefan G. Weichinger <lists@xunil.at>wrote:

> Am 26.08.2013 17:51, schrieb Pandu Poluan:
>
> > 2 smallest disks in RAID1 configuration for booting.
> >
> > Then the 6 disks as JBOD and use it within a RAIDZ2 array.
> >
> > Or, 6 disks in JBOD, add them a 3 ZFS mirror vdev's.
>
> Interesting suggestion.
>
> I don't know if I dare ... I wonder how VMs would perform on
> ZFS-filesystems ... I should test that before actually setting that up.
> The system will run ~800km away from me so it should be rather
> bullet-proof ;-)
>
> I trust ZFS, sure ... but I don't have experience with it as a storage
> for KVM-virtualization.
>
> But I consider it, thanks!
>
> Stefan
>
>
>
Well... with a ZFS-backed storage, when you want to create a new VM, all
you have to do is `zfs clone` ;-)

Rgds,
-- 
FdS Pandu E Poluan
* ~ IT Optimizer ~**
*
 • LOPSA Member #15248
 • Blog : http://pepoluan.tumblr.com
 • Linked-In : http://id.linkedin.com/in/pepoluan

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Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Am 26.08.2013 18:14, schrieb Pandu Poluan:

> Well... with a ZFS-backed storage, when you want to create a new VM, all
> you have to do is `zfs clone` ;-)

Yes, I see those possibilities ;-)

That system will run rather important stuff ... so I have to be rather
careful. But the bit-rot-prevention/checksumming-features are a plus in
this perspective.

Do you run such a system? How big?

Stefan

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Pandu Poluan]

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On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 11:19 PM, Stefan G. Weichinger <lists@xunil.at>wrote:

> Am 26.08.2013 18:14, schrieb Pandu Poluan:
>
> > Well... with a ZFS-backed storage, when you want to create a new VM, all
> > you have to do is `zfs clone` ;-)
>
> Yes, I see those possibilities ;-)
>
> That system will run rather important stuff ... so I have to be rather
> careful. But the bit-rot-prevention/checksumming-features are a plus in
> this perspective.
>
> Do you run such a system? How big?
>
>
I have to admit that my virtualized servers are not running on top of
ZFS-backed storage... because the company already has a quite sizable EMC
VNX storage, and it's a shame to not use that behemoth... ;-)

At the moment, the ZFS-backed storage is used to store our email archive
system (using MailArchiva), and with more than 15'000 emails per day, it
has been performing flawlessly.

That said, when I was hunting around for information on ZFS before taking
the plunge, a *lot* of discussion revolves around using ZFS as the storage
back-end for virtualization, be it using KVM or VMware.


Rgds,
-- 
FdS Pandu E Poluan
* ~ IT Optimizer ~**
*
 • LOPSA Member #15248
 • Blog : http://pepoluan.tumblr.com
 • Linked-In : http://id.linkedin.com/in/pepoluan

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Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Am 26.08.2013 18:35, schrieb Pandu Poluan:

> I have to admit that my virtualized servers are not running on top of
> ZFS-backed storage... because the company already has a quite sizable EMC
> VNX storage, and it's a shame to not use that behemoth... ;-)

For sure! :-)

> At the moment, the ZFS-backed storage is used to store our email archive
> system (using MailArchiva), and with more than 15'000 emails per day, it
> has been performing flawlessly.

Without getting academic: good to hear, but rather the opposite use
case. Thousands of small files vs. some big chunks (as with VMs).

> That said, when I was hunting around for information on ZFS before taking
> the plunge, a *lot* of discussion revolves around using ZFS as the storage
> back-end for virtualization, be it using KVM or VMware.

Yes. I will research that a bit and consider it.
Maybe I suggest them a test-phase (old server still there and OK ... so
why not)

S

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Am 26.08.2013 20:07, schrieb Stefan G. Weichinger:
> Am 26.08.2013 18:35, schrieb Pandu Poluan:

>> That said, when I was hunting around for information on ZFS before taking
>> the plunge, a *lot* of discussion revolves around using ZFS as the storage
>> back-end for virtualization, be it using KVM or VMware.
> 
> Yes. I will research that a bit and consider it.
> Maybe I suggest them a test-phase (old server still there and OK ... so
> why not)

When I read stuff like this:

https://groups.google.com/a/zfsonlinux.org/forum/#!searchin/zfs-discuss/kvm/zfs-discuss/OI5dchl7d_8/G7g8ExR_rHcJ

I wonder if I should dare to try that ;-)

-

Another option would be:

I once sliced disks into partitions like this:

sd[abcdefgh]1	-> RAID1 for /
sd[abcdefgh]2	-> swap
sd[abcdefgh]3	-> RAID6 -> PV -> LVs ... for data and VMs

What about that? (I think I also had a small RAID for /boot)

Or:

sd[ab]X 	-> RAID1 for /
sd[cdefgh]X 	-> RAID6 -> PV -> LVs ... for data and VMs

-

Opinions?

Thanks, Stefan

(I don't mention my consideration to use systemd on that server :-P )

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Am 02.09.2013 12:28, schrieb Stefan G. Weichinger:

> Another option would be:
> 
> I once sliced disks into partitions like this:
> 
> sd[abcdefgh]1	-> RAID1 for /
> sd[abcdefgh]2	-> swap
> sd[abcdefgh]3	-> RAID6 -> PV -> LVs ... for data and VMs
> 
> What about that? (I think I also had a small RAID for /boot)
> 
> Or:
> 
> sd[ab]X 	-> RAID1 for /
> sd[cdefgh]X 	-> RAID6 -> PV -> LVs ... for data and VMs
> 
> -
> 
> Opinions?


I also wonder if

http://reviews.cnet.com/adapters-nics/hp-ethernet-1gb-4/4507-3380_7-35338794.html

is supported by the tg3-module ?

S

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Am 02.09.2013 21:45, schrieb Stefan G. Weichinger:

> I also wonder if
> 
> http://reviews.cnet.com/adapters-nics/hp-ethernet-1gb-4/4507-3380_7-35338794.html
> 
> is supported by the tg3-module ?

preparing that system within a KVM-based VM now.

I pre-compile the kernel as well ... the host will run AMD Opterons ...
what to consider here?

just compile for a generic x86_64 CPU ?

S

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Tanstaafl]

On 2013-08-26 11:51 AM, Pandu Poluan <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
> Then the 6 disks as JBOD and use it within a RAIDZ2 array.
>
> Or, 6 disks in JBOD, add them a 3 ZFS mirror vdev's.

Where is the best docs for understanding and working with ZFS?

RAID types, Best Practices (especially for disaster recovery), etc...

Anything I can print out for offline reading/studying?

Thanks

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Am 27.08.2013 14:34, schrieb Tanstaafl:
> On 2013-08-26 11:51 AM, Pandu Poluan <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
>> Then the 6 disks as JBOD and use it within a RAIDZ2 array.
>> 
>> Or, 6 disks in JBOD, add them a 3 ZFS mirror vdev's.
> 
> Where is the best docs for understanding and working with ZFS?
> 
> RAID types, Best Practices (especially for disaster recovery),
> etc...
> 
> Anything I can print out for offline reading/studying?

Phew, sorry, nothing specific in my mind. Back then I also did a lot of
googling, watching youtube-videos of ZFS-speeches, tutorials etc.

The Oracle Administration Guide might be a good reference, but dunno
about offline availability:

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/819-5461/index.html

For initial learning purposes you can also build a pool out of files
(instead of physical drives) ... just in case.

Stefan

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 27 Aug 2013 08:34:38 -0400, Tanstaafl wrote:

> Where is the best docs for understanding and working with ZFS?

There are plenty of links on the zfsforlinux site.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

BING But It's Not Google

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Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Pandu Poluan]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 8:53 PM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Aug 2013 08:34:38 -0400, Tanstaafl wrote:
>
>> Where is the best docs for understanding and working with ZFS?
>
> There are plenty of links on the zfsforlinux site.
>

"on" Linux, not "for" Linux ... http://zfsonlinux.org/

:-)

That said, I just discovered the "mbuffer" trick [1]  to speed up ZFS
snapshot shipping (my self-made term) from one server to another.

Never thought that I'd see the GbE saturated...

Of course the Network Admin gave me the evil eye :-P


[1] http://blogs.everycity.co.uk/alasdair/2010/07/using-mbuffer-to-speed-up-slow-zfs-send-zfs-receive/



Rgds,
-- 
FdS Pandu E Poluan
~ IT Optimizer ~

 • LOPSA Member #15248
 • Blog : http://pepoluan.tumblr.com
 • Linked-In : http://id.linkedin.com/in/pepoluan

Re: [gentoo-user] SLES or gentoo ... ?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 27 Aug 2013 21:07:58 +0700, Pandu Poluan wrote:

> > There are plenty of links on the zfsforlinux site.
> >  
> 
> "on" Linux, not "for" Linux ... http://zfsonlinux.org/

That one too ;-)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

If at first you don't succeed, give up. No use being a damn fool.

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