[gentoo-user] congruant gentoo servers

[gentoo-user] congruant gentoo servers

[James]

Hello,

I need to deploy a (gentoo) server, on an isolated, remote network, with 
just a few custom applications. However, to periodically
update the gentoo distro, I want to build a second (congruent)
system, that can be physically swapped for update, or in the
event of failure (brain-dead, I know but for now, that's a
hard constraint).


So I have system with identical mother boards, cpus and the same amount
of ram. The size of the drives differs, but, that should not be a problem. 

Where to start?
The both have the same profile:
[9]   default/linux/x86/2008.0 *


The both have the same kernel/options:
2.6.24-gentoo-r8

The world files are different. One is mimimal and very close
to what I want, the other needs many packages removed.

Likewise the one system has a minimal make.conf file, which
I like, the other is quite bloated over the years.


So before I go any further, should I just set about pruning the
bloated system down to match the minimal system, or go for a new install.

Also what else would I check and modify to ensure the systems are
as close to congruent as possbile?

rc-status?

installed packages?


file by file in /etc?


Any tools or suggestions to help in this effort are much welcome.

Should I just "dd" one (minmalistic) drive contents to the 
other?

any discussion or ideas are most welcome.

James



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Re: [gentoo-user] congruant gentoo servers

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 27 June 2008, James wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I need to deploy a (gentoo) server, on an isolated, remote network,
> with just a few custom applications. However, to periodically
> update the gentoo distro, I want to build a second (congruent)
> system, that can be physically swapped for update, or in the
> event of failure (brain-dead, I know but for now, that's a
> hard constraint).

I have one question before I describe a few approaches that came to 
mind:

Is the new (minimal) system a strict sub-set of the old (bloated one)? 
As in, could you add to the minimal config a bunch of USE flags (that 
would not change the overall behaviour of what is already there), 
emerge a lot of new packages, and basically arrive at what you have on 
the bloated machine?

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] congruant gentoo servers

[Uwe Thiem]

On Friday 27 June 2008, James wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I need to deploy a (gentoo) server, on an isolated, remote network,
> with just a few custom applications. However, to periodically
> update the gentoo distro, I want to build a second (congruent)
> system, that can be physically swapped for update, or in the
> event of failure (brain-dead, I know but for now, that's a
> hard constraint).
>
>
> So I have system with identical mother boards, cpus and the same
> amount of ram. The size of the drives differs, but, that should not
> be a problem.
>
> Where to start?
> The both have the same profile:
> [9]   default/linux/x86/2008.0 *
>
>
> The both have the same kernel/options:
> 2.6.24-gentoo-r8
>
> The world files are different. One is mimimal and very close
> to what I want, the other needs many packages removed.
>
> Likewise the one system has a minimal make.conf file, which
> I like, the other is quite bloated over the years.
>
>
> So before I go any further, should I just set about pruning the
> bloated system down to match the minimal system, or go for a new
> install.

Pruning a fat system can be very time consuming. I'd rather clone the 
minimalistic one.

>
> Also what else would I check and modify to ensure the systems are
> as close to congruent as possbile?
>
> rc-status?
>
> installed packages?
>
>
> file by file in /etc?
>
>
> Any tools or suggestions to help in this effort are much welcome.
>
> Should I just "dd" one (minmalistic) drive contents to the
> other?

I'd rather tar the whole small system up and install this tarball on 
the other one (after adjusting partitioning, creating filesystems and 
such).

Uwe

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[gentoo-user] Re: congruant gentoo servers

[James]

Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes:


> Is the new (minimal) system a strict sub-set of the old (bloated one)? 
> As in, could you add to the minimal config a bunch of USE flags (that 
> would not change the overall behaviour of what is already there), 
> emerge a lot of new packages, and basically arrive at what you have on 
> the bloated machine?


No,

Years ago they were similar. Then the minimal system lost a hard drive
and I reinstalled it, as a minimal gentoo server. The bloated one
has been a workstation and had all sorts of gui/kde stuffage installed
on it.


James





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[gentoo-user] Re: congruant gentoo servers

[James]

Uwe Thiem <uwix <at> iway.na> writes:


> Pruning a fat system can be very time consuming. I'd rather clone the 

> I'd rather tar the whole small system up and install this tarball on 
> the other one (after adjusting partitioning, creating filesystems and 
> such).
 
Yes, that's what occurred to me, as I was mentally going down the list
of things to do, to arrive at congruency between the two systems....

One more difference:

VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200]
x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers
Installed versions:  173.14.05

versus

VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400]
x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers
Installed versions:  96.43.05

So some provisions have to be made, as the older card is barely supported
any more. I do need X11 to run JFFNMS on these systems. Or maybe I'll 
just pick up either another FX5200 or a pair of newer (cheap)
video cards so that hardware matches too.....?


thoughts?


James

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: congruant gentoo servers

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 27 June 2008, James wrote:
> Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes:
> > Is the new (minimal) system a strict sub-set of the old (bloated
> > one)? As in, could you add to the minimal config a bunch of USE
> > flags (that would not change the overall behaviour of what is
> > already there), emerge a lot of new packages, and basically arrive
> > at what you have on the bloated machine?
>
> No,
>
> Years ago they were similar. Then the minimal system lost a hard
> drive and I reinstalled it, as a minimal gentoo server. The bloated
> one has been a workstation and had all sorts of gui/kde stuffage
> installed on it.

I had a somewhat similar setup between a desktop machine at home (never 
connected to the internet) and my notebook. I went for the simplest 
possible solution:

emerge -pvfuND world on desktop, get a list of sources to download
download those sources onto notebook next day at work
nfs mount the portage and distfiles dirs from notebook to desktop
rsync portage dir
prepended nfs mounted distfiles to GENTOO_MIRRORS
emerge -avuND world

True, it needed a fair amount of manual intervention and sometimes I 
would miss a source file that needed to be downloaded, so the process 
would take a day longer, but this was far easier to do once a month 
than concoct some other automated solution


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: congruant gentoo servers

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 27 June 2008, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Friday 27 June 2008, James wrote:
> > Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon <at> gmail.com> writes:
> > > Is the new (minimal) system a strict sub-set of the old (bloated
> > > one)? As in, could you add to the minimal config a bunch of USE
> > > flags (that would not change the overall behaviour of what is
> > > already there), emerge a lot of new packages, and basically
> > > arrive at what you have on the bloated machine?
> >
> > No,
> >
> > Years ago they were similar. Then the minimal system lost a hard
> > drive and I reinstalled it, as a minimal gentoo server. The bloated
> > one has been a workstation and had all sorts of gui/kde stuffage
> > installed on it.
>
> I had a somewhat similar setup between a desktop machine at home
> (never connected to the internet) and my notebook.

Reading other replies after I sent the one above, I think I completely 
misunderstood the OP question.



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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