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ats2
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 11:29 pm    Post subject: Gentoo for servers ? Reply with quote

Why, I'm wondering what are the drawbacks of using Gentoo for servers in a production environment.
Some people say it isn't stable enough, meaning packages aren't tested as thouroughly as they may be in comercial Linux distros (like RHEL), for example.
How far is it true or false ?

PS: this isn't a flame thread. I just need some precise informations about the possible uses of Gentoo for servers. On the other hand, comparison with other systems would be intersting as long as it is 'objective', I mean *not* the usual rants.

PPS: if the question is stupid, feel fre to tell me, too :)
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yngwin
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 11:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Read yesterday's GWN.
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alienjon
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 11:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A good friend of mine (a Gentoo developer as well, I belive) runs his server on Gentoo and loves it.
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ats2
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

yngwin wrote:
Read yesterday's GWN.

I did, but didn't find any answer to my question, apart from the interview, at the beginning. Did you have that interview in mind ?
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ats2
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

alienjon wrote:
A good friend of mine (a Gentoo developer as well, I belive) runs his server on Gentoo and loves it.

Nice. Thanks for the answer, but I was considering Gentoo in an enterprise, running multiples servers (probably a good many of them)...
This is different from running one server @home.
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stormcrowley
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 1:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Although this may not answer your question en entirety, I use Gentoo as the OS driving the intranet web server here for my department. It's not a cluster, it doesn't use RAID 10 or anything, but it has been running quietly for the past year+ with one reboot (which was my fault), and no glitches.

It's a p3/900, and it's job is a DB (mysql)/ web (apache2, with php, mysql, and Ruby on Rails support) / file-storage (SAMBA) server, and it handles all the requests it gets pounded with gracefully, with without lag.
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Bob P
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 1:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

my Gentoo servers have been stable as rock. if you want to run Gentoo on a server, i'd just recommend using stable branch packages and resisting the temptation to keep updating the server just because new ebuilds come along. once it works, leave it alone unless a security hole is found, a bugfix is encountered that address a bug that you've actually encountered, or a new feature is introduced that you absolutely can't live without.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What Bob said;

They work great if you dont constantly try to update them; get 15 like I have and you will drive yourself mad.

Personally I cron 'glsa-check --list new' nightly so I get a nice e-mail when I get into work in the morning notifing me if there are any security updates avail.

About once a year I will do a full update on the servers to make sure they dont get too far out of date; but I build the packages on another machine to make the downtime minimal.
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rev138
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 1:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Suicidal wrote:
Personally I cron 'glsa-check --list new' nightly so I get a nice e-mail when I get into work in the morning notifing me if there are any security updates avail.


Wouldn't it be simpler (though maybe less satisfyingly geeky) to just subscribe yourself to the GLSA mailing list instead?

In any case, my employer has been running Gentoo (ck-sources) on a Dell Poweredge server for about a year now with no stability issues whatsoever.

I just set up another one about a month ago. Everything's looking on the up-and-up.
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KiLlMuNcH
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 2:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i think it really depends on your comfort level with gentoo if thats the os you know best and your the one working on it then its your best bet. like everyone else said it can be as stable as you want, so its really just a matter of you.
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DNAspark99
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 2:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

gentoo is now my server-distro of choice - I think it's excellent for this purpose, so long as you factor in a box or two for exclusive 'guinea pig' roles, nothing gets updated otherwise~!
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rev138
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 2:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Agreed. We have a VMWare Windows/Linux box that we try everything on before making changes to a production server.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you happen to be in a situation where you have to also manage a bunch of users then the maintence of Gentoo could be a problem. It honestly depends on how much time you are willing to devote directly or indirectly to Gentoo, or more correctly to Portage.
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ats2
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 10:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting answers.
Please go on.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 3:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rev138 wrote:
Suicidal wrote:
Personally I cron 'glsa-check --list new' nightly so I get a nice e-mail when I get into work in the morning notifing me if there are any security updates avail.


Wouldn't it be simpler (though maybe less satisfyingly geeky) to just subscribe yourself to the GLSA mailing list instead?

In any case, my employer has been running Gentoo (ck-sources) on a Dell Poweredge server for about a year now with no stability issues whatsoever.

I just set up another one about a month ago. Everything's looking on the up-and-up.


I do; but with all of my servers I might have a brain~fart and miss one by accident.

Besides it makes a little bit of work look like alot :D
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Bob P
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 4:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Suicidal wrote:
Besides it makes a little bit of work look like alot :D


yeah, its the gift that keeps on giving. if you have the glsa-checks mailed to you every day, you can configure the job once, but you can keep showing your boss how many reports you have to keep dealing with! :lol:
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm a sysadmin for Purdue Calumet University. I have made it my personal goal to convert as many servers as possible to Gentoo. I'm even probably going to be moving most of the Mechanical Engineering lab workstations to Gentoo.
Why? We'll, after trying just about every distribution, in the long run, Gentoo ends up being easier for me to maintain. It's nice being able to do an 'emerge -uDpv world' to update my machines. I can't stand basically doing another complete install from cd to upgrade a system. Portage is very powerful and works well if you know how to use it properly. Of course, I had my growing pains while learning what to do and what not to do. I have to agree with the previous comment of not constantly updating your system just for the sake of updating. Only update when you need to fix a security flaw or once every 6 months to a year, to stay up to date with major changes in packages. If you update any more often, you will drive yourself crazy using etc-update or dispatch-conf.
In addition to 2 servers at home with Gentoo, I have 2 servers at work running Gentoo. I just discovered the Gentoo-vserver project and I'm really excited about it. I just ordered a new Dell Poweredge 2850 with dual Xeon, 4G RAM, and 4 U320 SCSI drives. I plan to use this for both production and developement vservers.
If you have multiple Gentoo servers, I would definitely consider running your own local rsync server. Not only will it reduce the load on the official servers, but it will be faster for your machines to sync.
Hope this helps in making your decision.
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Bob P
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 4:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Portage. Right next to Hobart. :wink:
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 5:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bob P wrote:
Portage. Right next to Hobart. :wink:

Well, I guess you must be familiar with where I live? :)
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 6:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Suicidal wrote:
Personally I cron 'glsa-check --list new' nightly so I get a nice e-mail when I get into work in the morning notifing me if there are any security updates avail.


Personally I like glsa-check --list new | grep -v "[U]". But then again, it's not quite as impressive to the bosses.
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Bob P
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ryker wrote:
Bob P wrote:
Portage. Right next to Hobart. :wink:

Well, I guess you must be familiar with where I live? :)

yeah, i'm familair with the calumet region. 8) you're the first gentoo user i've encountered in the neighborhood.
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 10:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think a real issue for production use is we don't know where Gentoo is heading. Please DO NOT take this in a wrong or bad way.
Things change often, and these changes are big, think of the recent changes to apache file structure. I rolled that update without problems but that was a big change, a change that caught a lot of people by surprise, a lot of production servers by surprise. The program was teh same, the config structure was different. Perhaps a much longer term road map on a central place on the gentoo site can fix this, then again it adds more red tape.

There's nothing hard about using Gentoo in a production enviroment (its just linux after all), just use it with it's dynamic nature in mind
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 2:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rev138 wrote:
Suicidal wrote:
Personally I cron 'glsa-check --list new' nightly so I get a nice e-mail when I get into work in the morning notifing me if there are any security updates avail.


Wouldn't it be simpler (though maybe less satisfyingly geeky) to just subscribe yourself to the GLSA mailing list instead?

In any case, my employer has been running Gentoo (ck-sources) on a Dell Poweredge server for about a year now with no stability issues whatsoever.

I just set up another one about a month ago. Everything's looking on the up-and-up.


I too used to run Gentoo on Dell PowerEdge hardware. At an old job, it ran TOO well and ended up being one of the reasons that I lost the job. My boss (aside from being a megalomaniac nutjob asshat) and the lackey he hired as a "Senior Sysadmin" were always blaming me and "those damn Gentoo boxes" for various issues - issues that I was able to trace back with loads of proof to their Red Hat installations. I refused to reformat all of the servers that were up & running just to conform to a non-existent "company standard" build. (Red Hat)

Oh, back to the original point. The Gentoo boxes were:

* mail gateway box running amavisd-new, clamav, f-prot, and spamassassin.
* mail server for the whole company, running courier-imap/pop, webmail, postfix (with TLS & SMTP AUTH)
* file server (RAID 5, hardware) serving files via NFS & Samba
* utility server handling DNS, NTP, DHCP, and LDAP (but just as a company address book)

Everything worked great. The only time I had problems is when I didn't update stuff for a long time... I'd occasionally run into the "The conf files are way different now" problems. :-)

Otherwise, I currently run a small web hosting provider, and everything runs Gentoo. (Except for my DNS server, it's a Mac OS X machine)
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 9:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i now run or maintain more than 10 servers all running on gentoo and performing various tasks, from simple routing and nat to complex servers running all type of services.

i've had minor setbacks now and then but it's so much easier to solve many small problems with HUGE community support rather than solve even one small problem with little support from the distro community. and Gentoo beats everyone in this regard by a long-shot.

i sugest you start with whatever distro you like NOW and adjust based on experience.

hope this helps.
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ASIO_BOB wrote:
I think a real issue for production use is we don't know where Gentoo is heading. Please DO NOT take this in a wrong or bad way.
Things change often, and these changes are big, think of the recent changes to apache file structure. I rolled that update without problems but that was a big change, a change that caught a lot of people by surprise, a lot of production servers by surprise. The program was teh same, the config structure was different. Perhaps a much longer term road map on a central place on the gentoo site can fix this, then again it adds more red tape.

There's nothing hard about using Gentoo in a production enviroment (its just linux after all), just use it with it's dynamic nature in mind


i agree with you on this. a long term roadmap might be a difficult thing given the volatile nature of tech, and the gentoo maintainers are already busy people, but a roadmap on top of the progress made with glsa-check might help gentoo get farther into the datacenter.
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