Subject: Re: PgFoundry Move

From: "Magnus Hagander" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:05:19 +0100

> My one criteria in all of this, from day one, was that it had 
> to be FreeBSD based, it has to be redundant with our current 
> *core* infrastructure ...

While this is a very good point, I don't think it should be
overstressed. Yes, it's very good to have that type of redundancy. But
if it can be built on a different level than the OS, that would be even
better.

And it *is* a bit of a problem that there are a lot less ppl skilled in
FreeBSD. I know personally of several cases where things have been
notably delayed because nobody around really *knew* FreeBSD,
specifically with jails, good enough.

Yes, a lot of things are the same because it's still *nix. And for
critical stuff, I know we can page you. And usually, I assume that
results in quick action (don't think I've ever had to, really). But at
least I don't want to wake you up in the middle of the night for
something that's not that urgent.

Now, I'm not saying we should necessariliy change anything. I am just
saying that this difference in "available knowledge" is something that
whould be weighed into discussions like these.

//Magnus

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From: "Magnus Hagander" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 09:41:49 +0100

> As for the server that I'm working on right now ... yes, that 
> will be in place *long* before 2 months is up ... I'm just 
> waiting for a second CPU right now ... as for "quality 
> server", we'll see how well HP holds up, but, so far, this 
> box has very much impressed me ... anyone on these lists have 
> experience with the HP Proliant DL* servers?  The box I have 
> here has built in virtual power and remote KVM ... no more 
> having to get ahold of a tech to power cycle the server, I 
> ssh into a dedicated interface for remote admin, type 'power 
> reset' and the server power cycles itself ... 
> I've configured this box with it sitting in the other room 
> without a monitor/keyboard attached to it, and no 
> 'extra/special hardware' ...

Sure, been using them for years. Never had a single problem (well,
failed harddrive of course - statistically, that *will* happen on any
brand given enough disks... The hw raid has dealt with it with zero
problems though).

Luke (I think it is) keeps saying the performance of the RAID cards are
bad in linux, though. I haven't had that experience myself (I've had
great performance), but I probably don't push them as hard as he does.
Just make sure you have the battery-backed-cache option (which really
should be standard, but isn't unless you've bought one of the high-end
extra RAID controllers).

They provide both commercial and OSS drivers for all hardware when ti
comes to Linux. Everything has worked perfectly for me except the RILOE
driver which doesn't work on 2.6 unless you run RedHat or SuSE (because
they have patched the kernel so horribly much it's no longer near what
the standard kernel is). On 2.6 it works fine. The only thing you really
lose without this driver is the ability to relay SNMP requests thruogh
the iLO interfaces into the machine without going across the public
network (good for machiens in DMZs or outside FWs, as SNMP is less than
ideal from a security standpoint)

Never tried with FreeBSD. Do they include their full management tools
for that ("Insight Management Agents" I think they call it)? (Such as
pre-failure detection for HD, RAM, CPU etc that their techs will
actually accept as enough for a replacement without questioning etc)

//Magnus

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From: "Magnus Hagander" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 09:43:03 +0100

> > Sure, but the flip-side is that there really shouldn't be 
> any need for 
> > anyone on-site to need to touch the OS itself. For example, 
> > distributed.net has run boxes all over the place for years 
> and I think 
> > we've only twice needed human intervention at the console due to 
> > software, and that was only because we didn't have a hardware-based 
> > serial console.
> And when the hard drive dies?

Why would you need to go into the OS console for that? Just replace the
broken harddrive and be done with it?

You need physical access to the machine of course, but the OS should be
no difference. Heck, it makes no difference between Linux and *Windows*
for that here, and FreeBSD is definitly closer ;-)

//Magnus