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First trying to revive the "benchmark these CFLAGS in a real-app with nice -n |
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-20" idea i had writing on this thread [1], and second showing some success on |
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my work and looking "not to do the same thing that someone else maybe already |
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did...", I'm posting this "experience" and a little question. |
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|
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I where working with linux in various places over the time but all of those |
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"places" had policies and stuff about what kind of linux distribution they'll |
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use (or not use at all) so the only thing I could do with gentoo was "I use it |
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only on my machine". But now, I work in a complete mess of an extremely bad |
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directed "gouvernamental institution", one of those that makes use of |
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-INTENSIVE- processing power, but, looking for the minimal-lowest-nonexistent |
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"cost". |
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|
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Sounds funny, right? :+) |
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|
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Well here is when gentoo makes my life easier: |
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The "guy before me" was a fan of OpenBSD which I respect and still use as our |
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"internet" firewalls, but it really lacks of the support that everyone else |
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needed at work. A little example of this: They where working with databases in |
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"a couple" of RDBMSs: Gupta/Centura SQLBase, Oracle, Interbase, among others. |
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So... "how in the hell i can make a apache+mysql+php-THING work with these |
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databases on OBSD". just "no way" so before starting the real "web services" |
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they asked me to prove myself "migrating" some "non-cost-effective" M$ services, |
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as I did: |
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|
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The hardware they have are some Fujistu-Siemens Primergy P470 servers, with |
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duals PentiumII or PentiumIII with no more than 500Mhz the P3 and 450Mhz the P2, |
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if I wanted 1Gb of ram they had this but wasn't necessary, and the only good |
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thing i liked about these where the hot-pluggable backplanes with Mylex DAC960 |
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and DAC1100 SCSI-2 Raid controllers. |
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|
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So I took my livecd and migrated 2 M$ systems and an old redhat: First was the |
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"internet S and A" server (ISA :+P) to squid->winbind/samba->w2kdomaingroups. |
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Then was the mailserver, which was a qmail installed from some sort of strange |
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script that downloads and compiles and installs and configured all by himself |
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without asking a sh*t, which had more than 3000 viruses incoming per week, now |
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it's a postfix+mysql+amavis+clamav+dspam solution made by myself (of course |
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following TONS of howtos :+P). And the last one was the webserver itself, which |
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was an "it need to be restarted every 4 hours" win2k with apache and php,and now |
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it can access ANY database that have an ODBC driver even in WINDOWS (using a |
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DBTCP proxy in a win2k machine google it, it's cool, i also patched the php |
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module to compile and added a pear module to access it from Pear DB.php ;+) from |
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php using apache and accessing oracle 8.1.7 and oracle 9.2.0.5. |
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|
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So far, I didn't needed "great" optimization. CFLAGS like "-O2 -march=pentium3/2 |
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-frename-registers -fomit-frame-pointers -pipe" did the magic very well. |
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|
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But now "the time has come" X'D |
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|
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I, now, have to make -THE- database server. |
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|
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I already started it, but with -extra-safe-cflags-and-package-versions-, because |
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it should run Oracle 9.2.0.5 and you can find a lot of "troubles" rather than |
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"solutions" in non-certified (and in certified too btw) distributions where to |
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run oracle. |
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|
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Now after 3 weeks of recovering dead disks, going for the S40 storage, and |
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compiling/downloading/installing everything to the tiniest detail.... |
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it's working... |
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|
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This is what I've got: |
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|
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The computer have two PentiumIII 500Mhz with 1Gb of ECC RAM, and a total of 14 |
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SCSI-2 hard disks (yes 14), 2 of them (9Gb each) in a raid1 (mirror) |
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configuration for the booting system (gentoo ;+) with reiserfs on a DAC960PRL |
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controller. |
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The other 12 are configured in this way: since the DAC1100 that connects the |
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server to the storage cannot handle in a single array pack more than 8 disks |
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this storage has 2 RAID5 configurations one made of 8 9Gb disks and the other |
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made of 4 18Gb disks, which I combined in three different "partitions" using |
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software raid0 (stripping) with a total of (around) 110Gb, divided into |
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60Gb/30Gb/20Gb (oracle users my guess this u01/u02/u03 :+) that holds the big |
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swap partition (2Gb outside the softraid) and, of course, will hold the |
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database. Since this is going to handle "big" files, it has XFS tuned |
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accordingly with Daniel Robbins suggestions ;+). |
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|
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Now, regarding the original subject, I'm thinking about doing an emerge -e world |
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with new cflags, check if it breaks anything, if it works faster, if I can |
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extract all the juice this machines have, so I'm about to start "benchmarking" |
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|
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But, taking in mind the -fact- that this wont recompile the oracle stuff (and |
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oracle doesn't compile anything on your machine, it just "links" stuff) I was |
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thinking about "forcing" some cflags to the glibc itself and other libs that may |
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oracle use that can be optimized "the gentoo way". |
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|
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After this, I'm asking before I start this "adventure" X'D, if anyone, anybody |
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did something similar before, results, advices, CFLAGS!!!, even ~x86 stuff like |
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gcc3.4 if it doesn't break oracle ;+), kernel schedulers (staircase?, cfq?, and |
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io: anticipatory?, deadline?), kernel patches, anything (ideas, insults, flames |
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X'D) can be of help and will be appreciated. |
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|
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(I may add that this is a sort of "competition" between me and the DBA, that |
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says: "the server must be a redhat 8, since oracle has certified it" and I say: |
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"the server must be tested first with gentoo since it will run faster and we |
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need speed on that old machines we have, and if it works solid, make the |
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switch"... So this will be (in the end) a benchmark with a title like this |
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"Indestructible Redhat-Oracle" vs "Fast-Bleeding-Edge Gentoo-Oracle".) |
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|
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So, I hope the enthusiasm from all the gentoo users can help me win this little |
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battle ;+) |
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|
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Thanks a lot for reading all of this, I know is very large, but I thought it |
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would be nice to make it known that gentoo is growing in scales like this :+) |
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|
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Salu2, |
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Javier. |
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|
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[1] http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=1805512 |
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|
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