Re: [gentoo-server] Gentoo for server

[Jean-Francois Gagnon Laporte]

On Tue, 7 Dec 2004 00:20:16 +0100, Simon Striker <simon@×××××××××.net> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I have just installed Gentoo on my laptop and I am very satisfied with
> it! I really like the portage feature and other Gentoo philosophy.
>
> At home and at "week-end house" I have a Linux server with Slackware
> distribution installed. Now I am thinking of reinstalling my servers and
> installing the Gentoo Linux on them, but I am a bit worried
> because all packages in Portage tree are NOT up-to-date.
>
<flame> Hum ever tried Debian potato ? </flame>. Seriously what do you
mean by all packages ? Do you run stable or unstable ? If you talk
about some obscure package yeah probably but everything is mostly up
to date. If you really want leading edge or even bleeding edge run
unstable (put your arch here). Browse bugs.gentoo.org or even there
are some cvs ebuilds that you can find. Why not unmask some ebuilds
that are masked from /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask too. Try to be
more precise about what you find "NOT to up to date" like example
perhaps.

etcat -v php
[ Results for search key           : php ]
[ Candidate applications found : 8 ]

 Only printing found installed programs.

*  dev-php/php :
        [   ] 4.3.8 (0)
        [ ~ ] 4.3.9_rc1 (0)
        [   ] 4.3.9 (0)
        [M  ] 5.0.0 (0)
        [ ~ ] 5.0.0-r1 (0)
        [ ~ ] 5.0.1 (0)
        [ ~ ] 5.0.2 (0)
        [  I] 5.0.2-r1 (0)

See portage has an ebuild for php 5.0.2 but it is masked unstable. If
you run only stable package you will only be able to use 4.3.9. Do you
understand better how portage works ?

> I am using servers for: Mail-server, web-server, printer-share,
> firewall, router, backup-server, webmail, mysql etc.
>
> I would like to know, how do you maintain your servers?

emerge sync
emerge -uDav world
emerge -a depclean
revdep-rebuild

That's one way to do it and aimed toward a workstation. As for
production servers I run stable, at most update once per week and
mostly security updates but I don't think I need to go there. As for
my servers at home well there are happy running unstable with 2.6
kernel, gcc 3.4 latest glibc nptl enabled (everything with the kitchen
sink) . It's mostly for testing ground and toying.

> Is it safe to
> have Gantoo as a server?
>
Yes depending what you do with it and who's administering it. The
default settings are actually better than most distro that I have
tried but like everything there is work to do.

> What do you think of putting all installed packages into
> /etc/portage/packages.keywords (~x86) for server?
>
Depends on your needs. Normally no for production server but if the
need is there, nobody is stopping you from testing it first to see how
it goes. They are a lot of metrics to consider that you haven't
prodided and should be considered.

> I would like to make my Linux server "insensitive" for hackers or
> intruders. Is it possible with Gentoo?
>
Gentoo linux is still linux. What [put distro here] can do, gentoo
linux can too. Anyway, I could tell you a resounding yes but it's a
too vague question to develop on the subject.

> I will be very gratefull to hear some of your opinion or exepriences.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Best regards, Simon
> -------------
>
> Simon Striker
> Rusjanov trg 2
> 1000 Ljubljana      [phone]
> Europe (Slovenia)
>
> E-mail: simon@×××××××××.net
>
>