[gentoo-server] Gentoo in corporate environments

[Jose Gonzalez Gomez]

Hi there,

    I remember having read some thread about this, and I would like to 
add my 2cents to the subject. This mail comes from the feeling I get 
installing some packages and reading some threads on the Gentoo mailing 
lists or forums. As you may notice from a recent post, I'm evaluating 
backup software. I came to Bacula, that's included in portage, so I 
installed it, just to find that feeling I'm talking about. For those who 
doesn't know anything about Bacula, a quick intro:

    Bacula has three different daemons that may be installed in 
different machines. These daemons are the Director, that manages the 
whole installation, the Storage Daemon, that handles storage devices, 
and the File Daemon that is installed in every machine with data to 
backup. If you have *just* one machine to backup, with the storage 
device attached, it makes sense to have everything installed and 
running, *but* if you have a _real network environment_, you usually 
have one machine with the director daemon installed and running, several 
machines with the storage daemon where the storage devices are attached, 
and file daemons in every machine with data to backup. The console can 
be installed in the operator/administrator workstation and configured to 
connect remotely to the director daemon.

    In the case of the Gentoo ebuild, everything is built and installed, 
and even worse, the init script starts all three services, so you cannot 
use it in a network environment unless you manually edit the init 
scripts (you can only have one director, and there's no sense in having 
a storage daemon in a machine with no storage device). Maybe it's 
overkill to split the ebuild to build these component separately (maybe 
not), but at least the init script should be able to selectively start 
the daemons based perhaps in a /etc/conf.d file, so if I want to install 
bacula in my network I don't have to be individually customizing init 
scripts.

    Now the bit of positive criticism: I remember discussions about 
what's needed for Gentoo to become adopted in real business. I think 
this is one of the facts that may slow Gentoo adoption. I have found 
several packages configured to run on a single machine, so if you want 
to use them in a real environment you have to tweak things you shouldn't 
tweak, like in this package: there is no possibility of configuring the 
ebuild to get only a daemon type, or configuring the init script to only 
start the needed daemons. You have the feeling that whoever made this 
was thinking of Bacula as an overkill toy to just backup her single 
machine, instead of the powerful piece of software I think it really is 
when used in real life with a whole network to backup using full blown 
tape changers and completely automated and unattended operation with 
real business data instead of backing up my collection of MP3s and my 
mail to a CD-RW.

    I also have this feeling when I read in the mailing list or forums 
and see that a lot of people tell you to use tar/cp/rsync/whatever. 
That's ok for your home machine, but I don't think those are solutions 
for enterprise needs. Just imagine yourself telling your boss or client: 
"Yes, I'm gonna have all those machines with your critical business data 
backed up using rsync... err... oh, those tapes... don't worry, I'll 
write some scripts so the systems tars the rsynced copy and writes them 
to tape... err... oh. labeling... ummm, I'm gonna give you a wonderful 
pen so you can write on every tape... err... what do you say? tape 
changers? robots? err... don't you think those are a waste of money? 
Better sell them and contract somebody to manually change the tapes at 
1:30am... after all somebody has to label them..."

    Some samples:
       
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=179781&postdays=0&postorder=asc&vote=viewresult 
(rsync wins here)
       
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=229794&postdays=0&postorder=asc&vote=viewresult 
(backing up to CD/DVD or cp are the leaders here)

    Joking apart, I think Gentoo needs a mind change to become a 
corporate distribution and attract people doing real business... just 
some thoughts of somebody who's trying to do Gentoo for a living and 
would love to see Gentoo in every data center.

    By the way, I created a bug regarding this, and containing similar 
text, in http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=68317.

    Best regards
    Jose