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On Saturday 14 November 2009 19:36:06 Alex Schuster wrote: |
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> Alan McKinnon wrote: |
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> > clusterssh will let you log into many machines at once and run emerge |
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> > -avuND world everywhere |
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> |
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> This is way cool. I just started using it on eight Fedora servers I am |
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> administrating. Nice, now this is an improvement over my 'for $h in |
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> $HOSTS; do ssh $h "yum install foo"; done' approach. |
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I feel your pain :-) |
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We used to have the same problem adding new admins to 87 machines. Now we have |
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a bespoke provisioner that does it all. |
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> What do you guys think about using Gentoo for servers? At the institute I |
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> partially work we chose Fedora. There is no special reason for that - we |
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> already had some Fedora machines, the setup seemed to work, the reputation |
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> was good, so we kept it. That was okay for me, why choose many different |
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> environments and learn everything again. I mentioned Gentoo, but did not |
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> really suggest to actually use it. Maybe I should have. |
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I'm a huge fan of Gentoo and all my personal machines (except the new netbook) |
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have run it for the last 5 years. |
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But I will never install Gentoo on a production server at work. |
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Why? |
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Because it is too time consuming, because no two machines are set up the same, |
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because I can't trust that other admins used the flags they should have. So |
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updates become a case of logging into 80+ machines individually and doing |
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emerge world by hand. Gentoo allows you to customize things to the nth degree |
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- that is it's strength - so people WILL use this one discriminating factor. |
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If OTOH I had a server farm of 80+ machines, all identical, I'd put Gentoo on |
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them in a flash. But I don't have that |
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> These 8 servers I mentioned are basically clones of the one I installed |
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> manually. Instead of doing this again, I boot a live-cd on a new one, |
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> create partitions, and extract tar files of the first server's partitions. |
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> Then I do some extra configuration, like hostname and network setup. Done. |
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> |
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> My plan for updating them is to take the first server down, and upgrade |
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> the installation (if that works - I had some trouble with that before, so |
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> maybe it will be better to reinstall from scratch). Then I will create a |
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> snapshot of the new setup, transfer that to the other hosts, and unpack it |
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> in new logical volumes. I plan to script this so I do not have to do it |
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> manually every time - but that was before I knew ClusterSSH. When all is |
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> done and there is some time to take the servers down, I will reboot into |
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> the new system. |
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> |
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> Now I am thinking about a Gentoo installation instead. |
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> |
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> Pros: |
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> - Continuous updates, no downtime for upgrading, only when I decide to |
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> install a new kernel. This is really really cool. I fear the upgrade from |
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> Fedora 10 to 12 which has to be done soon. |
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Do not upgrade, especially not with a version jump of 2 or more. If you have a |
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lot of machines, I assume you are a decent shop, and that you have some form |
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of formal process for upgrades and changes. |
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What you do instead is a formal migration - copy the data off, reinstall, |
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restore data. If you can't afford to do that every six or twleve months, then |
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I have to ask - what the hell is the organization doing using a distro that is |
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unsupported after 12 months? |
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> - Some improvement in speed. Those machines do A LOT of numbercrunching, |
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> which jobs often lasting for days, so even small improvements would be |
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> nice. |
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Don't fool yourself. Unless you need what Google needs, there is very little |
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speed difference between Gentoo and Fedora. I/O improvements you need can be |
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easily gotten by fiddling the kernel tuning knobs. |
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> - Easier debugging. When things do not work, I think it's easier to dig |
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> into the problem. No fancy, but sometimes buggy GUIs hiding basic |
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> functionality. |
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Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Fedora does not require a GUI :-) |
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> - Heck, Gentoo is _cooler_ than typical distributions. And emerging with |
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> distcc on about 8*4 cores would be fun :) |
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Can't argue with that. |
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But that is your ego talking and the machines do not belong to you but to the |
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institute. Your ego has no place in that. |
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> - I am probably the only one who can administrate them. |
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This is not a benefit. It is a severe liability. |
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Where I work, I get fired for trying that :-( |
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> Cons: |
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> - If something will not work with this not so common (meta)distribution, |
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> people will say "always trouble with your Gentoo Schmentoo, it works fine |
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> in Fedora". Fedora is more mainstream, if something does not work there, |
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> then it's okay for the people to accept it. |
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Those same people are likely to say the same about linux vs windows. |
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> - I fear that big packages like Matlab are made for and tested on the |
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> typical distributions, and may have problems with the not-so-common |
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> Gentoo. I think someone here just had such a problem with Mathematica |
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> (which we do currently not use). |
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One or two persons had problems. Many many more replied that they had no |
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problems at all. In Fedora-land, the ratio is the same. |
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> - I am probably the only one who can administrate them. I think Gentoo is |
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> easier to maintain in the long run, but only when you take the time to |
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> learn it. With Fedora, you do not need much more than the 'yum install' |
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> command. There is no need to read complicated X.org upgrade guides and |
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> such. |
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> |
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> I think I already made my decision, but I am still interested in your |
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> opinions, maybe some of you are in a similar position and like to share |
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> your experiences. Whether I will be allowed to use Gentoo is another |
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> question, I guess my boss will not like my idea at first, and I am not |
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> even sure if he is right. But maybe I can test-install Gentoo on one |
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> machine in a chroot, and see if things work fine. |
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Depends how critical these machines are. If you want to change them just |
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because you feel like it, then I do not see how that can possibly be a valid |
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reason. |
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Remember, the institute's needs and desires trump yours every time |
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-- |
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alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com |