Re: Debian as a server.
On 12 May 1997, Chris Brown wrote:
> I would like to hear from folks that are running medium to high volume
> servers related to their experiences. My boss was talking to folks
> at Netcom and was convinced by them, to some extent, that BSD was
> far superior to any Linux. That BSD was based on being a network
> oriented system and that Linux was designed as a general purpose
> system that was not really suited to being an effective and stable
> server. Stability is certainly a large concern of mine since I really
> don't want to have to baby sit the thing much once it is set up. As
> long as other folks don't get in and screw with it, I don't see that
> that is much to ask. Part of the key to this may be in selecting
> proper hardware to enable us to utilize the most stable drivers etc.
> This is one of the things that I often see people neglect in the
> concept of a high reliability system. It is unbelevable the sacrifice
> in reliability I see in the name of minimal performance increases that
> is after unnecessary.
I use Debian Linux boxes for nearly all important (i.e. can't afford any
downtime) internet related servers. I also use it as the main Windows
SMB file server (with samba) at my main job.
Linux's reliability can't be beat, especially if the core kernel is
surrounded by an excellent quality distribution like debian.
some examples from my primary workplace:
- a 32MB Pentium file server running samba, supporting about a dozen
users. This machine is faster and far more reliable than either of
the two main NT boxes we have, and does a better job in about half of
the memory that NT requires.
- a 192MB Pentium with 8GB disk running squid, acting as the parent
proxy for about 60 other squids and about 100 dial-up users. This
machine averages about 25000 hits/hour over a day (over 3/4 of these
hits are between the hours of 8.30am and 4.00pm). This machine gets
used hard. It could probably use more memory (big squid caches need
lots of RAM) but it's working fine as is.
Originally, this machine was a freebsd box. It crashed regularly
(several times per week), and the squid process died several times
per day. From the day it was converted to a debian Linux box it has
performed flawlessly.
It only ever gets rebooted for hardware upgrades...more disk, more
ram, a better motherboard.
- a 32MB Pentium running squid. This one has only a tiny cache (it uses
the machine above as a parent) but has about 5 or 6000 acl rules to
restrict access to porno sites. Most of our school customers choose
to use this. This machine really needs more memory and probably a
faster processor....those acls really take a lot of processing power.
- a 32MB news server with about 3 gig of scsi disk. enough to keep all but
*binaries* for about a week or so.
- (at another site) another news server, nearly identical except it has
IDE disks instead of scsi, and has 40MB RAM instead of 32MB.
- approx two dozen 8MB AMD586-133 boxes with 8-port MOXA serial cards
installed at various schools as dialin servers for staff and students
to access the internet, SMB file services, and/or Novell file servers
from home
- I have also set up Debian machines for several small to medium
sized ISPs here in Melbourne. Usually to replace broken Slackware or
occasionally RedHat systems. The "upgrade" to debian has always been
appreciated by my customers - they like it that their servers don't
crash any more: part of that is because i know what i'm doing and
know how to configure a machine properly, but a lot of it is due to
the fundamental stability of Debian.
- numerous routers, dial-in servers, internet gateways, squid proxy caches,
news servers, DNS servers, mail servers etc etc installed at various
locations....some machines performing only or two "heavy load"
functions, others doing just about everything. all are working well
and require little maintainence.
All of these machines are extremely reliable and stable. They fall over
when there's a power outage. Occasionaly I've had a hard disk die on
me. Other than that, they work. I build them, they stay running. I like
Linux.
I would have no hesitation in using a Linux machine for any server task
unless there was some requirement to run commercial software which is not
available for Linux (even then I'd prefer to use some alternative which DID
run on Linux)
In short, I *trust* Debian. I haven't found any other operating system
which I trust anywhere near as much. In my experience, NONE of the
commercial unixes I have worked with (*) come close to Linux for
stability....and NT is basically a joke.
(*) lots of SCO (hate it), some Solaris (i like it), lots of NextStep
(loathe it!), a few Irix boxes, a couple-of-dozen SunOs boxes in the old
days (too BSD-ish for my liking, but quite stable nonetheless). Dabbled
with several others.
In fact, my experiences over the last 4 or 5 years have convinced me
beyond *any* doubt that commercial software vendors can NOT even begin
to approach either the stability OR the speed of development cycle which
freeware community-developed systems like Linux have.
New features are developed and debugged in about a tenth of the time on
Linux....mostly because of the huge number of enthusiastic volunteers,
and partly because the development is driven by tech-heads who (mostly
:-) know what they're doing rather than by marketing-droids who probably
can't even set the clock on their VCRs.
Craig
--
craig sanders
networking consultant Available for casual or contract
temporary autonomous zone system administration tasks.
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