[server-admins] CrossWire server

[DM Smith]

On Mar 2, 2012, at 1:56 PM, Troy A. Griffitts wrote:

> Hey guys.  Wanted to run a few things by you guys.
> 
> We are starting to see IO errors in the logs from our primary hard disk on CrossWire.
> 
> We do backups of our important data, but this does not include our home directories.
Some of the home directories are important directories. E.g. Jira is located there. So is JSword.

Maybe others? Perhaps all the non-user accounts?

I've backed up both of these, but the snapshot should be done immediately before update.


> 
> If you have anything in your home directory that you'd like to backup, please consider pulling a copy off CrossWire or tarring it up on /backup.  I've left it mounted.  There is a userbackups/ folder there with world writable permission.
> 
> 
> Since we're needing to get a new drive and since our OS release has gone out of support again, I guess it's time to update to something.
> 
> I would really like to get something more stable with longer-term support.  What do you guys think about moving to RHEL?  I know we could go with CentOS, but I've asked RH about low pricing for us as a non-profit, opensource development shop.  I'll report back what I hear.

I've been using RHEL for years now and am a (not very good) sysadmin for it. I would recommend it (CentOS version). In all the years that we've run RHEL, we have never had a need for support from RedHat, even though we have a premium 24x7 support contract. We've used CentOS on our dev servers to manage costs and find that it keeps up nicely with the RedHat fixes (maybe a few days later, but I've never really noticed). Unless you have a frequent "yum update" going, I doubt you'd notice the timing differences.

We're currently using RHEL 5, having just upgraded to it. We'll be looking at RHEL 6 in earnest once the Oracle software we rely on is certified for it.

Regarding RHEL, they have increased their support from 8 to 10 years. What that means to me is that as long as I don't need software that doesn't run on an old version of Linux, I can be reasonably assured that the system is stable and secure.

For my work desktop, I've been using Fedora since before core 1. I'm about to jump ship as I am frustrated by the numerous changes that have taken place, especially to Gnome.

I've stuck with Fedora because Oracle software can be readily installed on it. And it give me an idea where RHEL is going to be in the future.

> 
> Please don't suggest a .deb based system.  They're not bad, just unfamiliar to me.

It's unfamiliar to me too. I've tried them once or twice but never found them to be compelling enough to learn a different way.

> 
> 
> A couple reasons for my motivation to move from Fedora:
> 
> I hate upstart (and systemd)
> I hate the short update support life.
> I hate being forced to do an 'upgrade' every year or so.
> 
> 
> So, now that you've heard about what I hate, what are your thoughts?

The CrossWire server is currently Fedora 14. RHEL 6 would be a step backward as it is based on a blend of Fedora 12 and 13 (see: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RHEL#History).

My minor concern revolves around those things that we get from the distribution and have a strong reliance on. Specifically/especially, subversion, mediawiki and mysql. These are either missing (e.g. mediawiki) or an earlier version (fortunately, still within the same major revision).

Hope this helps.

-- DM