Arch Linux

Lord Daedra

Member

Registered: 2011-03-12

Posts: 1

Some newbie questions about installation, LVM, grub, RAID

Hello!

I'm web developer, going to migrate (clean install and move needed files from backup) from ubuntu 10.10 to arch linux on one of my production servers (because I prefer new version of software, which I use: databases (mysql, postgres, mongodb, couchdb), php-fpm, python27, uWSGI, cherokee web server.. and because I like clean archlinux design). There is only one problem for me now - what to install and how to install it (no server template for ArchLinux in my datacenter, should install clean system manually)...

Information about my server: http://www.hetzner.de/hosting/produktma … tmatrix-eq , EQ6 here

Some questions:
1. Is ArchLinux normal choice for production webserver? (I tried to install Arch on home VPS, all works well, but I don't know about updates - may be will a lot of errors after updates which will crash my system once a week or so on - uptime is not VERY critical but server should work at least in business hours)

2. LVM or not LVM? how much partitions needed? and what type and size?
Pros and cons:
+ LVM backup is good
- I need learn how to do LVM backups and don't use it now (it's in my TO-DO list for next 1-2 years, I use simple bash script now)

Ubuntu has been installed with LVM support (sorry, my next questions will be very n00by for you because I used easy setup script, where only have been selected size and type of partitions and write dns and hostname):

PART /boot    ext3       2G
PART lvm      electra    all

LV electra    root    /        ext3    240G
LV electra    swap    swap     swap    24G
LV electra    tmp     /tmp     ext3    24G
LV electra    home    /home    ext3    all

And now I see this:

(report by http://phpsysinfo.sourceforge.net/ script)
(all http files in /home/lorddaedra/www folder now, it will be moved to /srv/http so I need not big /home now)

If I don't use LVM I should not install it and it is ArchWay, right? Or I really need it and should install?
Better use ext4 now, right?
I see /dev, /dev/shm, /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs, /var/lock and /var/run but it's not me, it's all were installed by Ubuntu, do I need them now? :-) I need only area for my databases and http files/scripts.
Do I need to install GRUB2 for RAID (and/or LVM) support?