Arch Linux

kth5

Member

Registered: 2004-04-29

Posts: 657

Website

Re: Arch Linux as a Production Server?

KTH5
Just curious - how long do you test before moving update into production?

I do something similar here.
-Shawn

depends on the severity of the upgrades. if it's something known to cause system flakiness like glibc or the kernel, i let it sit there two days or so. with simpler things like apache and php which are top of the dependency tree most of the time, usually a few hours. checking error_logs etc.

when all is done i distribute the update via rsync.

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Romashka

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2005-12-07

Posts: 1,054

Re: Arch Linux as a Production Server?

You are assuming that all software is perfect. I have had several issues this summer with bugs in the software that required intervention. These were upstream bugs in the latest versions of source code that were causing random crashes - one was a program crash - the other would take the whole system down. These have since been fixed and our sytems updated.

Yes, buggy software is the 5th reason for server crash. Haven't seen this fortunately yet. But I had hardware problems with this server already - bad memory.

Running X on a production server - not on my servers

Yeah, I don't like X on server too but this server is special. Company's chief insisted on allowing users to use server for other purposes (this server is not heavy loaded). And I also use this server for my Arch experiments.  :twisted:  It was using Testing until recently - I commented [testing] in pacman.conf right before new gtk2 hit Testing. There is also a virtual network from 5 vmware machines that I use for my more dangerous experiments.  :twisted:

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jonkristian

Member

From: Norway

Registered: 2007-03-09

Posts: 101

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Re: Arch Linux as a Production Server?

I run a small web-design/hosting company in my town, I've been running arch as the base server for two years now, apache, sftp, postfix, courier, sa, etc.. with minimal hassle, I'm actually glad i switched to arch from slackware. On the other hand, I am VERY carefull when upgrading, I also do major upgrades only when I'm sitting next to the boxes.

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quad3d@work

Member

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2006-12-29

Posts: 81

Website

Re: Arch Linux as a Production Server?

And if the admin's head is not available, what are the non-technical people going to do when the system does not work?

If system does not work then:
1) system is configured badly
2) admin did something wrong
3) some non-technician got his/her hands to server
4) hardware or power supply are bad

#3 happened to me.

Make long story short...
1) 2 admins setup a full blown Debian server and was hacked to crap. Datacenter warned and locked IP several times.
2) One of the admins gets sent out of country for contracting work. I came in assisting them. Setup a new Debian server and transfered client data over.
3) One year down the road, my server required virtually no maintenance, the admin came back.
4) Less than a month... e-mail (qmail) server starts to fall apart. http server starts to fall apart...
5) When I questioned if they did anything... nothing they said.
6) Since I helped out for a year with no pay. I left the server in their hands.

I agree with Romashka. Admin(s) can make or break the server. I've put two Arch Linux servers in production for little over a month now, I have no complaints. Think I'd rather maintain an Arch than a Gentoo server any day, imho.

Last edited by quad3d@work (2008-01-15 04:36:10)

afu

Member

From: Tuscalooser, Alabummer

Registered: 2004-02-19

Posts: 155

Re: Arch Linux as a Production Server?

I agree. Admins can be a problem. Developers are a bigger problem  :0   lol.

On my production, non-Arch servers, we have had problems with PHP exploits (doesn't everybody?!?) and one case where a dev was using the same password on his personal business server and our servers. His personal server was hard cracked over the case of about 4 months. Once in, they looked into his bash history file and started attacking my servers. I was lucky - I walked in and saw the attacks in progress. Results - 3 servers out of 10-12 at the time were compromised but only to the point that some software had been installed that would have open the world up had I not been right there at that moment and caught it.

Always fun.

FWIW, I have had at least 1 and some times 2 Arch computers sitting wide open to the world running various server tasks since .5 came out, I guess a little over 5 years now. Never any issues.

fukawi2

Ex-Administratorino

From: .vic.au

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 6,224

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Re: Arch Linux as a Production Server?

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … Bumping.27

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tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Arch Linux as a Production Server?

Old thread, closed.

afu, if you feel the need to continue the discussion, start a new thread and link to this one. More generally, please check the date of the last post before you post in an existing thread.