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New Server, did i FAIL?

Hi guys,

I got a dedicated server for a new MU project. While I was waiting for it to be setup I ran across some posts saying that Debian was the way to go for large MU installs. I also read a lot of raving about Slicehost.

First of all, I got CentOS 5, 64bit installed on the server. Is that a FAIL?

Second, I’m regretting laying down a bunch of cash for a good dedicated server, especially after reading Slicehost testimonials. Is that a FAIL?

Any words of wisdom are encouraged. I really appreciate this community.

Thanks,

eye

Fri, 7 Aug 2009 20:11:43
  • eyecool
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    I found a discussion on the forums from a couple of months ago. DrMike, I wish I had the balls to go FreeBSD. Andrea, you hinted at CentOS until you knew better. I agree no Ubuntu. I read somewhere else wordpress.com is running Debian. Is Debian the best way to go?

    The server specs are as follows:

    – 2x Intel Xeon 5130 2.0 GHz Dual Core Processors

    – 146 GB 10K RPM SCSI/SAS HDD

    – 146 GB 10K RPM SCSI/SAS HDD

    – 6 GB RAM

    – IPMI

    – CentOS Enterprise Linux – 5.x – 64 bit

    Andrew,

    New site, starting from ground zero, no bytes. It’s not an open/free blog model, so growth will be controlled as far as the # of blogs. 10 to start and between 10-20 per month thereafter. There will be a lot of non blog user/subscriber accounts though. A lot of commenting, none of it anonymous.

    I’m ok spending a little more money on a dedicated box to start off, knowing the hardware is in place to handle the growth. However, what ppl say they are doing with $70 hosting blows my mind!

  • joshmac
    • Site Builder, Child of Zeus

    I can’t actually give you a good reason to go with Debian, but with my experience, I am not big on using yum (bad experiences with SuSE). I use Ubuntu, and since it is based off of Debian, my vote would be debian. If you are able to install Lenny, I would use this Debian setup as well as ISPConfig3 control panel. But again, this is just my opinion.

  • eyecool
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    I benchmarked the following servers:

    Server 1 = 2 x 2.0Ghz Xeon Dual Core, SAS HD, 6GB RAM, CentOS 5.3 64x

    Server 2 = 2 x 3.2Ghz Xeon, SATA HD, 2GB RAM, CentOS 5.2 32x

    Both are default vanilla apache, php & mysql installations. No tweaking.

    First graphic is a simple static page

    Second graphic is the default wordpress new blog page

    [attachments are only viewable by logged-in members] [attachments are only viewable by logged-in members]

    I am so close to getting a slice or linode and running the same tests on it.

  • drmike
    • DEV MAN’s Mascot

    Just to throw this out, for an OS, I’d go with what you feel comfortable with over benchmarking. At least to start. That’s the main reasons why we go with FreeBSD. I came up via mainframes (You young whippersnappers!) and I’m just used to that command structure.

    I just did an install on a CentOS VPS and have to admit, I spent more time running yum than I did installing wpmu. Very surprised that an OS that’s being promoted as a server OS doesn’t have SVN installed as a default.

    But that’s just me.

  • Paul
    • New Recruit

    I’d go with what you feel comfortable with over benchmarking.

    Absolutely agree.

    Second: You gain most performance in properly configuring the webserver, rdbms and php and by implementing some sort of caching strategy anyway.

    just my $ 0,02

  • eyecool
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    I also agree, to the extent that temporary discomfort on a new *nix distro shouldn’t preclude you from using the one that’s proven best for the task at hand.

    Beyond the OS, it seems like nginx and lighthttpd are > apache for the serious MU installation. Sure, it will cause me some pain to switch from what I know best, apache, but there are more advantages in using the others.

    More processors, cores and ram makes a nice difference too. I like 64 bit. Wish I could be IPv6 already.