After identifying exactly what my local linux server requirements were, I decided to take a good look at my hardware options. From the start, I wanted to (1) save money, (2) save electricity/power and (3) minimize noise.

To address these issues, there were many decisions I made. First of all I did not need any peripherals. The server could be entirely “headless” (i.e. no monitor, no keyboard, no mouse, etc). The primary things of value are: disk storage, memory, cpu and network. Hence the following are my requirements:

• Processor - CPU speed should be about 1Ghz. Preferably a low power processor (ex: Geode-NX, Pentium-M, etc.). I prefer a CPU without a fan and that could be cooled with the heat-sink alone. Although I do not plan to do major computational critical tasks, in the past I have seen certain processors (Via) have difficult with SSH (something that will be critical to performance for me).
• Memory - Minimum memory: 256MB. From my experience using Fedora as a server and building other minimalistic Linux machines, I know that all my tasks/processes should be fine with about 150-200MB of memory after some tweaking. For safety, about 512MB will be perfect.
• Disk - Minimum storage space: 80GB. All of my critical documents, development, music (mp3’s, etc) and server backups could be fit easily into 20-30GB. I think double that amount should be adequate. However, realistically, since I most likely would want a SATA drive for performance, most drives are at 160GB for the best price.
• Video - Don’t care. On board. The most I would need to do is run a remote X-server session, which does not benefit from better video hardware.
• Sound - Don’t care. On board. Would never be used.
• Network - Standard networking is now 100Mbit, however it would be a nice to have 1Gbit. Although both my desktop and laptop are both 1Gbit, I do NOT have a gigabit switch.
• DVD - For installation, a DVD drive would be needed, but once complete, everything would be done over the network. However, there is a practical advantage to having a DVD-RW. Even if the hard drive was very large, a 4GB DVD backup could still be useful for incremental long term backups.

What did I end up getting?

• Motherboard/CPU - Intel Celeron 220 1.2Ghz. I found a mini-ITX CPU/board combination. My primary reasons for purchase were (1) price - less than $80 USD, (2) no noise - fanless, (3) power consumption was only 27W. The other features of the board were SATA, Onboard video/sound, ethernet and USB2.
• Memory - 1GB 533Mhz. I did not need 1GB, but the price was only $25 USD and since the motherboard only had 1 slot which supported maximum 1GB, I decided that it was best to just max it out for now.
• Storage - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 250GB. I did not need the space either but the price was only $70 USD which for the features (16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s) was a good deal. I currently recommend Seagate Barracuda drives, they are great performance and reliability.
• Case - Antec NSK MicroATX Cube (350W). I thought it would be best to minimize the space the system would take. Also this series of cases is known to be absolutely silent as well as power efficient. This was the most expensive part: $100 USD.
• DVD - I recycled an old DVD-ROM I was not using.

Total spent: ~$280 USD. This was well within my budget of $300-400.

There were some things I learned and I did run into some issues. I should first mention that everything did “work” correctly.

• Motherboard SATA - I realized later that the motherboard only supported 1.5Gb/s SATA. So my drive is not operating as fast as it can be, but this is acceptable since majority of my file transfers will be somewhat smaller and the standard SATA performance is very good.
• Motherboard Video - I knew that onboard video is pretty low performance (in this case SiS Chipset). However for whatever reason the VGA-out on this board was especially noisy. While this would be unacceptable for normal use, I never intended to have a monitor on this machine.
• Motherboard BIOS - This board had an Intel BIOS. I am most familiar with Asus motherboards and in the BIOS setup there is an option to manually set the startup time (fixed, daily, etc.). The nvram-wakeup utilizes the setting to wake-up the computer. However this board does NOT have that option. I was hoping the machine would sleep during in-activity and wake automatically. I have not yet decided how to work around this other than manually starting it each morning.
• Celeron CPU - While this CPU met my needs perfectly, I was a little disappointed it did not power-throttle (i.e. reduce clock speeds to save power). The ACPI information is a little bit confusing, however given that it is low power anyways and it does support 64-bit, this is acceptable.
• Case - Any “smaller” case typically has problems. Antec is usually known for their quality, however I found my case incredibly noisy. The power supply fan rattled too much. I was thinking I would have to RMA to Newegg, but luckily I eliminated the noise by taking everything apart and re-tightening every single screw. Very frustrating but it worked.

Overall I am happy with the purchase. I did end up saving quite a bit, but I can’t help thinking that perhaps spending a little bit more would have allowed for some slight benefits.

I guess I was a little bit wordy, but I wanted to explain very clearly my thought process in assembling a computer with a very specific purpose.

More on this after the software is up and running!

Posted in: CentOS, Devices, Hardware, Linux, Server,

I response to my previous post, I started defining a set of requirements for a separate local server. By separate, I mean specifically a physically different machine than my desktop. Previously I had my desktop PC running Linux (Fedora) with all desktop applications, as well as several server applications in the background.

The following is list of ideas, requirements and plans I hope to achieve with this server.

1. Provide file access locally (on the LAN) and remotely (over the internet). Samba is needed for file access for Windows machines and SSH will provide both remote file access via scp and sftp. I considered using NFS additionally for Linux file access, however Samba works efficiently both Linux-to-Linux as well as Linux-to-Windows and multiple services seemed redundant.

2. Provide backup to local data (multiple Windows and Linux machines) and for remote servers (web servers). While this may seem similar to the previous requirement, it adds the need for services like time based schedulers and remote access applications like Rsync. This may impact how/when this local server should be started.

3. Provide a web development environment. This can easily be summarized as L.A.M.P. development which stands for “Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl/Python”. I need a webserver (Apache), a database server (MySQL) and at least one server side scripting language (PHP). Seeing as I do have multiple websites which I develop this provides for me a both a staging area for new ideas as well as active work on “mirrored” versions of live sites. The only concern here is that it is very difficult to duplicate exact the same versions of software that is running on commercial web hosts. Issues like PHP backwards compatibility do raise issues in this planning, more on this later.

4. Provide version control and change management. While many will recognize this as either using a version control like CVS or SVN, the truth is that using tools like this become increasing difficult when you do things like dual boot or develop on different machines. Having a dedicated server makes this functionality more practical.

Outside of some miscellaneous odds and ends, the above is exactly what I want. Note that I did not add things like DVR or HTPC. Basically, all my server should be is: Data Development and Dependability, anything else will be a waste of time/resources for me.

Going forward, I can use the specific details of my requirements to pick the proper hardware to meet my needs.

Posted in: Linux, Server,

… for me.

I am finally giving up on Fedora as a server. I find it just too unreliable. I have been using Fedora since FC1 (and been on Redhat since RH6.0), but for the most part I only used it as a desktop operating system.

When I was using FC3, I found it very helpful to mirror my website(s) on my local machine. This worked great, however with each new Fedora release I found more things breaking with my scripts and setup. For a while I put up with the struggle by doing things like re-compiling PHP4, but even that became quite tiring. I concluded that Fedora just moved too fast for my server development needs. I cannot fault Fedora, rather that it did not meet my needs. However I still used it.

As recently as FC6, I found the need to access my computer remotely. I started tweaking my desktop for some security and making it more “remote-access” friendly. This did work for a while. All I was doing was using SSH and working on my Apache mirrors. My frustration began with the security. I took a long hard attempt at trying to secure the system with SELinux, however for multiple reasons I abandoned it.

Later when moving to Fedora7 I was pleasantly surprised with the performance. The major problem arose when I updated my 2.6.21 kernel to 2.6.23. Some nasty bug was killing my SSH performance. Basically it left me dead in the water. I accepted to fall back on the older kernel, however soon enough I came to install Fedora8 which also had the bug. For the most part I didn’t use Fedora8 for 2 months since I was out of the country. However when I finally did, I got so frustrated that I ended up installing the old F7 kernel on F8. Of course I broke sound, PulseAudio, ACPI and the X-server, but I REALLY needed SSH to work. While this again is not Fedora’s fault, I find the following comment pretty helpful from the kernel mailing list: “Please note that 2.6.23 kernel has a lot of bugs and we don’t recommend using it…" - Regardless, it WAS a kernel that Fedora used.

I personally do not think that a given Fedora release is very stable and/or reliable. Until I started expanding my usage I really did not mind, however now I am finding it more difficult to handle. While some people may suggest I upgrade less frequently, that’s fine and all, but it does NOT change the quality of the release. Furthermore, as my desktop I like to have a new release. … And some people may tell me that I should have been more pro-active and filed bug-reports and other information. Well, I do agree with that, but unfortunately I just did not have the time.

So what’s the solution? Simple: don’t use Fedora as a server. For myself, I bought a brand new computer. I built a low powered file/web server and put CentOS 5.1 on it. In the next few weeks I will migrate all my development onto this machine. Hopefully I won’t need to upgrade it for a very long time.

Will I stop using Fedora? No. It will still be on my desktop. However I will have more realistic expectations from software considered totally “free”.

Sorry for the rant.

Posted in: CentOS, Fedora, Opinion, Server,

I noted some sites started pushing to PHP5 with the announcement last year that PHP4 would be EOL (end-of-life) in 2007. In truth I understand that there is no longer a compelling reason to remain with PHP4. The biggest obstacle was older software that did not support PHP5 (since version 5 is incompatible with version 4 in some respects). However there is no reason why most of that software cannot be updated, and if so I am pretty sure that some alternate version 5 compatible software exists. I also read some claims that in simpler configurations PHP4 could be faster/less memory than PHP5. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Finally the biggest problem: most web hosting providers are content with PHP4 meeting all their needs and have no reason to upgrade. I do agree to this in some ways.

My biggest problems with PHP in general are its very poor track record for security, its flaws in design/configuration and finally it’s tendency to break software on updates. In some ways: its just a nuisance to maintain!!! PHP4 will be supported for critical security issues till 2008-08-08 by the PHP developers. However being open source there is no reason why someone else could not support it after that. Redhat Enterprise Linux still supports a PHP 4.3.9 package. I was supporting a 4.3.11 package for Fedora which I updated last in 2007 for Fedora 7. However I only installed it on my personal web server on a development box. I guess it would be really easy to finally abandon supporting old packages and just move to version 5, however I don’t know the effect it may have on my public server with a dozen or so websites.

For now I will set a deadline for myself to migrate to PHP5 by the August deadline. However for the time being, if people would find it useful I am considering repackaging the RHEL PHP 4.3.9 for Fedora 8. My 4.3.11 package is greatly out of date. On my development server, I’ll just go ahead and install the PHP5.2 included in Fedora 8. That will be my testing ground for my server updates coming soon.

Realistically in the long run I should just slowly stop using PHP altogether, given that PHP6 will be another mess very soon. Perhaps I will look into Python or J2EE options, not sure yet.

Posted in: Fedora, Hosting, Opinion, PHP, Server,

I will be on vacation in India for the remainder of the year and some days into the coming year. I will be unable to answer any emails or provide any help or support for information available on my website. I apologize in advance if I owe you an email or did not respond to you. Please feel free to leave me a message on my contact form, I promise I will respond to it when I return next year.

I will have no linux, no windows - not even a remote SSH session. Internet will be scarce but I welcome the change of pace.

Wishing everyone a very blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Posted in: Miscellaneous,