Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:09:05 -0400 From: Jim Keller <freebsd@contexthosting.net> To: Dan Charrois <dan@syz.com> Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Which FreeBSD is the most stable for Dell PowerEdge 2850 Message-ID: <20060630210905.ve6kc7071co0c840@webmail.contexthosting.net> In-Reply-To: <281C4418-D0A0-4AAF-8C06-F6A4D5AC5571@syz.com> References: <281C4418-D0A0-4AAF-8C06-F6A4D5AC5571@syz.com>
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Hi Dan, It's usually best to go with the current production release. As such, I would recommend going with the latest release of FreeBSD 6. FreeBSD 5 is now a legacy release, so support for it will probably start to fall off sooner rather than later. Also, as I understand it, version 5 was plagued with various problems that are not present in 6. Finally mySQL runs very well on FreeBSD 6, due to the new filesystem and updated threading libraries. -Jim Keller http://www.contexthosting.net Quoting Dan Charrois <dan@syz.com>: > Hi everyone. > > I'm currently running the following: > > Hardware: Dell PowerEdge 2850 rack mounted server, Dual 3.4 Ghz Xeon, > 5 Gb memory > Hard Drives: LSILogic PERC 4e/Di, configured as RAID 5, with 3 X 40 Gb disks > OS: FreeBSD 5.4-RELEASE-p6 for amd64 > > It's sole purpose is to be an SQL server, and that's about the only > thing that's running on it, namely: > > mysqld Ver 4.1.16 for portbld-freebsd5.4 on amd64 (FreeBSD port: > mysql-server-4.1.16) > > The server is rather heavily loaded, and 8 or 9 months ago, I had > problems with it spontaneously "hard" rebooting irregularly every few > days to several weeks. All the hardware tested out fine, but it > acted as if someone just pulled the plug and then plugged it back in > (looking through the log files showed everything working fine, and > then suddenly the logs would start showing messages from the boot > sequence). Of course, the disks would then be scanned for errors, > and sometimes the SQL databases needed repairs from the unexpected > restart. There weren't real power fluctuations involved - the > machine was on a building-wide UPS, and several other machines in the > same cabinet plugged into the same power source never had issues - > and the PowerEdge itself has two power supplies. I never was able > to track down definitively what was causing the problem (especially > since it was sporadic), but eventually found that by disabling > hyperthreading, it never crashed again. I don't know why, or even > if, it fixed anything, but since it hasn't crashed since then, > haven't wanted to touch it. > > In any case, the server is used heavily all year except July, so this > is my time of year to take things apart, update software, etc. And > so I'm wondering - what is the recommended version of FreeBSD I > should be running if stability is of the utmost importance? Should I > migrate to the 6.x stream? Is it relatively solid? Or should I > stay with 5.4 for now? I've seen some messages posted periodically > from various people running into problems, but am wondering if it's > just relatively isolated incidents or if there are fairly common > problems with stability. I could keep running what I'm running now, > but since this is the month to update things that are appropriate to > update, I thought I'd ask. I don't want to stay with the 5.4 > release indefinitely if the cessation of security patches loom on > the horizon. Plus, if 6.x is stable with hyperthreading, I'd like > to turn it back on. I heard about the information disclosure > vulnerability on hyperthreaded CPUs, but I'm under the impression > that it can only be exploited by other local users. I'm the only > user on that machine, so if so, that vulnerability shouldn't affect > me, and I'd like to squeak out every bit of performance possible. > > I'll probably be upgrading to MySQL 5.0 along the way too, unless > anyone has any horror stories to share there :-) > > Thanks for any help or advice you can give! > > Dan > -- > Syzygy Research & Technology > Box 83, Legal, AB T0G 1L0 Canada > Phone: 780-961-2213 > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >
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