From owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Sep 10 14:07:55 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57E3A16A4C0 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:07:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shiva.openaccess.org (shiva.openaccess.org [216.57.214.21]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2BD9443F93 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:07:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from michael@staff.openaccess.org) Received: (from root@localhost) by shiva.openaccess.org (8.12.6p2/8.12.3) id h8AL7iL7002577; Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:07:44 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from michael@staff.openaccess.org) Received: from [192.168.1.97] ([216.57.214.121])h8AL7hRr002570; Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:07:44 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from michael@staff.openaccess.org) User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/10.0.0.1309 Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:07:54 -0700 From: Michael DeMan To: Tim Middleton , Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <200309101652.34637.x@Vex.Net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS perl-11 Subject: Re: is 5.x still too unstable? X-BeenThere: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Internet Services Providers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2003 21:07:55 -0000 We have had reasonable luck with 5.1. We have it running our development server (primary NFS exports) and in production for a backup internal monitoring box running OpenNMS with the jdk1.4.1 port. One catch for sure - background fsck crashes the box on Promise RAID1 controllers on both boxes. Disabling background fsck fixed it. I also have 5.1 for a workstation with good results. If you are talking serious production though with the possibilities of failure or problems taking out customer services, I would not do it. My 2-cents. - mike On 9/10/03 1:52 PM, "Tim Middleton" wrote: > > I am hoping to move some of the servers in our ISP to FreeBSD. I have been > rather hoping 5.2 would be reliable enough, so that we can move to it and > enjoy all the -CURRENT goodness. > > The test server locked up yesterday, during some heavy port building, after > running for weeks with no problem. (-; I've not gone to investigate the > cause yet. But it has me nervous. It's been difficult to get FreeBSD accepted > at all here, so I'm wanting it to make a good impression. > > I have run 5 at home since 5.0-Release (currently 20030821 snapshot); and > while there have been problems now and again with a few builds, once these > have been solved my system here has been really very stable, which gave me > hope it would be also OK for work... > > So what is the general opinion of those here? Should i play it safe and go > back to 4.x until 5.x becomes officially "stable". Or do people think that > for most general purpose stuff 5.x should be generally stable "enough"? > "Enough" is a bit of a difficult word to define... of course one wants rock > solid for a server... but one may be able to tolerate some sorts of problems > as long as they can be sorted out quickly, and things are moving towards > ultimate stability in the near future. These aren't huge servers (no > multi-processor)... but moderately busy. Running the usual sorts of things... > apache, postfix, python, zope, nfs, etc. > > I realise my post may be a little premature when I haven't even checked out > what seems to have taken the test box down yet; but it's been on my mind to > solicit opinions here before this happened, so... any thoughts or experiences > running 5x on ISP servers to share out there? Are some snapshots known to be > better than others? Any tips/tweaks on making 5.x just a little more > stable---even at the cost of performance---than a default install (like > disabling acpi, as the first thing). Michael F. DeMan Director of Technology OpenAccess Internet Services 1305 11th St., 3rd Floor Bellingham, WA 98225 Tel 360-647-0785 x204 Fax 360-738-9785 michael@staff.openaccess.org