From: Jacques Gelinas (jack_at_solucorp.qc.ca)
Date: Thu 20 Mar 2003 - 16:45:19 GMT
On Thu, 20 Mar 2003 09:24:01 -0500, DataKompaniet AS wrote
> Dear List,
>
> In a business environment with several users (or even several businesses),
> the vserver system seems to be an ideal way to isolate the different
> subsystems that are used in businesses, in order to avoid possible
> downtime caused by (re)installation/reconfiguration of services or even
> hacking and bugs. E.g our idea is to install one vserver for each service,
> which might be mysql, IMAP/POP3, SMTP, webserver, file sharing, etc.
>
> The latest reports on stability problems like kernel crashes and panics has
> so far scared me from installing the system in this way, and I might rather
> go for a setup that distributes the the services on several machines
> instead. Due to the increased hardware costs and physical room space
> considerations, this will not be an ideal solution.
>
> Are there any experienced vserver users out there that could summarise the
> pros and (especially) cons for vserver based on the current Linux kernel
> patches, and any possible stable fixes?
>
> Stability is the highest requirement for my setup, and any hints on what to
> do (or NOT do) with vserver to get a "100% stable" system are highly
> appreciated.
We have something like 160 vservers on 47 physical servers. The stability problem
is really related to newer ctx kernels (ctx-14,15, and 16). I am pretty convince that
we have the fix now. ctx-13 is reliable.
Now, what is missing to get a very very reliable solution
-Resource limitation. If a vserver has a problem, it must not
bring the whole machine down.
I have many of this stuff done (memory, file handle) but was
waiting for the issue with ctx-16 to be resolved.
-Disk quota
All this stuff is kind of around the corner and we were stocked with the ctx-16
problem.
Oddly, in vserver history, kernels were always stable, except ctx-15,16 and ctx-9.
---------------------------------------------------------
Jacques Gelinas <jack_at_solucorp.qc.ca>
vserver: run general purpose virtual servers on one box, full speed!
http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/miscprj/s_context.hc