Red Hat General - Which version of RedHat?

Author

Which version of RedHat?

Adam Lipscombe

2004-05-05, 6:34 am

Folks,

I have been extolling the virtues of RedHat to Windows colleagues only to
realise that its no longer free :-(
Or at least only the "Fedora" version is and they claim that this version is
only suitable for use in a non-critical env.

We were thinking of using some flavour of Linux server to deliver our J2EE
based app. However in my calculations I assumed that the OS itself would be
free or minimal cost. My colleagues are now leaning towards a Windows server
'cos its actually cheaper.

Questions:

I am not sure of the differences between the free RH9 and the new "AS" and
"ES" server versions which are expensive.
Is the standard free RH9 OK for a production server env?
Can anyone recommend another flavour that is still free? It needs to be
ultra-stable and be easy to administer via GUI tools like RH9.

TIA - Adam

Boris Glawe

2004-05-06, 2:37 pm

Adam Lipscombe wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I have been extolling the virtues of RedHat to Windows colleagues only to
> realise that its no longer free :-(
> Or at least only the "Fedora" version is and they claim that this version is
> only suitable for use in a non-critical env.
>
> We were thinking of using some flavour of Linux server to deliver our J2EE
> based app. However in my calculations I assumed that the OS itself would be
> free or minimal cost. My colleagues are now leaning towards a Windows server
> 'cos its actually cheaper.
>
>
> Questions:
>
> I am not sure of the differences between the free RH9 and the new "AS" and
> "ES" server versions which are expensive.
> Is the standard free RH9 OK for a production server env?
> Can anyone recommend another flavour that is still free? It needs to be
> ultra-stable and be easy to administer via GUI tools like RH9.
>
>
> TIA - Adam

Fedora is actually the RH10 Version. The ES and AS Versions are the same as
those enterprise versions before. Fedora is rock solid for me and is more
consistent and usable (in my eyes) than Suse. The fact, that it's a community
version makes it more stable and reliable. Look at Debian, which is 100%
community based and which is the king of all linux distros. Also redhat bases
it's AS and ES on fedora, which means, that RH still has an eye on fedora's
reliability. In fact RH is still the center of development.

The disadvantage of fedora is it's short periods until the next version is
released. Being up to date is thus a continuing process of updating your OS. But
don't blame fedora for that, blame the fast development of linux in general for
that. If you want to keep using on older version of RH or fedora, have a look at
http://fedoralegacy.org. They still release updates for RH 7.2 and newer. If
your fedora obsoletes, point your yum configuration to their yum/rpm repository,
and you will still get updates as before.

In comparison to RH9 fedora has the advantage of yum and apt, which means, you
can use 3 tools for maintaining your system. I like yum most, since it's still
using the familiar rpm format but has a very clever repository technique. The
software collection is complete - in comparison to windows.

Fedora core2, which will be released in a few weeks will also have great
security features like SELinux and IPSec (google helps), which is a considerable
advantage especially on servers.

Also convice your colleagues with facts like the dependency on MS. Using Unix,
means being compatible with almost everything, including windows, using windows
usually means being compatible with windows only. This simple fact is usually
much more expensive than everything else. Also remind worms like sqlslammer and
sasser. Can you afford downtimes? Do you like setting up your OS at least once a
year ? Than use windows. If not, use linux. Of course linux is vulnerable, too,
but an exploit usually has to be applied manually by a hacker and won't
distribute itself automatically. This minimizes the risk of being attacked by
factor 1.000.000.

Don't go to the dark side of the might ! ;-)

greets Boris

Boris Glawe

2004-05-06, 2:37 pm

Biker

2004-05-08, 10:40 am

Boris Glawe wrote:
> Adam Lipscombe wrote:
>
> Oh, by the way, EA and AS are free as before. The distro is still
> OpenSource. The difference is that RH won't provide any binaries. But
> they provide the sources in form of src.rpm files. Compiling them is
> actually very easy, but time consuming.
>
> rpmbuild --rebuild package.rpm
> of
> rpmbuild --rebuild --target i686 package.rpm
>
> The order of building is important though.
> If you want, you can download ES or AS and build it yourself. There are
> tutorials how to do that in detail. google helps. This is not very
> productive, but it's an option.
>
> greets Boris

WhiteBox Linux did this for us :-)

http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/

WBEL is based on the RHEL3 sources.

Edwin

Lars Dybdahl

2004-05-10, 5:44 pm

Boris Glawe wrote:
> Fedora is rock solid for me

Fedora is very good for end-users, but if you want to use it for something
with very high load and uptimes > 99,9%, you should not use Fedora.

Ther basic problem with keeping good uptimes, is that there are many bugs
around that don't show up unless you have a certain load or require a
certain uptime. For instance, Red Hat 7.3 with carefully selected apache
and php packages give about 10 crashes per 8 million hits on the webserver
with a setup that I know well, where the apache webserver is restarted
using "apachectl graceful" several times an hour. We have a script that
fixes this, but it still gives 2-10 minutes downtime each time. If we
install a php-version with the exif module enabled, uptime decreases to
below 90% per day immediately... it's simply buggy. The exif module would
work well if we didn't restart the server so often, but that's a
requirement because it runs many thousands virtual hosts, that have
frequent configuration changes.

Another example is a RH 7.3 server that runs the Linus Thorvalds Linux 2.6.5
kernel - it sometimes spontaneously reboots when the load is above 30, on
IBM xSeries pizzabox servers. You never experience this kind of load on
most servers or on personal computers/desktop computers, but if you do
experience that load, a spontaneous reboot can be extremely annoying.

So, if you need a server for mission critical applications, where you
require a good uptime even under load, you should use software that has
been tested well, and where security updates are provided in a well-tested
but quick way. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is such a product, Fedora isn't.

And remember - you must use the packages provided by Red Hat when using RHEL
- otherwise you're on your own regarding uptime.

> The disadvantage of fedora is it's short periods until the next version is
> released.

That's another problem, where RHEL also makes sense. Think about the costs
it takes to upgrade from one Linux version to another. It's not just the
hourly wage to the employees, but also downtime, overhead etc. RHEL is
supported for 5 years after a release, which means that you don't upgrade
the server, unless you replace the hardware or somebody wants to make
changes anyway, that requires new features (and then you might get downtime
anyway).

> In comparison to RH9 fedora has the advantage of yum and apt, which means,

....that you download updates faster then when using RHN ;-) but also that
you probably install software that hasn't been authorized by your boss.

Lars.

--
Freelance programmør

Boris Glawe

2004-05-11, 5:40 pm

Lars Dybdahl wrote:
> Boris Glawe wrote:
>
>
>
> Fedora is very good for end-users, but if you want to use it for something
> with very high load and uptimes > 99,9%, you should not use Fedora.
>
> Ther basic problem with keeping good uptimes, is that there are many bugs
> around that don't show up unless you have a certain load or require a
> certain uptime. For instance, Red Hat 7.3 with carefully selected apache
> and php packages give about 10 crashes per 8 million hits on the webserver
> with a setup that I know well, where the apache webserver is restarted
> using "apachectl graceful" several times an hour. We have a script that
> fixes this, but it still gives 2-10 minutes downtime each time. If we
> install a php-version with the exif module enabled, uptime decreases to
> below 90% per day immediately... it's simply buggy. The exif module would
> work well if we didn't restart the server so often, but that's a
> requirement because it runs many thousands virtual hosts, that have
> frequent configuration changes.

Puh these are dimensions ! I don't think that many people host that big amount
of webpages. For those who host two or three webpages there won't be such a high
load. We host 5 pages with apache2. And we've never had any downtime, due to
crashes or unexpected reboots.

>
> Another example is a RH 7.3 server that runs the Linus Thorvalds Linux 2.6.5
> kernel - it sometimes spontaneously reboots when the load is above 30, on
> IBM xSeries pizzabox servers. You never experience this kind of load on
> most servers or on personal computers/desktop computers, but if you do
> experience that load, a spontaneous reboot can be extremely annoying.
>

using linus' Kernel 2.6 with RH7.3 is not what I would call "very well tested",
especially because RH7.3 ships a buggy compiler. Linus has recommended against
this 2.96 compiler. If you've also switched to an new compiler, there is not
much left, what RH has provided.

> So, if you need a server for mission critical applications, where you
> require a good uptime even under load, you should use software that has
> been tested well, and where security updates are provided in a well-tested
> but quick way. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is such a product, Fedora isn't.

RedHat Enterprise is derived from fedora. Of course fedora is not that stable,
since it's the bleeding edge of linux-technology, but it's still stable as linux
is in general - we've never had any crashes.

>
> And remember - you must use the packages provided by Red Hat when using RHEL
> - otherwise you're on your own regarding uptime.

The author of this thread was thinking of switching from linux to windows. I'd
say, that uptime is much better with fedora than with windows. Look at
netcraft.com. There is almost no windows server that has an uptime of more than
30 days. Also think of virus attacks and of this big amount of proprietary
software, which will only been maintained, if microsoft is in the press with
security news again.
If an author doesn't know the basic difference between fedora and RHEL, he does
also not need this high reliability. If the author had 800000 server requests
per day, he would know the difference between RHEL and fedora. I guess he's
talking about a server which won't serve more than 200 clients. And that's a
number which can bee handled by allmost any linux distro.

>
>
>
>
> That's another problem, where RHEL also makes sense. Think about the costs
> it takes to upgrade from one Linux version to another. It's not just the
> hourly wage to the employees, but also downtime, overhead etc. RHEL is
> supported for 5 years after a release, which means that you don't upgrade
> the server, unless you replace the hardware or somebody wants to make
> changes anyway, that requires new features (and then you might get downtime
> anyway).

This 5 years support is a fine thing, but if you want to be up to date, you will
have to upgrade after 2 years anyway. Look at you. You're using kernel 2.6 with
RH7.3 Wouldn't it be more consistent not to experiment yourself at the heart of
the distribution but to use either a new Distro or redhat's 2.4 Kernel?

If you want to keep an old fedora distro up to date, fedoralegacy.org helps you.
And fedoralegacy.org is supported by RH.

>
>
>
>
> ...that you download updates faster then when using RHN ;-) but also that
> you probably install software that hasn't been authorized by your boss.

If you don't trust those packages, there are dozens of ways to verify their
integrity. You can download the md5sum from RH and some mirrors and if the
checksums are all the same, there is only a very small risk of installing a
corrupted package.

After all you're right. RHEL and RHAS are much better than fedora, because they
are heavily maintained by RH, but there are only a few customers, who really
need this high level of reliability. RHEL is more reliable != fedora is unreliable.
Also think of the power of the community. Debian is the king of all linux
distros - and debian is 100% community based.

>
> Lars.
>
greets Boris

Jan Gerrit Kootstra

2004-05-11, 5:40 pm

"Boris Glawe" <boris@boris-glawe.de> schreef in bericht
news:c7q9d4$7e8$1@newsreader2.netcologne.de...
> Lars Dybdahl wrote:
something[vbcol=seagreen]
bugs[vbcol=seagreen]
webserver[vbcol=seagreen]
would[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> Puh these are dimensions ! I don't think that many people host that big
amount
> of webpages. For those who host two or three webpages there won't be such
a high
> load. We host 5 pages with apache2. And we've never had any downtime, due
to
> crashes or unexpected reboots.
>
2.6.5[vbcol=seagreen]
on[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> using linus' Kernel 2.6 with RH7.3 is not what I would call "very well
tested",
> especially because RH7.3 ships a buggy compiler. Linus has recommended
against
> this 2.96 compiler. If you've also switched to an new compiler, there is
not
> much left, what RH has provided.
>
well-tested[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> RedHat Enterprise is derived from fedora. Of course fedora is not that
stable,
> since it's the bleeding edge of linux-technology, but it's still stable as
linux
> is in general - we've never had any crashes.
>
RHEL[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> The author of this thread was thinking of switching from linux to windows.
I'd
> say, that uptime is much better with fedora than with windows. Look at
> netcraft.com. There is almost no windows server that has an uptime of more
than
> 30 days. Also think of virus attacks and of this big amount of proprietary
> software, which will only been maintained, if microsoft is in the press
with
> security news again.
> If an author doesn't know the basic difference between fedora and RHEL, he
does
> also not need this high reliability. If the author had 800000 server
requests
> per day, he would know the difference between RHEL and fedora. I guess
he's
> talking about a server which won't serve more than 200 clients. And
that's a
> number which can bee handled by allmost any linux distro.
>
is[vbcol=seagreen]
costs[vbcol=seagreen]
upgrade[vbcol=seagreen]
downtime[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> This 5 years support is a fine thing, but if you want to be up to date,
you will
> have to upgrade after 2 years anyway. Look at you. You're using kernel 2.6
with
> RH7.3 Wouldn't it be more consistent not to experiment yourself at the
heart of
> the distribution but to use either a new Distro or redhat's 2.4 Kernel?
>
> If you want to keep an old fedora distro up to date, fedoralegacy.org
helps you.
> And fedoralegacy.org is supported by RH.
>
means,[vbcol=seagreen]
that[vbcol=seagreen]
>
> If you don't trust those packages, there are dozens of ways to verify
their
> integrity. You can download the md5sum from RH and some mirrors and if the
> checksums are all the same, there is only a very small risk of installing
a
> corrupted package.
>
>
> After all you're right. RHEL and RHAS are much better than fedora, because
they
> are heavily maintained by RH, but there are only a few customers, who
really
> need this high level of reliability. RHEL is more reliable != fedora is
unreliable.
> Also think of the power of the community. Debian is the king of all linux
> distros - and debian is 100% community based.
>
> greets Boris

RH 7.3 with kernel 2.6 sounds like driving a Trabi with a brand new Porsche
or Ferari engine.

Overkill of kernel functionality and lack of tools to tune it.

It will work, but if it fails do not ask anyone how to repair it.

Everyone will say buy a middle class car, it is a newer car and has a better
general functionality. Alias go for a newer distribution, one that supports
a 2.6 kernel.

Regards,

Jan Gerrit