CentOS - Jul 2005 - CentOS on Compaq Proliant Rackmount Servers

Greetings,

Can anyone relate experience(s) installing CentOS on Compaq rack mount
servers units please?

Easy no problem, easy some issues, or ghastly do not do it under any
circumstances... ;)

Basically, I'm looking at some used/refurb dual PIII units and will run RAID
on Compaq built in SCSI or is it easy to pop in some 3ware SATA in them?

Let me know in terms of CentOS 3 and/or 4 please.

Regards and TIA,

 - rh

On 7/15/05, Robert Hanson <roberth at abbacomm.net>
wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> Can anyone relate experience(s) installing CentOS on Compaq rack mount
> servers units please?
 I have CentOS3 on a DL380, setup was no problem. I even did a mondo
restore to a 2nd DL380 with different drive configs.

I run Centos3 on many 1850R's, 5500's, 6400's and 6500's without
issue.

Mike
 

-----Original Message-----
From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On
Behalf
Of Robert Hanson
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 2:33 PM
To: 'CentOS mailing list'
Subject: [CentOS] CentOS on Compaq Proliant Rackmount Servers

Greetings,

Can anyone relate experience(s) installing CentOS on Compaq rack mount
servers units please?

Easy no problem, easy some issues, or ghastly do not do it under any
circumstances... ;)

Basically, I'm looking at some used/refurb dual PIII units and will run RAID
on Compaq built in SCSI or is it easy to pop in some 3ware SATA in them?

Let me know in terms of CentOS 3 and/or 4 please.

Regards and TIA,

 - rh

_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS at centos.org
http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

On 7/15/05 12:33 PM, Robert Hanson wrote:
> Can anyone relate experience(s) installing CentOS on Compaq rack mount
> servers units please?
> 
> Easy no problem, easy some issues, or ghastly do not do it under any
> circumstances... ;)
> 
> Basically, I'm looking at some used/refurb dual PIII units and will run
RAID
> on Compaq built in SCSI or is it easy to pop in some 3ware SATA in them?
I've not used CentOS per se, but I've done a half-dozen Red Hat and 
Fedora Core installations on DL380s -- some from prior with the merger 
with HP, some post-merger -- and everything has always just worked. The 
Smart Array cards produce very solid performance. I love the DL3XX 
product line.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> www.madboa.com

From: Robert Hanson <roberth at abbacomm.net>
> Greetings,
> Can anyone relate experience(s) installing CentOS on Compaq rack
> mount servers units please?
> Easy no problem, easy some issues, or ghastly do not do it under any
> circumstances... ;)
> Basically, I'm looking at some used/refurb dual PIII units
Excellent buys for what you get, especially if they have ServerWorks
chipsets with 64-bit x 66MHz PCI or even PCI-X slots.
> and will run RAID on Compaq built in SCSI
Some DL units use software RAID.  Some have i960 microcontroller
SCSI RAID, which is rather pathetic these days.  You won't break
50MBps sustained writes very easily.
> or is it easy to pop in some 3ware SATA in them?
They'll take 3Ware cards in the expansion slots, but they typically
have SCSI SCA bays, not SATA bays.  Check with HP and see if you
can get DL3xx series SATA bays (I assume these are DL3xx series)?

If you're worried about reliability, buy 10,000rpm SATA drives that
typically roll off the same line as their SCSI/FC counterparts.  I'm
fairly sure the 73/146GB WD Raptors are fabbed by Hatachi and
match their specs.
> Let me know in terms of CentOS 3 and/or 4 please.
Have run RHL9/RHEL3 on the DL1xx and 3xx series, no major issues.
It really comes down to the _exact_models_ and _revisions_
(part numbers will do).  Do you have those?



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org

From: Mike Kercher <mike at CamaroSS.net>
> I run Centos3 on many 1850R's, 5500's, 6400's and 6500's
without issue.
Those sound like Pentium Pro generation, not P2 on-ward.
But I could be wrong, I've had too many DL series over the last 4+ years.


--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org

Robert Hanson wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>Can anyone relate experience(s) installing CentOS on Compaq rack mount
>servers units please?
>
>Easy no problem, easy some issues, or ghastly do not do it under any
>circumstances... ;)
>
>Basically, I'm looking at some used/refurb dual PIII units and will run
RAID
>on Compaq built in SCSI or is it easy to pop in some 3ware SATA in them?
>
>Let me know in terms of CentOS 3 and/or 4 please.
>
>Regards and TIA,
>
> - rh
>
>_______________________________________________
>  
>
Depending on age of the 1850s and it seems all the 1600s have an issue 
when Anaconda is trying to detect USB. Do a no usb install on those. 
Also, on the 1850, if you're using a raid card, you may need to disable 
the onboard raid as it can be touchy. Otherwise, I have 3000Rs, 1850Rs, 
DL360Rs (which i won't buy again as these have been the most unreliable) 
and DL380s, all happily chugging along on ver 3 and ver 4 installs. I 
did hit some snags with LVM conflicts. I think the proprietary scsi 
conflicted, but setting up with disk druid has always been reliable.

John Hinton

> Depending on age of the 1850s and it seems all the 1600s have 
> an issue when Anaconda is trying to detect USB. Do a no usb 
> install on those. 
> Also, on the 1850, if you're using a raid card, you may need 
> to disable the onboard raid as it can be touchy. Otherwise, I 
> have 3000Rs, 1850Rs, DL360Rs (which i won't buy again as 
> these have been the most unreliable) and DL380s, all happily 
> chugging along on ver 3 and ver 4 installs. I did hit some 
> snags with LVM conflicts. I think the proprietary scsi 
> conflicted, but setting up with disk druid has always been reliable.
> 
> John Hinton
Let me guess, power supply fan failures on the 360's? If it helps, the
newer ones have come a long way.

On topic, I have CentOS on:

DL360G1
DL380G1 and G2
DL580G1 and G2
PL8000
PL8500

No issues on any of them that I can recall.

-- 
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From: Robert Hanson <roberth at abbacomm.net>
> Is it currently worth getting used dual PIII 1850R's or should I start
with
> used dual PIII DL380's and like 1Ghz minimum processor speed?
Depends, I'll have to investigate the width of the interconnect of a
ProLiant 1850 v. ProLiant DL380.  This is typically dependent on the
chipset.  Anything i440 will _suck_.  Ideally you want a ServerWorks
IIIHE, although a IIILE is at least better than an i440 (but an IIIHE
has far better FSB/memory width).
> I couldn't find used 1850R's on eBay with more than 600Mhz.
That matters little.  What matters is the chipset and interconnect.
Hmmm ... according to this page (2nd hand, not always ideal):  
  http://www.bnv-bamberg.de/home/ba3294/smp/rbuild/  

The ProLiant 1850 is a i440GX (_avoid_, along with i440BX).
You're going to be stuck in I/O hell.

The ProLiant DL380 is a ServerSet IIILE, not ideal, but better.
You at least get 4-8x the I/O of a i440BX/GX.

Getting _exact_ model numbers helps.
I've seen a few ProLiants mentioned with ServerSet IIIHE chipsets.
But I assume those aren't quickly sold.


--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org

From: Tony Wicks <tonyw at tonyw.com>
> Yes, the PE650/750 comes with the option of the Dell CERC (LSI logic, 
> actually the 6 port card) card 
Hmmm, now this gets interesting.
What microcontroller is on that board?
Is it this guy?

http://www.lsilogic.com/products/megaraid/sata_150_6.html

That's an IOP302 (i960-66MHz or 100MHz?).
I'm always weary to thrown a yesteryear i960 at RAID.
The i960s really have a 50-60MBps throughput limit.

Granted, if you're going to do RAID-5, then it'll get you far
better performance than a 3Ware 8506 series at writes.

The 3Ware (let alone even software RAID-5) will kill it at reads,
but when it comes to writes, 3Ware 8506s won't break 30MBps
(and software RAID-5 will typically either do worse, or slam
your CPU-memory-I/O interconnect so hard it'll be busy with
nothing else).

I sure wish a tier-1 OEM put an XScale solution in, instead of
age-old i960 products.  Oh well, wishful thinking I guess.  ;->
> which is real raid and nativly supported on Centos3/4
LSI Logic (like their acquisitions Avansys and Symbios Logic) always
supported Linux quite extensively.  Despite i960 and standards like
I2O, some vendors *COUGH*Adaptec*COUGH* didn't make all of
their i960 products fully I2O-compliant and compatible with the
DPT driver (it was largely just former DPT products that were, or
DPT designs Adaptec took over).



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org

From: Tony Wicks <tonyw at tonyw.com>
> Hmm, if you drop the "gold" support it drops to 1944USD. Still
strange,
> we are used to paying more not less for hardware here in New Zealand.
I'm really hesitant to pay that much for a crippled Celeron with an old
i960 microcontroller for an SATA controller.

I'd much rather go with Monarch Computer and get something better for
the same price, especially in an Opteron 1xx that will eat the Celeron alive
(along with the greater choice in controllers).

Which brings us back to the "old" P3 DL3xx series.
I'd prefer to go that direction, with an added 64-bit @ 66MHz PCI
SATA controller, than pay for a P4-core Celeron.


--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org

From: Ken Godee <ken at perfect-image.com>
> I'll also add that the "Proliant Support Pack" works as well.
Definitely agree on the PSPs and HP System Insight Manager (SIM)
tools available for HP platforms.  Especially if the system has an
integrated Lights-Out (iLO) board (typically an embedded PowerPC).



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org

From: Robert Hanson <roberth at abbacomm.net>
> exactly one of the reasons i started this thread...
> 1st and most important bottom line is that CentOS works for me.
And for myself as well.  I deploy it like RHEL, just without the SLA.
> 2nd is that I need to lay a different type of solid foundation of server
> hardware with CentOS to jump from, other than the machines I build from
> scratch... even though they work fine and last forever...
I self-assemble personal systems, possibly even desktops on occassion.
I tend to avoid it when it comes to consulting and servers, never.

[ SIDE NOTE:  You'll note I purposely use the term "assemble," not
build.
That's my Angineer (anal engineer) coming out in me, although even I
slip at times. ;-] 

I'll deploy whatever tier-1 OEM the client has standardized on.
When they are open to it, Monarch Computer has built itself as a solid
tier-2 vendor that will assemble whatever you need, but they have well
tested in other sales.
I've yet to throw something at Monarch Computer they can't deliver for
a client.

1U, 2U, 3U, 4 ... value, commodity or enterprise, they do it well at almost
a "NewEgg-level" price.  And did I mention they are basically the
first
OEM with the latest AMD stuff?  Let alone have no issue in supporting
3Ware.  And if you want RHEL with SLAs, they'll bundle it with software
support for the hardware (RHEL AS is around only $1,300 sold as such).

Of course, they'll also ship with Debian, Fedora Core, SuSE Linux, etc...
too if you just want software (and hardware-only support).
> unfortunately I have NEVER (looked for years too) found cheap yet rock
> solid 2U - 4U rack mount cases with or without redundant power
> supplies and any other goodies.  $200 or much less I think would be
> adequate eh?
_Not_ on redundant, hot-swap power.  Now if you're mainboard takes
redundant power (and handles the transient), that's another story.
> It's like everyone "goes stupid" when you ask where to get
them
> (i.e. cheap reliable solid rack mount cases) or something. I mean
> really extremely brain dead never heard of em cant do it they cost
> and arm and a leg and we cannot stand behind it stupid!!
Monarch Computer does a good job.  Most of their assemble-to-order
prices are extremely competitive.  It's all about volume.
> Isn't there a market for that so we can build CentOS servers galore?
I think people are more interested in getting the whole hardware+
software deal, or getting it at economies-of-scale volume.  Monarch
Computer is tough to beat in the combined price/service and I consider
them a tier-2.
> anyways... some of this started when Bryan and others mentioned
> that the PIII chip had some advantages over some P4 versions or
> something to that effect.
All I said was that old P3s aren't always "worse" than P4s.

Especially the "cheap" P4-Celeron chipset-interconnect designs
I've
seen.  Especially if you can find a ServerSet IIIHE[-SL] chipset.

As far as the P3 v. P4 core, P4 sucks in comparison MHz for MHz to
a P3.  That's why Intel is going back to it for all new designs
(beyond just the current Pentium M).


--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org

From: John Hinton <webmaster at ew3d.com>
> Yup, it's a shame to waste expensive horsepower if you don't need
it and
> most web stuff doesn't use a lot of horsepower.. Buy a bit above your 
> needs. Quality over horsepower as well, has been my philosophy.
Actually, it's not about waste IMHO.  It's about believing a newer
processor design means the interconnect is better.

A dual-P3 on a ServerSet IIIHE-SL will slap a P4-Celeron silly when it
comes to server I/O.  Especially when you throw a GbE on one PCI
channel, and your SATA RAID on another.
> I would advise going to the DL380 series. These use only the ultra2
> or 3 scsi drives.. not the mix of ultra and wide-ultra.
Actually, it wasn't until recently that most 36, 73, 146GB SCSI drives
started breaking 40MBps sustained.  Ultra2/3 (aka Ultra80/160) offer
LVD (low-voltate differential) for longer bus length and integrity.
But yes, at today's disk speeds, Ultra2(80) is minimum.  And you
typically don't want more than 2-3 drives per channel.

Although Ultra640 is planned, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is going to
quickly kill it.  A parallel storage bus is yesteryear.  Until then,
a SATA controller with queuing and "enterprise" SATA drives is the
best of all worlds.  The great thing is that SAS can use SATA drives
too (so you can recycle your "enterprise" SATA drive investments).
> I very nice speed improvement. Also, when buying, watch for drives
> quanity, size and speed (try to avoid the 7200rpm and get the 10 or
> 15k units).
Because in many cases, many current 7200rpm drives come off the
same line as ATA and SATA drives too.  Interface is not an indicator
of reliability, the actual mechanics are.  A good indicator is the
vibration and other tolerances in the spec sheet.  "Enterprise" drives
(typically the 9, 18, 36, 73 and 146GB capacities) vibrate 3-8x less
than "Commodity" drives (typically the 40, 80, 120, 160, 200, 250,
300, 320 and 400GB capacities).

E.g., WD Raptor 73 and 146GB 10,000rpm SATA drives come off the
same line as Hitachi 10,000 U320 SCSI drives.
> I think that was the ending point for the 1850s. The DL380s are almost 
> the same unit with a lot of parts being interchangable. The 380s are 
> just more modern in terms of processors, circuitry, raids, drives... and 
> pretty much picked up I think at the 600mhtz point and have grown from 
> there. The dual 866s and up to about 1.2 giggers are very reasonble on ebay
>From what I was reading, the 1850 and similar era are 440 and 450 series
chipsets.  The 440 is _crap_.  The 450NX is so-so, but bridges on extra PCI
channels (for either 2 or 5 total).  It still doesn't compare to a
ServerWorks
ServerSet III series.
> A t-1 is still only 1/6th of a ten base ethernet card... and how much 
> power does it take to deliver products at one sixth of a 10base card? 
> Yeah, I know.... it's more complex than that. Database apps can eat up
a
> lot, email/spam systems can eat up HUGE amounts of processing power. But 
> if you're mostly delivering web pages, it just doesn't take much.
I guess I've been too used to having a GbE saturated.  ;->



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org