CentOS - Oct 2018 - Upstream and downstream (was Re: What are the differences between systemd and non-systemd Linux distros?)

On Sat, October 20, 2018 10:22 am, Yan Li wrote:
> On 10/20/18 7:42 AM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>> I would like to hear the reasons of those who chose to use Fedora on
>> their
>> server. Specifically what advantages one has found compared to other
>> alternatives. And also what kind of server that is. Single
>> user/home/family one? Serving some department or similar (say 100
>> people,
>> who may need services 24/7/365)? I know, this is just my curiosity, as
I
>> did make my own choice, but curiosity grossly fueled by the fact that
my
>> choice is grossly different.
>>
>> Always happy to hear different [from mine] opinions which may be based
>> on
>> different objectives.
>
> We are running about 50 development servers for the Storage Systems
> Research Center in the University of California, Santa Cruz. All Fedora.
> We will be updating all machines to F29 as soon as it is released. The
> reason is that we want the students to have access to the latest
> development toolchain, libraries, and other tools from the Linux world
> in a reasonably stable fashion. Fedora is the best fit. Not bleeding
> edge, but not outdated either. Our infrastructure servers, such as file
> sharing, cluster management, etc., are all Fedora machines too, for
> homogeneity and simplicity.
>
> We don't need 24/7/365 uptime, but in my memory, there has been no
> downtime caused by anything in Fedora in the past decade. And we always
> do in-place upgrading when a new Fedora comes out. Upgrading from one
> Fedora to the next never failed us in the past decade either in my memory.
>
> Occasionally, one or more machines will be loaded with CentOS 7 for a
> few months for running Lustre or some other CentOS/RHEL certified
> software.
>
> This is unrelated to the campus-wise Linux clusters that are managed by
> the university IT department, which maintains hundreds of CentOS
> machines for the whole campus.
>
> I also know colleagues who maintain Fedora as servers from my other
> jobs. These were for all kinds of services: email, file storage,
> development, etc. Why Fedora over CentOS? I guess Fedora is more fun to
> play with and is stable enough for these applications. As I said before,
> in-place upgrading for Fedora is pretty reliable. And doing it once a
> year (or every 6 months) to get the latest software is a good bargain
> for a techie.
Oh, great, I now can see the world with your eyes! And last part about
servers life cycle wise doesn't sound much different from what I do using
FreeBSD and jails. The only difference is maybe in how frequently I have
to reboot Linux (any flavor) due to kernel or glibc security update
compared to reboot of FreeBSD.

Thanks a lot!

Valeri
>
> --
> Yan Li
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On 10/20/18 8:37 AM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
> Oh, great, I now can see the world with your eyes! And last part about
> servers life cycle wise doesn't sound much different from what I do
using
> FreeBSD and jails. The only difference is maybe in how frequently I have
> to reboot Linux (any flavor) due to kernel or glibc security update
> compared to reboot of FreeBSD.
Yup. That's indeed a problem that the Fedora kernel is moving a bit too 
fast for a server. Our machines sit behind a firewall, and as of I know, 
our students are not crazy about privilege escalation/Meltdown attacking 
their own servers. So we usually only reboot when there's a power outage 
that is longer than what our UPS could handle, which is unfortunately 
quite common on this campus.

-- 
Yan Li

On Sat, October 20, 2018 11:09 am, Yan Li wrote:
> On 10/20/18 8:37 AM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>> Oh, great, I now can see the world with your eyes! And last part about
>> servers life cycle wise doesn't sound much different from what I do
>> using
>> FreeBSD and jails. The only difference is maybe in how frequently I
have
>> to reboot Linux (any flavor) due to kernel or glibc security update
>> compared to reboot of FreeBSD.
>
> Yup. That's indeed a problem that the Fedora kernel is moving a bit too
> fast for a server. Our machines sit behind a firewall, and as of I know,
> our students are not crazy about privilege escalation/Meltdown attacking
> their own servers. So we usually only reboot when there's a power
outage
> that is longer than what our UPS could handle, which is unfortunately
> quite common on this campus.
I can not afford that. I do run all machines (not only multi-user servers,
but single user grad. student's workstations) in an assumption that bad
guys are already inside. I have never seen privilege escalation attempts
on single user machines, but I've seen a couple of times such attempts on
multi-user machines. Unsuccessful for several reasons, still, that was fun
to observer almost in real time ;-) So, I keep running all machines in an
assumption that bad guys are already inside.

Valeri
>
> --
> Yan Li
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++