[Dovecot] Using NFS - which OS would you chose
Hi,
I'm still looking at a large (under 100,000) user deployment of Dovecot, with a NetApp NFS server as the back-end storage.
I've read a few remarks about needing the latest NFS patches from Trond Myklebust to prevent lock-ups.
My management would be happiest with a vendor-supported distribution (and especially Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9 or 10). We will be running on an x86 platform.
Under these circumstances, which operating system/distribution would you choose? And why?
Suse SLES9 OpenSuse Debian RedHat FreeBSD Solaris_x86 Nexenta (www.nexenta.org)
Many thanks for your thoughts/war stories.
Jonathan.
Jonathan writes:
Under these circumstances, which operating system/distribution would you choose? And why? FreeBSD
Just a quick comment on FreeBSD. I would NOT recommend it for a NFS server; However if you have a clean network with a NetAPP you could use it as a client.
I have read of large deployments of NetAPP server with FreeBSD clients. In particular I believe Yahoo is doing that configuration.
Don't also forget that whatever you choose it should be something you are either already familiar or willing to learn.
If you get feedback that OS ABC is best.. but you have never used it then it is a mutt point. Perhaps you should decide which OSs you are most familiar with or are willing to learn and then from that small pool see which is good/best at NFS.
Francisco Reyes wrote:
Jonathan writes:
Under these circumstances, which operating system/distribution would you choose? And why? FreeBSD
Just a quick comment on FreeBSD. I would NOT recommend it for a NFS server; However if you have a clean network with a NetAPP you could use it as a client.
My question is really about how mature the client is. It seems Linux has had some problems in the 2.6 kernel releases.
I have read of large deployments of NetAPP server with FreeBSD clients. In particular I believe Yahoo is doing that configuration.
Don't also forget that whatever you choose it should be something you are either already familiar or willing to learn.
If you get feedback that OS ABC is best.. but you have never used it then it is a mutt point. Perhaps you should decide which OSs you are most familiar with or are willing to learn and then from that small pool see which is good/best at NFS.
After 27 years of Unix-alike operating systems, I can probably put up with most :-)
What I want is something that will be bullet-proof in deployment, and I'm not sure that out-of-the-box Linux is, right now.
Thanks, Jonathan.
Jonathan writes:
After 27 years of Unix-alike operating systems, I can probably put up with most :-)
You are too flexible. :-) I am a "BSD" person.. can't imagine trying one of the many distros.. of Linux..
What I want is something that will be bullet-proof in deployment, and I'm not sure that out-of-the-box Linux is, right now.
I had pretty bad experience with NFS.. but Netapp server with FreeBSD client is likely very workable.
How many mailstores do you plan to have? Is it 1 netapp and many mailstores? How many domains? ie.. one large domain or many domains.
I am asking because if you were doing multiple domains you may be able to break the work down by using imap/pop3 proxies
Something like.
Front end machines running perdition/courier/dovecot proxy | | multiple mailstores handling multiple domains | | Netapp
This way only one mailstore will deal with a series of domains and you will not have to worry about locks since only one mailstore will deal with a set of files.
Le 2 oct. 06 à 18:01, Francisco Reyes a écrit :
Jonathan writes:
Under these circumstances, which operating system/distribution would you choose? And why? FreeBSD
Just a quick comment on FreeBSD. I would NOT recommend it for a NFS
server; However if you have a clean network with a NetAPP you could
use it as a client.I have read of large deployments of NetAPP server with FreeBSD
clients. In particular I believe Yahoo is doing that configuration.
I have done large deployement with netapp server and freebsd
clients... This working like a charm.... :)
Don't also forget that whatever you choose it should be something
you are either already familiar or willing to learn.If you get feedback that OS ABC is best.. but you have never used
it then it is a mutt point. Perhaps you should decide which OSs you
are most familiar with or are willing to learn and then from that
small pool see which is good/best at NFS.
Xavier Beaudouin writes:
I have done large deployement with netapp server and freebsd
clients... This working like a charm.... :)
Thanks for feedback.. I guess in short.. FreeBSD client with Netapp server can be said to be "field tested". :-)
If only netapps were not so expensive.
Also one needs to have a good network. In our case the network person didn't have time/knowledge to troubleshoot why we were getting constant retries on the network and NFS just did not like that.
Le 8 oct. 06 à 17:35, Francisco Reyes a écrit :
Xavier Beaudouin writes:
I have done large deployement with netapp server and freebsd
clients... This working like a charm.... :)Thanks for feedback.. I guess in short.. FreeBSD client with Netapp
server can be said to be "field tested". :-)If only netapps were not so expensive.
Theay are not... I use ebay for that a F760 is good enougth for most
usage ... and it is cheap :)
Also one needs to have a good network. In our case the network
person didn't have time/knowledge to troubleshoot why we were
getting constant retries on the network and NFS just did not like
that.
Maybe you'll have to look around switch / jumbo frames.... contact me
in private for that :)
/Xavier
On 2006-10-02 16:04:47 +0100, Jonathan wrote:
Suse SLES9 OpenSuse
one of those of course. latest dovecot can be found at http://software.opensuse.org/download/server:/mail/
darix-- openSUSE - SUSE Linux is my linux openSUSE is good for you www.opensuse.org
On October 2, 2006 4:04:47 PM +0100 Jonathan dovecot@redigloo.org wrote:
Under these circumstances, which operating system/distribution would you choose? And why?
Solaris. There's no question that it's the most stable, best supported and specifically for NFS has the most robust implementation. It's also cheaper than RedHat. Don't know about Suse. The other distros you listed aren't supported so they seem not to meet your criteria.
-frank
Agreed. "The Network Is The Computer" isn't just a fancy catch phrase. :)
Seriously, though, judging by your criteria, Solaris would probably be a solid choice.
-Rich
Solaris. There's no question that it's the most stable, best supported and specifically for NFS has the most robust implementation. It's also cheaper than RedHat. Don't know about Suse. The other distros you listed aren't supported so they seem not to meet your criteria.
-frank
participants (6)
-
Francisco Reyes
-
Frank Cusack
-
Jonathan
-
Marcus Rueckert
-
Rich West
-
Xavier Beaudouin