Fwd: Re: [reiserfs-list] Fwd: Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
-- Forwarded Message -- Subject: Re: [reiserfs-list] Fwd: Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 19:10:06 -0500 (EST) From: Benjamin Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: ReiserFS Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Mon, 12 Nov 2001, Russell Coker wrote: -- Forwarded Message -- Subject: Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 11:32:53 -0800 From: Nick Jennings [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: I. Forbes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Paul Fleischer [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Although XFS is cool in many ways, the port for linux is pretty much a hack. I know people who swear by it. YMMV. ReiserFS supports fs growth, but not over an LVM. Strange, since I did this Friday. Online, even. Went from 30 GB to 300 GB, while compiling a kernel and coping files, and everything worked without a hitch. I suggest ext3, it's the most solid codebase, and provides the best overall performance. ext3 is a simple, incremental improvement to ext2 -- it adds journaling. Nothing more. Smaller changes generally mean less bugs. Furthermore, there is an easy path for forward and backward compatibility. To go in either direction, you simply mount the filesystem as the other type. This has reasonably obvious advantages. However, it also means performance and capabilities are about the same as ext2. ReiserFS, OTOH, is a completely different FS. It is new code (or rather, was new code -- I think it has been around long enough to lose that designation by now :). Not only that, it introduced some ideas that had never really been tried before. The structure itself is significantly more complex than ext2/ext3. This gives you better performance -- sometimes significantly better. As usual, nothing is black and white. The best filesystem to choose for your needs depends mostly on your needs. :-) -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | --- -- http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/ Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/postal/ Postal SMTP/POP benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/projects.html Projects I am working on http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/ My home page -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fwd: Re: [reiserfs-list] Fwd: Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
-- Forwarded Message -- Subject: Re: [reiserfs-list] Fwd: Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 19:10:06 -0500 (EST) From: Benjamin Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: ReiserFS Mailing List reiserfs-list@namesys.com On Mon, 12 Nov 2001, Russell Coker wrote: -- Forwarded Message -- Subject: Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 11:32:53 -0800 From: Nick Jennings [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: I. Forbes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Paul Fleischer [EMAIL PROTECTED], debian-isp@lists.debian.org Although XFS is cool in many ways, the port for linux is pretty much a hack. I know people who swear by it. YMMV. ReiserFS supports fs growth, but not over an LVM. Strange, since I did this Friday. Online, even. Went from 30 GB to 300 GB, while compiling a kernel and coping files, and everything worked without a hitch. I suggest ext3, it's the most solid codebase, and provides the best overall performance. ext3 is a simple, incremental improvement to ext2 -- it adds journaling. Nothing more. Smaller changes generally mean less bugs. Furthermore, there is an easy path for forward and backward compatibility. To go in either direction, you simply mount the filesystem as the other type. This has reasonably obvious advantages. However, it also means performance and capabilities are about the same as ext2. ReiserFS, OTOH, is a completely different FS. It is new code (or rather, was new code -- I think it has been around long enough to lose that designation by now :). Not only that, it introduced some ideas that had never really been tried before. The structure itself is significantly more complex than ext2/ext3. This gives you better performance -- sometimes significantly better. As usual, nothing is black and white. The best filesystem to choose for your needs depends mostly on your needs. :-) -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | --- -- http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/ Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/postal/ Postal SMTP/POP benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/projects.html Projects I am working on http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/ My home page
Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 10:53:46AM +0200, I. Forbes wrote: - It seems, that at this point in time, xfs is more stable than reiserfs. However I am not sure if that is because fewer people have tried it, and hence fewer people have experienced problems. Are there many xfs users our there? Is the development active? If not is it because the xfs is stable, or has the xfs initiative lost momentum? Although XFS is cool in many ways, the port for linux is pretty much a hack. I work for a company that is doing alot of development with XFS on Linux, although we are forced to use it, because it works with LVM growing filesystems etc. ReiserFS supports fs growth, but not over an LVM. I suggest ext3, it's the most solid codebase, and provides the best overall performance. We use it (ext3) for all other products except for this one that uses LVM (Can't really talk about the product, since it's still in development). -- Nick Jennings
Fwd: Re: [reiserfs-list] Fwd: Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
-- Forwarded Message -- Subject: Re: [reiserfs-list] Fwd: Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 17:03:35 -0700 From: Andreas Dilger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Russell Coker [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: reiserfs-list@namesys.com On Wed, Nov 07, 2001 at 10:53:46AM +0200, I. Forbes wrote: - It seems, that at this point in time, xfs is more stable than reiserfs. However I am not sure if that is because fewer people have tried it, and hence fewer people have experienced problems. Are there many xfs users our there? Is the development active? If not is it because the xfs is stable, or has the xfs initiative lost momentum? Although XFS is cool in many ways, the port for linux is pretty much a hack. I work for a company that is doing alot of development with XFS on Linux, although we are forced to use it, because it works with LVM growing filesystems etc. ReiserFS supports fs growth, but not over an LVM. Hmm, I don't see why LVM has anything to do with it. If reiserfs can grow (which it can) then you just grow the fs after the LV grows. I suggest ext3, it's the most solid codebase, and provides the best overall performance. We use it (ext3) for all other products except for this one that uses LVM (Can't really talk about the product, since it's still in development). Well, it is true that you can't online resize ext3 yet (not enough hours in the day for me to finish that), but you can offline resize it. That may not be good enough for you application. I'm willing to be convinced to work on it. Cheers, Andreas -- Andreas Dilger http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2resize/ http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/ --- -- http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/ Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/postal/ Postal SMTP/POP benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/projects.html Projects I am working on http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/ My home page
Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
Hello Paul On 6 Nov 2001, at 15:19, Paul Fleischer wrote: I would either go with ext3 (which even is ext2 compatible AFAIK) or XFS. They really seem to be the most stable. Reiser is not bad, but I have had some terrible experiences with it - however, I do still use it, it is nice, but IMHO not suited for production systems yet (allthough I beleive that many people do actually use it in production). This comment seems to be typical of the responses I have had so far. Based on this feedback, I think, we will stick to ext2 on the customer boxes for the moment and probably also kernel 2.2, but we will start migrating onto woody. However I will setup a journaling Maildir box in our office and see how it goes. (Production yes, but still under close supervision). But I have two followup questions: - Does ext3 have any performance bennefit over ext2 when handling large Maildir directories? - It seems, that at this point in time, xfs is more stable than reiserfs. However I am not sure if that is because fewer people have tried it, and hence fewer people have experienced problems. Are there many xfs users our there? Is the development active? If not is it because the xfs is stable, or has the xfs initiative lost momentum? Thanks Ian - Ian Forbes ZSD http://www.zsd.co.za Office: +27 +21 683-1388 Fax: +27 +21 64-1106 Snail Mail: P.O. Box 46827, Glosderry, 7702, South Africa -
Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
quote who=I. Forbes Are there many xfs users our there? Is the development active? If not is it because the xfs is stable, or has the xfs initiative lost momentum? My home machine: :r! mount | grep hd /dev/hda2 on / type xfs (rw,noatime) /dev/hdc2 on /var type xfs (rw,noatime) /dev/hdc3 on /home/music type xfs (rw,noatime) Remember that XFS has had a long time to mature as part of IRIX. Only the port to Linux could be seen as unstable, the filesystem itself is long proven. XFS lost a bit of momentum as Linuxcare pulled out of the porting efforts, but I still use the SGI CVS kernels, which are regularly updated. XFS is really good stuff, has good tools (reiser does not), and has a long track record of stability. Add POSIX ACLs and the other advanced features, and you have a kickarse filesystem (particularly good for a reliable SAMBA machine, as it happens). - Jeff -- Can we have a special TELSABUG category, and everything gets dropped to fix them first? - Telsa Gwynne
Journaling FS for Production Systems
Hello All I am looking at moving some of our potato based production servers onto woody, and at the same time upgrading onto a journaling FS. I need the FS to meet the following in order of importance: - MUST BE STABLE (our income depends on uptime!) - Must be supported in woody, without too much extra fiddling. - Good power switch abuse recoverability. EXT2 is pretty good, except if you have multiple reboots, you need to run fsck manually (at least with the standard debian init scripts). I can live with fsck, but I would prefer no manual intervention. - Good performance for Maildir directories. (We run Exim, Courier IMAP and SQWebmail as standard). - Software RAID 1 disk mirroring on IDE drives. Something new but very necessary. - Suitable for use on a root file system on a machine with one partition. - (Availability of boot/installation disks would be nice. We currently do installations from 3 stiffy disks and the rest from the LAN using nfs/ftp/http) - File system quota support (nice but not essential). - NFS support would be nice to have, but not essential. Without wishing to start a flame ware, can anybody give me a quick run-down on which of the above criteria new generation file systems, like Reiser, XFS, EXT3, etc meet. Thanks Ian - Ian Forbes ZSD http://www.zsd.co.za Office: +27 +21 683-1388 Fax: +27 +21 64-1106 Snail Mail: P.O. Box 46827, Glosderry, 7702, South Africa -
Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
Hello, From the keyboard of I., Hello All I am looking at moving some of our potato based production servers onto woody, and at the same time upgrading onto a journaling FS. I need the FS to meet the following in order of importance: - MUST BE STABLE (our income depends on uptime!) - Must be supported in woody, without too much extra fiddling. - Good power switch abuse recoverability. EXT2 is pretty good, except if you have multiple reboots, you need to run fsck manually (at least with the standard debian init scripts). I can live with fsck, but I would prefer no manual intervention. - Good performance for Maildir directories. (We run Exim, Courier IMAP and SQWebmail as standard). - Software RAID 1 disk mirroring on IDE drives. Something new but very necessary. - Suitable for use on a root file system on a machine with one partition. - (Availability of boot/installation disks would be nice. We currently do installations from 3 stiffy disks and the rest from the LAN using nfs/ftp/http) - File system quota support (nice but not essential). - NFS support would be nice to have, but not essential. Without wishing to start a flame ware, can anybody give me a quick run-down on which of the above criteria new generation file systems, like Reiser, XFS, EXT3, etc meet. No one, for a production system. If you want to make a research machine to make some tests, then I would suggest to use ext3. - stable for my systems - simple upgrading (tunefs -j /dev/hd*, vi /etc/fstab) - no problems with nfs, as reiserfs have - could be used as root-fs bye Waldemar
Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
tir, 2001-11-06 kl. 09:03 skrev I. Forbes: I am looking at moving some of our potato based production servers onto woody, and at the same time upgrading onto a journaling FS. Sounds interesting. I need the FS to meet the following in order of importance: - MUST BE STABLE (our income depends on uptime!) Hard to say, however, I have had some serious crashes with reiserfs. At one point it blew my partition into pieces, at a reinstall was needed (reiserfs from kernel 2.4.8). - Must be supported in woody, without too much extra fiddling. I know at least that reiser and xfs is - haven't done installation on xfs/ext3, but it should be easy to find some bootfloppies that do the job. - Good power switch abuse recoverability. EXT2 is pretty good, except if you have multiple reboots, you need to run fsck manually (at least with the standard debian init scripts). I can live with fsck, but I would prefer no manual intervention. I beleive all of them have, it's one of the fine things with journaling filsystems. - File system quota support (nice but not essential). xfs, and ext3 have quota support - I'm not sure about Reiser... xfs even has acl support (which ext3 doesn't have without some patching)... - NFS support would be nice to have, but not essential. I might be wrong here - but I beleive that NFS supports every filesystem that the kernel supports... Without wishing to start a flame ware, can anybody give me a quick run-down on which of the above criteria new generation file systems, like Reiser, XFS, EXT3, etc meet. And I can only add to this, that my comments aren't ment to start any flame war either, just sharing some experience and some though. I would either go with ext3 (which even is ext2 compatible AFAIK) or XFS. They really seem to be the most stable. Reiser is not bad, but I have had some terrible experiences with it - however, I do still use it, it is nice, but IMHO not suited for production systems yet (allthough I beleive that many people do actually use it in production). -- Paul Fleischer // ProGuy Registered Linux User #166300 http://counter.li.org
Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 09:03, I. Forbes wrote:
I am looking at moving some of our potato based production
servers onto woody, and at the same time upgrading onto a
journaling FS.
I need the FS to meet the following in order of importance:
- MUST BE STABLE (our income depends on uptime!)
Now probably isn't a good time to upgrade to 2.4.x then.
2.4.9 and below have security problems.
2.4.10 has Ext2 problems.
2.4.11 was a dud version.
2.4.12 has had some bad reports.
2.4.13 and 2.4.14 have only just been released.
Solar Designer plans to add 2.4.x OpenWall support in 2.4.15...
Maybe you should wait for 2.4.15?
- Good performance for Maildir directories. (We run Exim,
Courier IMAP and SQWebmail as standard).
As long as there is 1000 files per directory they should all perform well.
If large numbers of files are in a directory then look at JFS and ReiserFS.
- Software RAID 1 disk mirroring on IDE drives. Something new but
very necessary.
There's a patch to do Raidtools2 for 2.2.19 which you probably should apply
first before the kernel upgrade.
- Suitable for use on a root file system on a machine with one
partition. - (Availability of boot/installation disks would be
nice. We currently do installations from 3 stiffy disks and the
rest from the LAN using nfs/ftp/http)
Ext3 is best for that. Do a regular Ext2 install then create the journal and
remount!
- File system quota support (nice but not essential).
Ext{2,3} is easiest for this. ReiserFS and XFS apparently work. Not sure
about JFS.
- NFS support would be nice to have, but not essential.
I think that issue is pretty much solved. It's solved for Ext{2,3} and for
ReiserFS.
--
http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/ Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/postal/ Postal SMTP/POP benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/projects.html Projects I am working on
http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/ My home page
Re: Journaling FS for Production Systems
Paul Fleischer dijo: Hard to say, however, I have had some serious crashes with reiserfs. So have I. At one point it blew my partition into pieces, at a reinstall was needed (reiserfs from kernel 2.4.8). Reiserfs used to be stable enough and performance overhead was not really noticeable (I'd reccomend 2.4.7 and 2.4.9. Never 2.4.5). I had the great idea (tm) of rebooting with a previous kernel version, and the journal was lost, mangled or whatever. So was my data. MP3s became HTMLs and so on. There were files I couldn't ls or delete, even as root, but I could move them around. Weird. Reinstall and back to ext2. No big deal, I find it stable enough ;-) and don't trust journaling anymore ;-) This is my little trauma. Please share positive journaling experiences so that I can overcome it :-) -- Open your mind, and your ass will follow- Michael Balzary, aka Flea, RHCP Amaya Rodrigo Sastre www.andago.com Sta Engracia, 54 28010 Madrid BOFH-dev CVS Evangelist Tfn: 912041124Fax: 91204 Listening to: James Brown - I got you (I feel good)
