The web page servers run Apache+mod_perl+Slash+adsystem == one big memory pig. When serving images you don't need all that stuff in httpd so it's a waste of resources. Most high traffic web sites run separate web servers with a stripped-down httpd so serving images does not drag down your overall performance. The added advantage is your web taffic logs are not polluted with image requests.
Whoo boy! We did try an Alteon once for a few weeks back in August -- what a fiasco that was! All the web servers were very unhappy at the networking layer so we removed the Alteon and put the web servers in DNS round robin and things ran fine. Naturally I blame Canada.
The code is having it's own issues as we're also updating Slashdot to use a new version Slash (to synch up with new release slashcode.com) and bugs are being caught and squashed every now and then, besides that there are the usual hiccups that go along with moving to new servers.
For example, why are the servers serving images and static files segmented? Is there a lot you save from Apache configuration for dealing with one as compared to the other?
The web page servers run Apache+mod_perl+DBI+adsystem module, and the image servers run a much lighter Apache httpd with cache friendly headers.
Where does MySQL sit? Any "reason" behind Debian vs. RH other than "just because"?
MySQL is on the VA 3500 box which is also the Red Hat box. The servers all came with Red Hat and we installed Debian on them, expect the 3500, and I think that was because VA installed extra drivers and stuff we wanted to leave it as is.
Also, any chance you could go through some of the configuration choices made for your apache processes on each of these?
I think this will be in Rob's next post. If not we'll post in that forum.
NFS is not perfect but's it's improving under Linux by leaps and bounds, and it works fine for us. On the list of bottlenecks and risks on Slashdot, NFS is very low on that list.
Just some posting lameness filters were added to discourage the lame trolls who post in all caps and crap like that. I personally enjoy reading the well crafted rants from the creative trolls who try to start flame wars -- I'm sorry but someone posted this one troll yesterday that the web should be a place for marketers to sell and the techie elitists should get lost -- now stuff like that is funny and I thank the troll who posted because I laughed my ass off.
Yeah, failover systems are being added to the mix as well. Basically the database machine and the NFS machine will always have a hot spare twin ready to go. I think Rob's next post will explain that.
Linux sucks. If you read Slashdot more often you'd now that we all hate Linux here and zealously bash on it at every given opportunity.
There's nothing wrong with Linux (and don't you dare suggest there might be! jihad! jihad!) but we just happen to have network admins who could whip up a FreeBSD firewall for us in a pinch so yeah, whatever works, as long as we don't use an OS from a company that tries to corrupt an open protocol then sends us nasty lawyers letters about it.
Exodus is getting $1million/year from us so they let us do whatever we want. They only thing they won't let us do is take a picture of our cage -- no cameras allowed anywhere in the facility! I guess they're afraid we're going to steal their soul. We were able to smuggle out this picture of PatG, PatL, Martin, and the Arrowpoint rep. Behind them you can see the current Slashdot setup.
Rob is going to post exact hardware specs later, but in the meantime just to give you a brief idea where the "Arrowpoint" sits in relation to all this... Slashdot now running on several machines, all VA FullOns, running Debian and few running Red Hat, Apache+mod_perl, MySQL. The database is on its own VA 3500 server. There are currently six VA FullOns serving web pages from an NFS server, and three other web servers serving images.
All of these machines were behind an Arrowpoint (CS-100) firewall/load balancer which took it on the chin when we got DDoSed, so basically the Arrowpoint was taking the full force of the attack. So as described above we replaced it with a CS-800 and a BSD firewall.
I guess we learned that if you're going to post a letter from a Microsoft attorney on your web site the same day you implement a few new troll filters you better be prepared for the fury of hell to rain down on you. Then again this is Slashdot, so we always should be prepared for the fury of hell to rain down on us.
Like their competitors at Yale and Rice, a West Coast collaboration of chemists and computer scientists from Hewlett-Packard and the University of California, Los Angeles, have recently characterized molecules capable of acting as electronic switches and memory (see past issue: "Computing After Silicon," TR September/October 1999). R. Stanley Williams, who heads the effort at HP, says his team expects to build a prototype of a logic circuit that integrates a small number of nanoscale molecular devices within 18 months. "We have the switches and wires-the components to actually make true nanocircuitry," says Williams.
Re:MySQL is a poor choice to store important data.
on
Why Not MySQL?
·
· Score: 3
The transaction and journaling stuff is being worked on now because we need it for Slashdot and Freshmeat, as well as some other stuff. press release here
Yeah, I just realized multihead support and
support for multihead cards are two different
things. I guess these newer cards support multiple
monitors from the same card -- cool.
Multiheaded supprot has been in XFree since v3.9.x (can't remember the exact release).
I've seen Linux workstations running 3 monitors
from 3 Matrox cards making one giant X desktop.
Some kid working at Suncoast Video told me that. I believe him.
so what you're saying is that you have no references. it's a silly statement anyway.
The kid working at Suncoast Video is an expert in his field. He has impecable credentials: he works at Suncoast Video. Suncoast Video!
seriously. there is no comparison between a "high-quality" VHS player and even a mediocre quality DVD player and a good Dolby Digital surround setup. they're worlds apart. if you think otherwise, you
I don't have high-vertical-res TV nor do I have Dolby Surround system. Unless you have a $7000 home theater setup you may as well buy widescreen VHS and good VHS player. Seriously if you did a Turing-test of VHS vs. DVD on a sub-$1000 home theater system I doubt anyone would notice the difference in playback quality.
you're welcome but may you still be struck dead where you stand
I'd like to turn myself in. I don't think I'm a danger to anyone, but there was this one time in high school where me and some friends took all the chairs from the cafeteria and hid them backstage in the auditorium so everyone had to eat lunch standing up, and we laughed, but I realize now it was WRONG! *sob* I WAS BAD!!! It was years ago but still, damn I SHOULDV'E BEEN A JOCK!!! I'M SORRY!!!
My laptop here is running on ReiserFS and haven't had any problems so far, in fact it's notably faster and I no longer have to fsck every time I boot the machine. If I suddenly lose power or freeze up (hardly ever happens) then the file system is rebuilt from the journal on the next reboot.
Not yet -- Slashdot has a lot of tweaks that have to be massaged out but during the next few weeks it will be upgraded to 1.0, then once Slashdot is on 1.0 code base it will stay in synch with the latest-greatest Slash release. I think Slashcode is running on 1.0.
Slashdot Mirror
The web page servers run Apache+mod_perl+Slash+adsystem == one big memory pig. When serving images you don't need all that stuff in httpd so it's a waste of resources. Most high traffic web sites run separate web servers with a stripped-down httpd so serving images does not drag down your overall performance. The added advantage is your web taffic logs are not polluted with image requests.
Yes, it's a spelling error -- my fault. We'll fix it in Service Pack 1, due out next year.
That's right. It's primarilty so we can rearrange the network topology into front-end and back-end networks.
Whoo boy! We did try an Alteon once for a few weeks back in August -- what a fiasco that was! All the web servers were very unhappy at the networking layer so we removed the Alteon and put the web servers in DNS round robin and things ran fine. Naturally I blame Canada.
The code is having it's own issues as we're also updating Slashdot to use a new version Slash (to synch up with new release slashcode.com) and bugs are being caught and squashed every now and then, besides that there are the usual hiccups that go along with moving to new servers.
The web page servers run Apache+mod_perl+DBI+adsystem module, and the image servers run a much lighter Apache httpd with cache friendly headers.
Where does MySQL sit? Any "reason" behind Debian vs. RH other than "just because"?
MySQL is on the VA 3500 box which is also the Red Hat box. The servers all came with Red Hat and we installed Debian on them, expect the 3500, and I think that was because VA installed extra drivers and stuff we wanted to leave it as is.
Also, any chance you could go through some of the configuration choices made for your apache processes on each of these?
I think this will be in Rob's next post. If not we'll post in that forum.
NFS is not perfect but's it's improving under Linux by leaps and bounds, and it works fine for us. On the list of bottlenecks and risks on Slashdot, NFS is very low on that list.
Just some posting lameness filters were added to discourage the lame trolls who post in all caps and crap like that. I personally enjoy reading the well crafted rants from the creative trolls who try to start flame wars -- I'm sorry but someone posted this one troll yesterday that the web should be a place for marketers to sell and the techie elitists should get lost -- now stuff like that is funny and I thank the troll who posted because I laughed my ass off.
Yeah, failover systems are being added to the mix as well. Basically the database machine and the NFS machine will always have a hot spare twin ready to go. I think Rob's next post will explain that.
There's nothing wrong with Linux (and don't you dare suggest there might be! jihad! jihad!) but we just happen to have network admins who could whip up a FreeBSD firewall for us in a pinch so yeah, whatever works, as long as we don't use an OS from a company that tries to corrupt an open protocol then sends us nasty lawyers letters about it.
Exodus is getting $1million/year from us so they let us do whatever we want. They only thing they won't let us do is take a picture of our cage -- no cameras allowed anywhere in the facility! I guess they're afraid we're going to steal their soul. We were able to smuggle out this picture of PatG, PatL, Martin, and the Arrowpoint rep. Behind them you can see the current Slashdot setup.
All of these machines were behind an Arrowpoint (CS-100) firewall/load balancer which took it on the chin when we got DDoSed, so basically the Arrowpoint was taking the full force of the attack. So as described above we replaced it with a CS-800 and a BSD firewall.
I guess we learned that if you're going to post a letter from a Microsoft attorney on your web site the same day you implement a few new troll filters you better be prepared for the fury of hell to rain down on you. Then again this is Slashdot, so we always should be prepared for the fury of hell to rain down on us.
http://www.techreview.com/artic les/may00/rotman.htm
Like their competitors at Yale and Rice, a West Coast collaboration of chemists and computer scientists from Hewlett-Packard and the University of California, Los Angeles, have recently characterized molecules capable of acting as electronic switches and memory (see past issue: "Computing After Silicon," TR September/October 1999). R. Stanley Williams, who heads the effort at HP, says his team expects to build a prototype of a logic circuit that integrates a small number of nanoscale molecular devices within 18 months. "We have the switches and wires-the components to actually make true nanocircuitry," says Williams.
The transaction and journaling stuff is being worked on now because we need it for Slashdot and Freshmeat, as well as some other stuff. press release here
Yeah, I just realized multihead support and support for multihead cards are two different things. I guess these newer cards support multiple monitors from the same card -- cool.
Multiheaded supprot has been in XFree since v3.9.x (can't remember the exact release). I've seen Linux workstations running 3 monitors from 3 Matrox cards making one giant X desktop.
so what you're saying is that you have no references. it's a silly statement anyway.
The kid working at Suncoast Video is an expert in his field. He has impecable credentials: he works at Suncoast Video. Suncoast Video!
seriously. there is no comparison between a "high-quality" VHS player and even a mediocre quality DVD player and a good Dolby Digital surround setup. they're worlds apart. if you think otherwise, you
I don't have high-vertical-res TV nor do I have Dolby Surround system. Unless you have a $7000 home theater setup you may as well buy widescreen VHS and good VHS player. Seriously if you did a Turing-test of VHS vs. DVD on a sub-$1000 home theater system I doubt anyone would notice the difference in playback quality.
you're welcome but may you still be struck dead where you stand
thank you.
Actually it does. :P
/. for a few minutes. Thanks for
Sorry I've been coding and just wanted to tweak
out on ol'
listening.
Yes.
2. Lucas feels that DVD competes with his THX.
references, please ..
Some kid working at Suncoast Video told me that. I believe him.
if you're happy with VHS you must not be very discriminating.
I fail to see the difference between a quality VHS player and DVD playback, aside from the silly frilly features.
may Christ Jesus strike you dead where you stand
thank you
silence!
Bite me.
1. Except for the light saber fighting, TPM sucked.
2. Lucas feels that DVD competes with his THX.
3. I still refuse to buy DVD player due to the
way Jon Johanssen has been (mis)treated by the
DVD Mafia. I'm happy with widescreen VHS releases.
4. STUFF DVD UP YOUR ASS!!!
Yeah, mod me down.
Can I have a t-shirt now? Large please...
http://kurt.andover.net/Reiser -filesystem-HOWTO.html
Reiser driver and utils are still in development, and there's been some flamage on the kernel-dev list over it, but hey, works for me!
Not yet -- Slashdot has a lot of tweaks that have to be massaged out but during the next few weeks it will be upgraded to 1.0, then once Slashdot is on 1.0 code base it will stay in synch with the latest-greatest Slash release. I think Slashcode is running on 1.0.