Hi Henry, thanks for your advice.
> It occurs to me that you are on the wrong track asking here. Ask > people who run a forum about as big as you think yours can get how big > the database is, and how big the templates are. If their database is > 150Gb, then you should dedicate one disk for database (that is > /var/db/postgressql is a separate partition that takes the entire 200Gb > Disk), than start saving for a RAID system to replace that disk because > it will fill up!
Well, most of the forum admins who are active in the forum-management forums seem to use Linux. I've had my own experience of RedHat kernal Hell, so, I'm opting for FreeBSD because I have a hunch that it will be more reliable and easier to scale as my business expands.
Although, yes, they have more experience running forums, I figured that it would be better to get FreeBSD-specific advice here.
> Well you can place databases anywhere you want. If they are very big > you would want a external RAID to place them on, though that is > overkill for most forums. However make sure you make /var a big > partition if you place them there. You are right that the database > will be far more space than the templates.
At the moment an external RAID is way, way beyond my means, that's something I might graduate to if these forums of mine take off!
> Although in general splitting swap is a good idea, I wouldn't. By > putting swap all on one disk, and the web pages on the other you can > split the load a little (with 2GB of RAM you shouldn't be swapping > much anyway) There might be other ways to split the load.
That's a REALLY interesting take on Swap.
How would this work out for load balance: /, /tmp and 8gb of Swap all on the 80GB, while I put /home, /usr and my massive /var on the 200GB? Or should I shift /home or /usr over to the first HDD too?
> This assumes that you won't have many local users, you are not also > running as a fileserver, and your few local users won't have big files > around.
Yeah, that's correct.
> Yes it is difficult to change partitions latter. you have to backup > everything, change, re-install, then restore. Lots of down time.
Hmm, that makes me wonder if it might not make sense to follow Greg Lehey's suggestion and lump the web pages into /var alongside the database data. That way, I can create one big partition and not have to guesstimate how much space either type of data will require.
Then again, I'd lose the ability to chroot and/or jail the web server as you suggested.
Hmmm, decisions, decisions!!
Donnacha
Henry Miller wrote:
On 5/5/2005 at 14:25 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Jerry, thanks for your advice!
If all your accounts and web pages are really in /home and you have no databases, I would be inclined to put both /usr and /var in the 80GB drive and leave the other one for home directories and web pages.
In The Complete FreeBSD, Greg Lehey suggests that it's a good idea to place web pages in /var, I don't quite grasp why. Do you think it
would
be a better idea to stick with the standard and leave web pages in
/home?
If you web pages are all in one location you can chroot and/or jail the web server, which increases security.
As for databases, I'll have a lot of MySQL DBs and possibly, at a
later
date, Postgresql. I'm hoping to specialize in forum-based web-sites
and
Web apps generally. As I understand it, forum content is actually stored in the DB and pulled dynamically via PHP, meaning, I think,
that
the DB of each forum will take up a lot more space that the templated PHP pages that make up the "site" part of the equation. I could be wrong about that.
Well you can place databases anywhere you want. If they are very big
you would want a external RAID to place them on, though that is
overkill for most forums. However make sure you make /var a big
partition if you place them there. You are right that the database
will be far more space than the templates.
What about /tmp? Looking through this list's archives, I read that
it's
considered more secure to place /tmp on a seperate partition from /, would it be even more secure to place it on a seperate HDD? How big should /tmp be?
Not really. The big advantage of separating things is /tmp is written fairly often, the rest of / is not. By putting /tmp on a different partition you make it less likely that the / filesystem gets corrupted if a reboot happens unexpectedly. Not as much of a problem now that we have softupdates, but even still you can limit the damage from crashes (including the power going out) by putting / elsewhere.
Considering your usage, I would either make a big RAID-5 system (you
need at least 3 physical disks of the same size for this), or place
/var on a separate big disk entirely its own. reason: most of your
disk access with be to /var (web pages and database)
Although in general splitting swap is a good idea, I wouldn't. By putting swap all on one disk, and the web pages on the other you can split the load a little (with 2GB of RAM you shouldn't be swapping much anyway) There might be other ways to split the load.
This assumes that you won't have many local users, you are not also running as a fileserver, and your few local users won't have big files around. If this is not true then you need a different partition scheme.
It occurs to me that you are on the wrong track asking here. Ask
people who run a forum about as big as you think yours can get how big
the database is, and how big the templates are. If their database is
150Gb, then you should dedicate one disk for database (that is
/var/db/postgressql is a separate partition that takes the entire 200Gb
Disk), than start saving for a RAID system to replace that disk because
it will fill up!
Only you can guess how things will happen on this system, so you have to decide for yourself how to do thing.
Here's a pretty stupid question I have, apologies for my lack of clue:
do I have to define the size of each partition? Is it difficult to change them at a later date? I'll only have command-line access.
Yes it is difficult to change partitions latter. you have to backup everything, change, re-install, then restore. Lots of down time.
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