We are running production web servers on OpenBSD running on IBM
325E's as well as Sun V20Z's, running OpenBSD. We've had decent luck
with both the i386 and amd64 distro on those. I have used a demo HP
with good success too, but don't have one in production anywhere.
I'm not using the internal raid stuff. Most of our
"web servers" are just that, and run off an ide disk using
an external data source (nfs or database). They then sit behind
a pair of carp/pfsync load balancers that advertise the address
used to hit them, and then redirect to a pool of these servers
using round-robin sticky-address, so I'm using redundancy at the
whole machine level rather than just worrying about the disk.
For those machines where I do use raid, I'm using
a dell perc4/DC card stuffed into the machine (it's an ami
under OpenBSD) hooked up to a Dell 220S u320 scsi jbod. We are
using these for Database (mysql/horde), AFS, and NFS services.
(FWIW, we purchased 27 IBM 325e's and 9 V20z's about 6 months ago).
Only thing to note in this case is that if you run i386 instead of
amd64 on them, you should used 3.7-stable or current to get the
locore.s and apm.c fixes so that apm doesn't make your I/O go
appallingly slow. The other alternative is to use config -e to disable
apm in the kernel, at which point you won't be affected.
I use serial consoles exclusively on them, hooked through cisco
2511's talking to a private network behind an openbsd box running
conserver. The serial bios's are usable in both of them but need to be
configured so that serial redirection happens out com port A, and is
*disabled* after boot. (the default is for it to remain enabled). You
then tell OpenBSD to use a serial console in the usual way.
Just my experiences.
-Bob
* Matthew Bettinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2005-07-27 18:47]:
> Hello,
>
> Can anyone recommend a decent rack server from HP, Dell, IBM or CDW
> that will run OpenBSD for webserver use? I would prefer a machine
> that has SCSI drives with Mirror Raid capabilities. I know I can go
> piecemeal one from FRY's but I need one that can have a hardware
> support agreement tied to it.
>
> I was glancing at the sunfire v20z , ibm xseries 306 and HP DL360
> with Smart Array 6i. The dl360 looks like it fits the bill but I
> have had problems in the past with the smart array on older DL class
> boxes. The server(s) will be used for web shell and sftp services
> under medium loads. Thank you.
>
> -mb
>
--
Bob Beck Computing and Network Services
[EMAIL PROTECTED] University of Alberta
True Evil hides its real intentions in its street address.
