[Gllug] web server specs

[Chris Ball]

On 01 Oct 2001 10:22:36 +0100, Paul Brazier wrote:
> I've narrowed it down to two possibilities for the co-location (Maibox &
> Black Cat)

Can't really help, other than to say that I know the Black Cat team well
and they really know their stuff.  You're also put in a Proper Data
Centre (RedBus Interhouse), whereas Mailbox's co-location is for a
facility of theirs in Egham or somewhere.  That said, Mailbox are more
likely to be up for helping get your box back up at 3am, though Black
Cat do have an APC box that allows remote power-cycling, I think.

> Next thing is the hardware. It seems 1U rackmounted servers are more
> expensive to buy (700+ pounds) but cheaper to hire colocation space for.
> Can you get cheap 1U servers or would I be better going for a standard
> size box and pay a bit extra for the rackspace?

I set up a 1u server for just under £500 (Celeron 600, 128Mb RAM, 2x20Gb
IDE) last October, with a friend.  (It's since been upgraded in most
ways that you can.  ;-)

Mailbox let you use normal towers rather than 1u cases, if I recall, as
they aren't in somewhere like Telehouse and leasing rack space - they
own the building you'd be co-locating in.

> I could get a "normal" desktop/workstation-type PC for under 500 but
> what sort of spec would I need?
> I'm thinking of a debian/apache/perl/php/mysql setup for about 10-20
> sites, fairly low-volume traffic, perhaps phpnuke.

I've done all of that (and still do) on a P90 with 32Mb of RAM.

> What is usually the bottleneck - memory, processor, disk speed, network
> speed?

Disk speed, I'd imagine.  It's actually fairly hard to get a server just
handling pseudo-dynamic pages and mail to go into swap with any kind of
modern memory size; not if you're running huge mysql databases or
thousands of zone files with bind, but for the situation you're
describing.

> Would a PIII with say 256M RAM and a 20GB HD be the sort of thing? Or
> overkill?

Close to what I put in, and the box now has over 100 user accounts, runs
~10 mysql databases, and is the primary ns (handling web and mail) for
~30 domains.

> With just a CD drive, floppy drive and an ethernet card?

Why would you want a CD drive if it's going in a data centre?  As PCI
cards can be tricky in 1u boxes (you'll need a riser card, you'll only
have the one slot) I'd recommend a motherboard with built in video and
networking.

~C.

-- 
$a="printf.net"; Chris Ball | chris at void.$a | www.$a | finger: chris@$a


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