[SAC] PEER1 and Telascience server roles

[Martin Spott]

Hi folks,

On Sat, Oct 20, 2007 at 11:57:37AM -0400, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

> Speaking of deferred till required, is PHP5 required for MediaWiki?  Or
> just preferred?

For the current release of MediaWiki it is required to have PHP5.
Now, to avoid things become too boring, here's my new proposal - after
explaing the reasons _why_ I like the idea I'm presenting:

Not only the add-ons but also the current OS base on 'osgeo2' is
outdated. When it comes to the web- or related services, almost every
piece is pretty old: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Python, PHP - all of these have
seen _significant_ changes and/or new major releases since they've been
packaged for RedHat ES 4.

And there's another point: 'osgeo2' is running a stock 32-bit SMP OS on
a dual-CPU Opteron system. This is an obvious waste of resources
because 32-bit Linux doesn't allow for NUMA and, on the other hand,
NUMA contributes significantly to the superios efficiency of an Opteron
multi-CPU setup.

So I see three choices on how to proceed _now_ in order to migrate the
Wiki off the _current_ hardware:

1.) Leave the system on 'osgeo2' as-is and install an old 1.6.x release
    of MediaWiki (1.11.0 is current).
2.) Install PHP5 on 'osgeo2' from source - which doesn't involve major
    hassle and use current MediaWiki.
3.) Put a current set of Apache, MySQL, PHP and MediaWiki onto the .220
    blade as an interim solution, migrate the Wiki to this machine in
    order to get the Wiki off the current hardware _now_. Then prepare
    for a modern distro using a 64-bit NUMA-capable kernel for 'osgeo2'
    and migrate the Wiki to 'osgeo2' in a second step.

Solutions 1.) and 2.) both have the advantage of being available with
little effort. Yet in the long run they both carry the (in my eyes
significant) drawback in that we're going to hook an important service
(the Wiki) to a system that is due to face a major update right now. It
will prove to carry much more difficulties to apply an update to the
whole 'osgeo2' OS later, once the Wiki is already running, compared to
the effort of using two steps for getting the Wiki there.

Solution 3.) is as well suited to take the pressure out of the Wiki
migration _now_ and it still allows us to get the final home for the
Wiki into a considerable state before we move the Wiki there. This
would imply that someone should contact PEER1 this week and ask if they
offer an update for the outdated OS.
If they don't, we still could paste a Debian Etch onto it ourselves (do
we have some sort of console access ?)

Well, there's still solution 4.): Build a current set of Apache, MySQL
and PHP on the current 'osgeo2', but this _might_ hose the Moodle setup
that Arnulf relies on (not a really goood choice) and it doesn't give
us the time to get a NUMA-enabled kernel and 64-bit libs onto the
system.

So, what's your opinion ? Would you agree to let me take the route for
solution 3.) ?

Cheers,
	Martin.
-- 
 Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
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