# Is Gentoo the best distro for Virtual Hosting?

## Bigun

(Forgive me mods if this is the wrong forumto post this in)

My experience level with Gentoo can be described as moderate to maybe high-moderate, despite what my post count is here.  I can manage to fix a good 80% of my problems on my own and can probably help a good 90% of people who come to me with simple questions about Gentoo.  But by golly, this one has been getting me for years.

I've been trying for quite a while now to setup Virtual Hosting in Gentoo.  I've gotten the Apache portion of the hosting working fairly well (minus MySQL support, which I haven't tried yet).  But the postfix, cyrus-sasl, ssl, and the whole table setup is a complete debacle.  Should setting this stuff up be so hard or am I missing a page?

Yeah, I agree, Gentoo is probably the best distro for me for home use.  But wow, I'm not sure if it is the best distro for web hosting.  Yeah, it is slightly more secure due to update being applied simply by running "emerge -uDNva world", but God help you if you haven't been keeping up on the latest configuration trends that PHP pushed out months ago.  Then boom, all your crap is broken.  On a single site setup, usually damage is minimal.  A few googles and a couple of tweaks here and there, your not down very long.  But I am struggling to get this virtual mail hosting beast going, let alone tackle a new configuration nightmare.

So my question is this:  Is there definitive walkthrough, wiki, instruction manual, that is not more than 3 years old, for or by someone that uses Gentoo  to help users who haven't slept, eaten, and crapped postfix configuration for the better part of a decade.  Or is Gentoo simply the wrong disrobution for Virtual Hosting?  If so, any recommendations?

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## Bigun

Just curious.

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## desultory

Merged from Gentoo Chat and Off the Wall to Networking & Security.

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## AllenJB

In my opinion setting up a mail server is generally hard. There's a lot to understand about how things work. I've recently been setting up a new virtual server using Gentoo (used to use Debian, but upgrades do not go well in Debian, so it's stuck on sarge atm). I chose to use a Postfix / Dovecot combo for the mail server and have documented the setup in various wiki articles as I've gone along (Mail server using Postfix and Dovecot and Dovecot TLS)

Another option is to try Exim, which steps away from the usual *nix model of one application for one task and combines an SMTP server (MTA) with POP/IMAP servers.

I personally don't think that using a different distro will change the difficulty in setting up a mail server (other than the fact that every other distro I've tried to date has major annoyances =P )

Hope that helps

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## Dagger

Well if you wanna go with Gentoo as a main system for Virtual Hosting that you need to have a test server, where you can test everything BEFORE you apply it to Live env. I've answered Red Hat to your survey, because it's easier (RH devs do main job for you). With Gentoo sometimes can't predict what will happen after an update. On the other hand RH will never push new stuff to stable on the same basis as Gentoo does (they've got manpower to check everything 10 times). Personally I'm using RH and Debians for production servers (hosting env - no other choice) and Gentoo for everything else.

Gentoo is better for cutting edge stuff and flexibility, while RH possessions itself mainly as a business distro with good tech support (paid though).

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## AllenJB

 *Dagger wrote:*   

> Well if you wanna go with Gentoo as a main system for Virtual Hosting that you need to have a test server, where you can test everything BEFORE you apply it to Live env. I've answered Red Hat to your survey, because it's easier (RH devs do main job for you). With Gentoo sometimes can't predict what will happen after an update. On the other hand RH will never push new stuff to stable on the same basis as Gentoo does (they've got manpower to check everything 10 times). Personally I'm using RH and Debians for production servers (hosting env - no other choice) and Gentoo for everything else.
> 
> Gentoo is better for cutting edge stuff and flexibility, while RH possessions itself mainly as a business distro with good tech support (paid though).

 

You should have a test server no matter what distro you're running - things can and will go wrong with any distro.

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## Dagger

 *AllenJB wrote:*   

>  *Dagger wrote:*   Well if you wanna go with Gentoo as a main system for Virtual Hosting that you need to have a test server, where you can test everything BEFORE you apply it to Live env. I've answered Red Hat to your survey, because it's easier (RH devs do main job for you). With Gentoo sometimes can't predict what will happen after an update. On the other hand RH will never push new stuff to stable on the same basis as Gentoo does (they've got manpower to check everything 10 times). Personally I'm using RH and Debians for production servers (hosting env - no other choice) and Gentoo for everything else.
> 
> Gentoo is better for cutting edge stuff and flexibility, while RH possessions itself mainly as a business distro with good tech support (paid though). 
> 
> You should have a test server no matter what distro you're running - things can and will go wrong with any distro.

 

Not really no. If you've got RHEL you don't need to worry about it. You pay for peace of mind and people who test everything 10000 times before they release update you install. For mission critical systems which run in a big cluster and support millions of customers it's a must. You can do the same with Gentoo, but you have to test everything yourself and you're the one who's taking responsibility. In most cases it's just cheaper to outsource it.

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## PaulBain

 *Dagger wrote:*   

> Well if you wanna go with Gentoo as a main system for Virtual Hosting that you need to have a test server, where you can test everything BEFORE you apply it to Live env. I've answered Red Hat to your survey, because it's easier (RH devs do main job for you). With Gentoo sometimes can't predict what will happen after an update. On the other hand RH will never push new stuff to stable on the same basis as Gentoo does (they've got manpower to check everything 10 times). Personally I'm using RH and Debians for production servers (hosting env - no other choice) and Gentoo for everything else.

 

Isn't that a bit like saying we should use Windows instead of Linux becasue Microsoft can afford to test everything? 

I'd vote for gentoo purely on the basis that if you know what you are doing you can highly optimize your system, you can get the packages you need and as long as you stick with stable packages of core systems your should be fine. 

I have had problems with RHEL because they are too restrictive with the packages they release. e.g. PHP 5.2.x is difficult as they don't support it! You have to have 5.1.x with RHEL5.

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## AllenJB

 *Dagger wrote:*   

>  *AllenJB wrote:*    *Dagger wrote:*   Well if you wanna go with Gentoo as a main system for Virtual Hosting that you need to have a test server, where you can test everything BEFORE you apply it to Live env. I've answered Red Hat to your survey, because it's easier (RH devs do main job for you). With Gentoo sometimes can't predict what will happen after an update. On the other hand RH will never push new stuff to stable on the same basis as Gentoo does (they've got manpower to check everything 10 times). Personally I'm using RH and Debians for production servers (hosting env - no other choice) and Gentoo for everything else.
> 
> Gentoo is better for cutting edge stuff and flexibility, while RH possessions itself mainly as a business distro with good tech support (paid though). 
> 
> You should have a test server no matter what distro you're running - things can and will go wrong with any distro. 
> ...

 

And sysadmins never make mistakes! 

Things will go wrong with any distro. There may be bugs that RH didn't catch because they weren't doing $slightlyhackything with it. For mission critical systems, a test environment that clones the live environment is a must, no matter what distro you're running. Anyone who isn't using one is just asking to run into bugs on their live setup (even with a test environment it can and does still happen anyway, but you want to minimize the risk).

Just because RedHat tested your packages, doesn't mean you can bypass testing them in the setup you're using them.

I maintain my stance that you should have a test server no matter what distro you're using.

Saying you don't need a test server because you use RedHat is like saying you don't need a condom because the other party is on the pill. Even if they haven't missed a dose and neglected to tell you, you may not be able to conceive a child, but can still get aids!

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## PaulBain

 *AllenJB wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Saying you don't need a test server because you use RedHat is like saying you don't need a condom because the other party is on the pill. Even if they haven't missed a dose and neglected to tell you, you may not be able to conceive a child, but can still get aids!

 

You ok dude? You sound like you are having a hard time!  :Wink: 

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## Dagger

 *AllenJB wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I maintain my stance that you should have a test server no matter what distro you're using.
> 
> Saying you don't need a test server because you use RedHat is like saying you don't need a condom because the other party is on the pill. Even if they haven't missed a dose and neglected to tell you, you may not be able to conceive a child, but can still get aids!

 

OK I agree with you. Having test server is always handy. It's probably me being to used to hosting centres tech support  :Smile: 

But I think you went a bit too far with that :p

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## Dagger

 *PaulBain wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Isn't that a bit like saying we should use Windows instead of Linux becasue Microsoft can afford to test everything? 

 

It's not really about that. Have you ever provided a service to millions using M$ software ?  :Smile:  I wouldn't dare.

 *PaulBain wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I'd vote for gentoo purely on the basis that if you know what you are doing you can highly optimize your system, you can get the packages you need and as long as you stick with stable packages of core systems your should be fine. 
> 
> 

 

Same as before. It really depends on your configuration. On small server or small cluster you can allow for it. The main difference between Gentoo and RHEL stabilisation is that Gentoo's Devs stabilise package if there are no new bugs reported within last 30 days. In RHEL the package needs to be on the market for a while, needs to be extensive tested before it goes to stable tree. Don't get me wrong I hate RH and love Gentoo more than any other system, but in some cases it's not really about high optimisation but service availability. 

 *PaulBain wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I have had problems with RHEL because they are too restrictive with the packages they release. e.g. PHP 5.2.x is difficult as they don't support it! You have to have 5.1.x with RHEL5.
> 
> 

 

Yes, that's very true. That's the main downside.

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## PaulBain

 *Dagger wrote:*   

>  *PaulBain wrote:*   
> 
> Isn't that a bit like saying we should use Windows instead of Linux becasue Microsoft can afford to test everything?  
> 
> It's not really about that. Have you ever provided a service to millions using M$ software ?  I wouldn't dare.
> ...

 

Lol me neither. TBH I was playing devils advocate a little. I work with a clutter of systems including 5 RHEL5 servers, 4 Apple OS X 10.5 servers and a ton of winblows servers. The only reason we have branded OSes is for the support. RHEL and OS X have both been a pain the the arse knowing with a single emerge command I could sort the problems on gentoo but having to wait for official releases for fixes. (I keep away from the windows servers)

Obviously explaining to the the people who make the purchasing decisions that Gentoo is a viable option for enterpise level applications is difficult without the ability to purchase support a package!

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