Hard choice: quota, reiser and grsecurity...

[nielchiano]

Hi,

Currently I have a 2.4.26 kernel running (gentoo-sources) with grsecurity paches applied. My /var system is on a ReiserFS partition of 24GB (IDE drive of 80GB).

I want to ADD quota support on that partition; but I have to make choices:

• Make it ext3.
  Pro's: easy, I know how to do it.
  Cons: I started to use Reiser because I read it was faster and better.
  
• Patch my 2.4 to support Reiser3 quotas.
  Pro's: will work as I want it to.
  Con's: I can't find that patch/help/howto anywhere
  
• upgrade to 2.6 and use Reiserfs4
  Pro's: I'll be using a better kernel
  Con's: Does it support quota? (not sure). gentoo-dev-sources doesn't have GRsecurity anymore; can I patch it manualy?
  
• Use XFS, JFS, ...
  Con's: I don't know them; do they support quota; are they fast/ stable/ good?
  Pro's: would solve the problem

Can anyone give me some directions on this?

[tuxthepenguin6]

[mirko_3]

Reiser4 supports quotas natively, reiserfs requires a patch... My choice would be reiser4 (that's what I'm running anyway) or, if you don't want to (some people consider it too "new" to be stable) ext3; whatever the choice, I'd upgrade to 2.6.
I'd recommend against xfs, as it seems to suffer too much when dealing with small files, and the portage tree contains thousands of those... Dunno about JFS...
_________________
Non fa male! Non fa male!

[nielchiano]

maybe to add: it's the /var/ partition which also contains all the files for the webserver (mostly .php's)
Also important: it's a production server, so stability is not a priority, but just mandatory!
Also, since it's a server it won't do special things with the filesystem like writing to 5 files at the same time while moving a directoy tree around... (I guess that this will stress the fs-driver)

[nielchiano]

[tkdfighter]

You should be able to patch the kernel yourself. Here's the link: GRsecurity.
Or, you could use the hardened-dev-sources.

[adaptr]

If stability is your primary concern you shouldn't even be thinking of a 2.6 kernel

I'd set up gentoo-hardened (GRsecurity, PAX etc) ona 2.4.26 and use a soft raid mirrored ext3.

Mirroring is always a good idea for a production server.
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

[nielchiano]

[adaptr]

Oka, kind of an addendum:

I thought I was going for a 2.4.x system with quotas (need them to keep your users in check!) but found out that that just would not work with reiser 3.6.

So I had two options - sort of the same two you had - either dump reiser and go with ext3, or dump 2.4 and use 2.6 again; this is me re-installing and pondering (lots of pondering) over a new mail and web/database server.

Well, I've decided to screw it

I just don't want to abandon reiserfs to ext3, since mail and web serving is generally about lots of small files, which reiserfs is simply better at.
I've Googled some, found some benchmark results, and it seems that overall reiserfs is just faster than ext3 - even using them in exactly the same way, i.e. with metadata journaling only.

So I'd say yeah, go with a 2.6 kernel with reiserfs quotas if you want, but if this is a paid for production environment (i.e. delivering paid services) then 2.4 is obviously longer and better tested.

Mine is just a home server that has to do the things I want it to do; nobody pays me for anything, so I can survive a total system meltdown should one occur

That said, I do recommend the hardened chain, 2.6.7-r17 as of now; you get bumped back a few minor versions, but you get GRsecurity and PaX and all that for "free"...
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

[nielchiano]

it's a server running at the university, hosting our forum. The machines are left-overs; the hard-drives where donated; the sys-admin (me) is also a student; so it's not realy 'paid-for'.
However, the forum is incredibly important, especialy during the exams...

So I'm still not sure to go for 2.4 of 2.6...

[Gentree]

from the bench marks I found when looking into this reiserfs was at lot less impressive than many thought a year or so ago. It generally underperformed across the board.

R4 will out perform most other fs exept in the case of very few, very large files where xfs and jfs to a bit better.

I have used R4 since around March 2004 and have only had a couple of small , non-critical issues.

The only remaining issue is emerge php on an R4 partitions fails (see forum if you want details.) this is handled cleanly and has no prepercussions , there is a work around for that emerge.

R4 is streets ahead of reiserfs and I have found it completely reliable with the above caveat.

HTH
_________________
Linux, because I'd rather own a free OS than steal one that's not worth paying for.
Gentoo because I'm a masochist
AthlonXP-M on A7N8X. Portage ~x86

[adaptr]

Then it seems performance- and stability-wise your choices are either Reiser4 on a 2.6 or ext3 on a 2.4.

Or not ?
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

[nielchiano]

[Tazok]

[mirko_3]

Ehm... with that same kernel, my reiser4 supports quotas
It doesn't require a patch or anything, it supports it natively...
_________________
Non fa male! Non fa male!

[Tazok]

That's strange.
Whenever I mount my reiser4-partition with the option usrquota, it complains about "wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock", but without that option, it works well.