FreeBSD 7.0, MS, MW, ClamAV, 8gb with 64bit or 4 gb with 32bit

[Mikael Syska]

Hi,

Thanks for the great response, we will stick with the 32bit freebsd
7.0 ... dont wont to run into mainteane problems with perl modules
etc.

Comments futher down ...

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Ronny T. Lampert
<telecaadmin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   > We are upgrading a old system that are to be changed, because of bad
>   > performance with the SAS 5i controller installed in it.
>
>  5i sounds alot like the old HP/Compaq SmartArrays?
>  Yes, they are pretty bad. Don't ever think that those were real RAID
>  controllers...

It was a Dell server, but a crappy controller, was not sold with
others at the time ... but it today, maybe we will just replace it
with a PERC5.

>
>   > While we are changing it, we could use the old one, for some other
>   > task, and buy a new better one, as this would probebly get to slow in
>   > 1-2 years.
>   >
>   > We are thinking of buying:
>   > Dell poweredge 2950
>   > 4 or 8gb ram
>   > Raid10 with 300gb 15000rpm SAS harddrives
>
>  Just make sure you have a hardware RAID write cache with at least 512MB.
>  Those controllers can take some serious beating.
>  The newer HP SmartArray P600/P800 SAS aren't too bad, although still
>  limited to 512MB, so set the read/write ratio to 25/75 or so.
>
>  I've also had good experiences with the MegaRAIDs (they can have bigger
>  caches) and the ICP Vortex controllers (now bought by Intel).

Okay, sounds good, I will just find out much much memory there are on the card

>
>   > With one of theese 2 processors ...the fastest is the cheapest ... but
>   > are there any difference since its cheaper ? ( thinking about the diff
>   > with the E and X in the name and the speed)
>   > Quad Core Intel(R) Xeon(R) E5440, 2X6MB Cache, 2.8GHz, 1333MHz FSB
>   > Quad Core Intel(R) Xeon(R) X5450, 2X6MB Cache, 3.0GHz, 1333MHz FSB
>
>  As one other poster said, take the more energy efficient one.
>  It will pay off in cooling and energy costs.

Thats also something to consider, since we are having some problems
with the heat in the server room once in a while ...

>
>   > We are going to install FreeBSD 7.0
>   > Any on the list running a system with 8 GB memory, tmpfs, and 64bit ?
>
>  I've seen problems with clamav being slower on 64bit/Linux. It was
>  around the factor 1.5 slower than on 32bit, so I quickly reverted back
>  to 32bit.

32bit it is then ...

>
>   > Any problems ? Or will 4 GB be enough and then on 32bit, but still
>   > using tmpfs ?
>   > How big should the tmpfs be ?
>
>  I calculate as follows:
>  1 Mailscanner instance = 110MB RSS (32bit)
>  Usually 2 instances per CPU/Core = around 1GB gone at 8 instances

Thought it said 5 per core/cpu in the MailScanner.conf ... but with
quad core, 8 seems like a fair number ... same we run at the current.
>
>  As for tmpfs:
>  I'm running it with 1GB on Linux (4GB total RAM).
>  I found that using tmpfs is giving a small speedup of around 1/4 because
>   in my setup the data never really has to wait for the disk, but is
>  only present in the caches.
>
>  So the worst case is: tmpfs full with 1GB ->
>  2GB tied up for MailScanner. Leaves 2GB for kernel and caching which
>  should be enough.
>
>  Make sure you use "noatime" for your mailspool.

Will do ... I'm also wondering ... I havent yet used the atime for
anything really thing special. So I will turn it off.

>
>
>
>   > Are there any other suggestions to this setup ? Anything that could be
>   > changed ? bigger, smaller ....
>
>  You should always have a 2nd server with the same spam filtering setup
>  as your first!
>  It doesn't have to be a juicy machine, just make a RAID1 for reliability
>  -- but as soon as you've got 2 MX entries spammers will hit the one with
>  the least priority harder.
>  That's why you should use RBLs on the MTA level.

Thats out next, we will probebly use the old one with a new controller.

>
>  I'm running a triple redundancy setup over 2 continents and it gives me
>  real freedom to do maintainance whenever I want which is VERY VERY
>  convenient.

Think we will spilt the SMTP connections at out firewall with some
roundrobind, spilt 25% to the old and the rest to the new .... would
this give any problems ? I can't think of any, that way.

>
>  Cheers,
>  Ronny
>  --
>
>
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>
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>

Best regards
Mikael Syska