OpenSUSE 11.2 file server - possible?

English Network/Internet
1

Hi all!

I want to create Linux file server.

This file server - for LAN with 10 desktop computers, and 15 render nodes.
Very intensive network data flow. (Computer Graphics studio)

How do you think ? Can i use OpenSUSE 11.2 - for server OS ?
May be i need another OS for Server ? (because OpenSUSE is desktop-oriented OS, right? )
Another words - i’m not sysadmin, and this is my first Linux server :slight_smile:

And of course super question of the day- “Linux server is faster than Windows server” ?

Thanks for all opinions.

2

Two great links: the first is by Swerdna, one of the moderators:

Linux HOWTOs and Tutorials: Suse Linux 10.0, 10.1 openSUSE 10.2, 10.3, 11.0, 11.1

The second is How-To Forge, maintained by a guy named Falco Timmes:

SuSE | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials

Now for your actual questions:

You didn’t say what type: for Windows PCs, Linux PCs, or both? If it’s just for Windows, you want Samba, and Swerdna covers that in textbook detail.

How do you think ? Can i use OpenSUSE 11.2 - for server OS ?
May be i need another OS for Server ? (because OpenSUSE is desktop-oriented OS, right? )

It’s interesting how many people call OpenSUSE a “desktop oriented” OS, because it has the same foundation as the Enterprise products. Yes, OpenSUSE is targeted more toward desktop users, but it makes a great server distro as well. We use it for our corporate Web server, handling thousands of requests a day.

And of course super question of the day- “Linux server is faster than Windows server” ?

YMMV. On equivalent hardware, I think Linux is a smidge faster, but a lot of that depends on what you’re trying to do.

3

Hi,

smpoole7’s right, you haven’t given us too much info to play with here. What hardware do you currently have (if anything)? Perhaps you could post your current hardware specifications here, or if you don’t have anything maybe post what you’re planning on getting or would like to get? You would probably need a Gigabit network card if you’re going to be sharing amongst 10 computers.

Pretty much any Linux distribution, in my view, would make a sufficient file server. The important thing is to get the right software tools for the job, and install/configure them properly. I’m sure the links provided by smpoole7 will give you enough information. Also, Linux in general tends to use less memory (amongst other hardware resources) in my experience than Windows which may make a difference when transferring large amounts of data through the network.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Jon.

4

You didn’t say what type: for Windows PCs, Linux PCs, or both?

Both. And this is a most reason for doubts. Why? Because i don’t know what speed difference between SAMBA server and Windows server.
another words:

Linux server with samba for Windows-based computers is slower than Windows native server, ?

Linux machines work through NFS - and me sure - this is the fastest solution.
Windows machines of course work through SMB - and this is a little bit slower (or not ?)

On equivalent hardware, I think Linux is a smidge faster, but a lot of that depends on what you’re trying to do.

We work for commercial graphics. We use very many image sequences. All files for one project can summary take 10-20 Gb of Server disk space, and sometimes our LAN work really slow. Every minute someone work with server. 30-40 computers create a very intensive data flow all day time.

I’m just afraid losses of speed - between Windows clients and Linux SAMBA server. And if i’m not correct - say me please about this. Linux SMB is not slower than Windows native implementation ?

smpoole7’s right, you haven’t given us too much info to play with here. Perhaps you could post your current hardware specifications here, or if you don’t have anything maybe post what you’re planning on getting or would like to get?

I have server with Windows, but i can’t right now give full hardware specification. I write now from home. On Monday i read full specification, and write here.

Pretty much any Linux distribution, in my view, would make a sufficient file server.

… And this means that i can use OpenSUSE because last two years I work on it.

OpenSUSE is targeted more toward desktop users, but it makes a great server distro as well.

I use OpenSUSE as Desktop, and all good. I want try to create OpenSUSE Server.

Big thanks for greatest links! I see many really useful information there

5

I find some information about SAMBA speed tuning.

Chapter*45.*Samba Performance Tuning

6

Yes, with that kind of workload, you want to make sure that your hardware can cope with it (for sure no 100Mb connections will do; and fast disks), and to tune Samba well.

Big corporations like IBM support Samba development as a file server solution for Windows clients, so certainly Samba is up to it.

7

My current fileserver runs openSUSE 11.1.

Mainboard : ASUS M2A-VM
CPU : AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+
RAM : 2 x 1 GB (800 MHZ) - Dual channel
Graphic : on board Radeon X1200 (RS690)
Net Cards :

  • Intel Pro Gigabit
  • Realtek RTK8111/8168B 100 MB/s (on board)
    Harddisks : 2 x Western Digital 1 TB ( in raid 1)

No problem. I use it also as name and dhcp server.
NFS3 is fast as soon as the clients use the right mount options. It makes a huge difference in term of performance. I never tried NFS4 … I know, I should. Actually I did try but I wasn’t too happy with it.

8

ken_yap beat me to another very important point: if you’ve got several machines tossing 10-20 GB files around, don’t even think about 100-BaseT Ethernet. You need Gigabit.

While (speaking from experience) the file server itself doesn’t need to have the latest and greatest hardware, with that kind of demand, it can’t be an old Pentium II with 128 M of RAM, either. Obviously, it needs Gigabit NICs and it’ll need plenty of RAM to “buffer” requests.

Linux is extremely good at this sort of thing. (There’s a reason why Linux has become dominant in servers nowadays.) The only warning is that Samba can be a little temperamental to set up (particularly with permissions and access, especially at first), but once you get it running, it’s going to be ideal for this.

9

Maybe you can use swat to configure samba. It has a web interface. Some people find it userfriendly.
You will benefit from Gigabit NIC if your clients have a Gigabit NIC too and in case of a mixed 1GB/100MB lan, better get good switches. Also use cat6 or cat5e network cables rather than cat5.

10

Windows Server 2008 uses smb2 which should be faster than the first version of the protocol.

That said, my personal experience is that in general a Samba server is faster than a Windows server, probably because Windows is quite cluttered with all the additions they built around smb. On the other hand, administration tasks are often more straight forward on Windows but once you get the hang of it you’ll get the job done faster on Linux again.

And of course hardware matters, fast nic, fast switches, fast disks etc etc

11

A very big thanks for all answers and opinions, friends!

I test now performance of our LAN (read-write speed tests) and collect all this data in one document.

  1. My test is very simple. I mount windows share, and run
    dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024 count=2000000 of=/mnt/tmp/2GB.file

where /mnt/tmp - is a mount point of some Windows share. Now i have some table of collected LAN speed results.

I think this is a right test. Because when we work with graphics, we do permanent intensive read-write with server.

  1. I have question:

Quick look please to this FS comparison:
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/388

The best and fast choice FS for server, as i understand - is XFS, right? This is a old article, and have no results for EXT4. What you think about EXT4 for server FS ?

That said, my personal experience is that in general a Samba server is faster than a Windows server

Thanks you!

Maybe you can use swat to configure samba. It has a web interface. Some people find it userfriendly.
You will benefit from Gigabit NIC if your clients have a Gigabit NIC too and in case of a mixed 1GB/100MB lan, better get good switches. Also use cat6 or cat5e network cables rather than cat5.

Swat is a old good tool, thanks, sometimes i use it… About mixed lan and switches - this is a head pain really. Look to my table:

This is a quick test with 2Gb file creation through LAN (with “dd” command )
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/4346/picture1jj.jpg

this is a very basic quick LAN test between 2 Linux stations and 4 Windows machines. I think i need some time for understanding the topology of our LAN.

This out of my logic - the Line 9 and Line 11. Something is really wrong with our LAN. Linuxdesk1 and win-desk1 and win-desk2 have equivalent hardware (8core xeon, 8 Gb ram and quadro FX1400 video card). May be some troubles with switches… :confused:

ken_yap beat me to another very important point: if you’ve got several machines tossing 10-20 GB files around, don’t even think about 100-BaseT Ethernet. You need Gigabit.

This is a question of my experience. I have no certificates about Linux skills, and i must test first, then i can say to boss “ok. test is nice - now we need to buy switches, and hardware for server!”. I need some time for testing hardware that is now available :slight_smile:

Look to my quick test table - this is terrible results. All so-workers is sure about idea “we have Gigabit LAN!”. My table is show another things… :confused:

NFS3 is fast as soon as the clients use the right mount options. It makes a huge difference in term of performance. I never tried NFS4 … I know, I should. Actually I did try but I wasn’t too happy with it.

I use NFS3 - this look really fast. From Linux to Linux machine. (string 3) LinuxNode09 - is QuadCore and LinuxDesk - is 8core xeon.

I think my most problem now - is some LAN chaos… Look to table… 2.7 Mb/sec and 50 Mb/sec speeds… This is not normal… :confused:

12

Interesting. I search more info about smb2 and found something:

http://samba.org/samba/ftp/rc/WHATSNEW-3-5-0rc2.txt

               ================================
               Release Notes for Samba 3.5.0rc2
  	   January 26, 2010
               ================================

Major enhancements in Samba 3.5.0 include:
Protocol changes:
o Experimental implementation of SMB2

This is about SMB2:
SMB2: a Complete Redesign of the Main Remote File Protocol for Windows - Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft

SMB2 brought a number of improvements, including but not limited to:

* Reduced complexity, going from over 100 commands and subcommands to just 19 (see details below)
* General mechanisms for data pipelining and credit-based flow control (see details below)
* Request compounding, which allows multiple SMB requests to be sent as a single network request(see details below)
* Larger reads and writes make better use of faster networks, even with high latency
* Caching of folder and file properties, where clients keeps local copy of information on folders and files
* Durable handles allow an SMB2 connection to transparently reconnect to the server if there is a temporary loss of network connectivity
* Message signing improved (HMAC SHA-256 replaces MD5 as hashing algorithm) and configuration/interoperability issues simplified
* Improved scalability for file sharing (number of users, shares and open files per server greatly increased)
* Protocol works well with Network Address Translation (VC count is gone)
* Extension mechanism (for instance, create context or variable offsets)
* Support for symbolic links

It is important to highlight that, to ensure interoperability, SMB2 uses the existing SMB1 connection setup mechanisms, and then advertises that it is capable of a new version of the protocol. Because of that, if the opposite end does not support SMB2, SMB1 will be used.

And this small nice article, of course:

  1. Exploit published for SMB2 vulnerability in Windows - The H Security: News and Features
  2. Vista/2008/Windows 7 SMB2 BSOD 0Day

I think, SMB2 implementation need more time, and not only in Samba. Windows SMB2 is too “young” also.

Nice source for reading, who interested about SMB2, CIFS and NFS4.0:

13

A couple of things: pointing to GB-network cards is one thing, but you need the proper cabling. Normal cat5 won’t do, tried, tested, does not work. We changed to cat6 ethernet, now it’s all superfast. The server does about the same thing: intensive read-write operations on large amounts of files ( 30-40GB projects).
So, yes, if you change to GB-ethernet, replace cables, switches, routers etc.

14

The thing that hasn’t been mentioned, so far, in this thread is for how long the version that you use gets security updates. Traditionally, server-orientated distros give you a longer period of time for which they will promises security updates.

So, what are you going to do when security updates run out? Run with something with known (to someone, maybe not to you) exploits out there? Not a good option.

OK, maybe you’ll rebuild your server to the newer version. Well, you’ll want to re-validate that everything works. Fortunately, if the only thing that you do is to serve files, and you don’t have a shed-load of protocols to support, that might not take too long. But you’ll need your production box and your test server for that period, if nothing else, just in case you build something up and it doesn’t work as planned.

So, how often do you want to do this? for most people the answer would be ‘As infrequently as possible, please.’

The best and fast choice FS for server, as i understand - is XFS, right? This is a old article, and have no results for EXT4. What you think about EXT4 for server FS ?

The more that you know about this, the more that you’ll know that you don’t know. Almost every FS has some point of advantage of all of the other FSs, and almost every one has something that they do less well. You can look at benchmarking information for a general indication, but you probably won’t know how well the data you have applies to the situation that you are in.

Fortunately, you seem to have primarily large files to deal with (and they aren’t database files), so you might find that there is one best answer for your particular situation (I just don’t know which it would be).

Also, there is probably at least a little mileage in tuning the particular FS type (and worrying about the tradeoffs in the stuff that makes your FS faster) and the more advanced filesystem types tend to have more options for tuning performance.

Ext4 may well be stable enough for you at this stage, I don’t know. I suspect that when I think about this, if a shiver goes down my spine and I break out into a cold sweat if someone mentions data loss, I’d still stick to ext3 instead, just at the moment. And ext3 might allow a cleaner upgrade path to BTRFS, but that really isn’t a step I’d want to take just yet.

15

One point not mentioned is the freedom
from Windoze viruses you will gain
by using linux as a file server. And
the scripting environment of ksh or
bash is much better for Continuity Of Business
archiving and file management.

16

markone,

Thanks for answer.

  1. Some things about updates: I use OpenSUSE 2 years, and i really like what i see. I sure, if openSUSE community will continue this way of development, then openSUSE remains the world best Linux distributive. OpenSUSE have a long way, as i can see, and i thinks, my choice is right. Discontinued support - is really pain. I think this is are not about OpenSUSE. About FC - may be.

  2. Thanks for opinion about Ext4. I really afraid data loss too. And i think about XFS. Im sure about XFS - old, fast and stable. I have some experience with XFS and EXT3, and no experience with EXT4. Im sure - XFS.

  3. Knurpht,

So, yes, if you change to GB-ethernet, replace cables, switches, routers etc.

Sure. I found strange troubles in our jungle-LAN: periodically, some host turn to 100 Mb connection, then after some time - back to 1Gb. Our administrator say about broken switches, and he start to search. You right. Our LAN is need more time and love, of course.

  1. And today we start backup all 4 Tb data from old server to disk storage. Tomorrow, i think, i start setup our new OpenSUSE 11.2 file server for graphics projects.

Thanks all. I will write about results later :slight_smile:

17

i can now answer - this is a possible :slight_smile:

  1. 2.7 Tb raid 5 storage formatted as ext4

  2. another 40 Gb HDD, with / and /home and swap partitions.

  3. Server is member of MS domain, and Server shares used between Windows domain users trough CIFS, and linux “nodes” trough NFS. (this is a hell when permission conflicts between NFS users, and MS users. But i solve this.)

  4. Server work in runlevel 3, and many other services. Just firewall, nfs server, smb server, winbind and some others.

  5. i have just one hardware problem. This is about server ancient motherboard Intel D975XBX2 and Core 2 Quad 6600 problems (only 1 core without videocard, and 3 cores with videocard) - this is a problem of x86_64 applications and this motherboard. But i think i must write another thread about this.

All ok, server up and running fine. All tests passed.