FreeBSD5.1 Vinum Mirror root

[Richard Johannesson]

Machine will run one copy of FreeBSD5.1 and has three hard drives: 2 x 200GB
and 1 x 100GB drives. I was planning to use the 100GB for backup to store
dump images of this machine. The 200GB drives are mirrored root vinum
volumes - however that is accomplished.

The purposed of the machine:
 - Backup server
   + Stores dump images of 5 web servers
 - Web server configuration & website version control
   + Should store the configuration files of each web server
   + Web pages are published to this server
     * Each webserver should sync its config files and webpages with this
       configuration server - not sure which method is the best:
       rsync, cvsup, other?
 - Intranet webserver running apache
   Using mod_python + perl cgi
   Intranet Wiki Server to capture notes (twiki looks the best so far)
 - Keeps FreeBSD 5.1 up-to-date using cvsup nightly.
 - Build server
   Will keep kernel + apps up-to-date as needed
   Plan to have web server just run the make install via NFS from this
   build server

I know I'm asking too much of this machine, but that's why something like
vinum should be on it. Clearly, reliability is paramount.

Is there ever an advantage of having two slices for a drive when running
just one copy of FreeBSD on there? So, let's say split the 200GB into two
slices. First will have the standard partitions /, /var, /tmp, swap, /usr.
Then have /data on 2nd slice. What's the disadvantage of doing this? How
will this affect vinum - better or worse?

I understand that having more unix partitions might help limit data
corruption if the machine crashes. So was planning to split things up into
partitions as the following: / - 256MB, swap - 512MB, /var - 1GB, /tmp -
256MB, /usr - 198GB (rest).

Should these partitions be done under ufs2 and then put vinum on each, or
should I just have one giant root drive and then have vinum split things up?
Given vinum is dependent on ufs, the corruption issue probably still holds
true. Is there a choice - in other words have one big unix filesystem and
use vinum to partition or have many unix partitions and each one is
transitioned into a vinum volume?

Sorry for long post - just lot's of things trying to figure out. Would
appreciate any comments / advice on any particular point. Clearly a FreeBSD
newbie, but been going through the books and trying to figure this thing
out.

Richard

Fed up with RedHat and found the power of FreeBSD, but power = complexity. 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Tillman
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 9:03 AM
To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: FreeBSD5.1 Vinum Mirror root

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 09:57:23PM -0700, Richard Johannesson wrote:
> Is this second method outdate, or is there simply several ways to
accomplish
> this task. I'm new to FreeBSD, so setting up vinum seems a little
> overwhelming. Just trying to mirror a 200GB root drive with another 200GB
> drive.

Just out of curiosity, why would you want a 200GB root (/) file system?
My sloppiest server consumes 54MB in /.

-T


-- 
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out alive.
	- Robert Heinlein
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