Koozali.org: home of the SME Server

Overall stability

Kingnubian

Overall stability
« on: November 07, 2002, 03:24:47 AM »
I am interested in setting up a few SME 5 boxes for myself and possibly clients. I would like user comments and observations concerning the stability of the servers. Speed, uptime and availability are the most important spects I'm interested in.

These systems would be 24/7 systems.


                                                             Kingnubian

Bill Talcott

Re: Overall stability
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2002, 06:53:04 PM »
I installed e-smith 4.12 on a Cyrix M300 (233MHz) with 64MB (an old PC we had sitting around) a while back when our NetWinder died. I've since upgraded to 5.0U6 and added many extras to it. It handles our LAN of 15 people for web, email, proxy, and our simple little website. I've never had a problem that wasn't caused by me, and it stays up for months at a time.

It really is amazing considering the cost and how open it is (basically any Linux program can run on it, some with more tweaking than others).

Nathan Fowler

Re: Overall stability
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2002, 07:06:04 PM »
Version:  
Highly Customized 4.1.2

Hardware:
Celeron 333, 256MB PC133, Two Quantum 1.2GB (Software Raid-1)

Hosting:
http://www.stickit.nu
http://www.rotarymiata.com
http://www.targetingcustomersafety.com
http://www.fbcra.org
http://www.shredmedia.com
http://www.kanseirotary.com
http://www.alchemyvideo.com
http://www.packetmail.net
http://www.buycat.net
http://www.sekluded.org
http://www.9sign.com


Primary Role:
Local Router
Webserver
Mailserver

Number of Mail Users:
+50 Users

Load averages:
10:00am  up 16 days, 17:01,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.06

Longest Uptime:
180 Days (reboot due to power failure)

User:  50+
Average Monthly Bandwidth:  
+2GB Recv
+1GB Sent

AVG HTTP Requests per month:
110,000 requests

Downtime due to software failure:
0 hours

Downtime due to power failure:
16 hours

Hope this helped,
Nathan

Tony Zakula

Re: Overall stability
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2002, 06:38:49 AM »
Nathan,

Out of curiosity, how big is your pipe coming into your server?  I have a 256k line upload and download and was wondering how many users it would support and how many web sites that kind of line could handle.  Thanks for any advice from your experience.

Tony Z

Nathan Fowler

Re: Overall stability
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2002, 07:34:35 AM »
ADSL, 1.5Mbit down, 256K up.

I've had to implement some QoS, with respect to FTP and HTTP.  I use mod_bandwidth to restrict (8Kb/sec) large downloads thanks to rotarymiata.com (AKA, Bandwidth hog).  I do a fair amount of bandwidth, almost constant usage with respect to smtp/pop3/pop3SSL/smtpSSL.

I think you can be comfortable hosting at least 4 "high_usage" sites without issues on a 256K pipe.

Also note that I am using mod_gzip, which effectively saves me at least 200+ MB/Month

Hope this helped,
Nathan

Graham

Re: Overall stability
« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2002, 03:18:26 PM »
Got a 10 user SME setup for a client - I aint had a call from them in 6 months

As they dont know anything about it [they think they are logging onto an NT PDC]
and I am still getting admin mails from the box I think its safe to assume this is a pretty reliable NOS / Distro !!!

Tony Zakula

Re: Overall stability
« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2002, 05:45:26 PM »
Nathan,

Thanks for the input.  It helps me out a lot as I consider my options and present them to the owners of the company.