Advice for New Machine

Kenn_Crocker · March 13, 2009, 6:45pm

To all (especially Jesse and Ruslan),

I have been given the opportunity to have a new development zone created for RT. I was asked if I wanted the new zone to be Linux or Solaris based. So, all you gurus out there, what's best? I know that most of this stuff was designed for Solaris, but is everything going toward Linux now? If I am going to move forward with RT, and I CERTAINLY AM, which would be best? Is it easier to do upgrades on Solaris as opposed to Linux? What about contributions like "CommanByMail"? In fact, as some of you have seen my latest trouble getting "ComandByMail to even install on my current zone, my old, old, old zone is the reason I am being given this new development zone. I can set it up any way I want and I WANT it to be set up so that installing RT and future upgrades will be simpler and easier than it has for me in the past.
So, Any advice? Thanks.

Kenn
LBNL

Hossein_Rafighi · March 13, 2009, 6:55pm

Hi,

Is there a way to move tickets between queues via email? We can open,
reply, resolve/close them via email, but I don’t know of any ways to
move them between queues except through CLI and web interface.

Thanks in advance for your reply, – and cheers,
Hossein

_____ _____ _____ _ _ _ _ ____ Hossein Rafighi
|_ || _ \ | || | | || _/ || __|TRIUMF, 4004 Wesbrook Mall
| | | || ) | | | | | || || |__ Vancouver BC, Canada, V6T 2A3
| | | _ / | | | _/ || _/ || |Voice: (604) 222-1047
| | | | \ \ | | | || | | || | Fax: (604) 222-1074
|| || _|_| _/ || |||_| Website: http://www.triumf.ca

John_Arends1 · March 13, 2009, 7:25pm

I have a bias towards Linux for this purpose. RT seems to be pushing the
envelope with bleeding edge everything, and Solaris and bleeding edge
don’t mix.

Kenneth F Crocker wrote:

To all (especially Jesse and Ruslan),

I have been given the opportunity to have a new development zone created for RT. I was asked if I wanted the new zone to be Linux or Solaris based. So, all you gurus out there, what's best? I know that most of this stuff was designed for Solaris, but is everything going toward Linux now? If I am going to move forward with RT, and I CERTAINLY AM, which would be best? Is it easier to do upgrades on Solaris as opposed to Linux? What about contributions like "CommanByMail"? In fact, as some of you have seen my latest trouble getting "ComandByMail to even install on my current zone, my old, old, old zone is the reason I am being given this new development zone. I can set it up any way I want and I WANT it to be set up so that installing RT and future upgrades will be simpler and easier than it has for me in the past.
So, Any advice? Thanks.

Kenn
LBNL

The rt-users Archives

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John Arends jarends@illinois.edu
Network Analyst
College of ACES - ITCS
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Kenn_Crocker · March 13, 2009, 7:43pm

John,

Thanks. That's sounds like a good thing to keep in mind. Anyone else?

Kenn
LBNLOn 3/13/2009 12:25 PM, John Arends wrote:

I have a bias towards Linux for this purpose. RT seems to be pushing the
envelope with bleeding edge everything, and Solaris and bleeding edge
don’t mix.

Kenneth F Crocker wrote:
To all (especially Jesse and Ruslan),
I have been given the opportunity to have a new development zone created for RT. I was asked if I wanted the new zone to be Linux or Solaris based. So, all you gurus out there, what's best? I know that most of this stuff was designed for Solaris, but is everything going toward Linux now? If I am going to move forward with RT, and I CERTAINLY AM, which would be best? Is it easier to do upgrades on Solaris as opposed to Linux? What about contributions like "CommanByMail"? In fact, as some of you have seen my latest trouble getting "ComandByMail to even install on my current zone, my old, old, old zone is the reason I am being given this new development zone. I can set it up any way I want and I WANT it to be set up so that installing RT and future upgrades will be simpler and easier than it has for me in the past.
So, Any advice? Thanks.
Kenn
LBNL

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jul · March 13, 2009, 7:55pm

Ken Crocker a ï¿½crit :

John,

Thanks. That's sounds like a good thing to keep in mind. Anyone else?

Yes :
3 servers :

for RT ;
one for the DB (if you plan postgres or oracle) (I recommend Pg) so
that you can tune it easily (sysctl in kernel will impact all the
processes, and that’s normal, but what suits DB does not suits apache or
other programs)
one for Backup (optional but a good idea)

FreeBsd is as a good choice as debian ; I use both, and there are some
interests in both. Don’t even think of using RedHat for the support since
there is a 99% chance you’ll install custom perl package that will ruin
your support.

Plan to tune apache and do a little perl.
Have fun

Jul

Gary_Greene · March 13, 2009, 8:00pm

-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of jul
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 12:56 PM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Advice for New Machine

Ken Crocker a écrit :
John,
Thanks. That's sounds like a good thing to keep in 
mind. Anyone else?

Yes :
3 servers :

for RT ;

one for the DB (if you plan postgres or oracle) (I recommend Pg) so
that you can tune it easily (sysctl in kernel will impact all the
processes, and that’s normal, but what suits DB does not
suits apache or
other programs)

one for Backup (optional but a good idea)

FreeBsd is as a good choice as debian ; I use both, and there are some
interests in both. Don’t even think of using RedHat for the
support since
there is a 99% chance you’ll install custom perl package that
will ruin
your support.

Plan to tune apache and do a little perl.
Have fun

Jul

I would go CentOS for the machine if you’re a RH person, since it is practically the same thing, and there are more than a few of us CentOS users running RT with our own RPMs.

Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Tel: (408) 240-1239
Cell: (650) 704-6633

John_Arends1 · March 13, 2009, 8:16pm

Gary Greene wrote:

I would go CentOS for the machine if you’re a RH person, since it is
practically the same thing, and there are more than a few of us CentOS
users running RT with our own RPMs.

What version of RT are you running on top of CentOS? With 3.8.2 there
are so many dependencies it seems to be a near impossible task to build
RPMs for all the required perl modules. I’ve been playing with the
script included with RT and it does a pretty good job of pulling
everything down from CPAN and installing it.

Kenn_Crocker · March 13, 2009, 8:22pm

John,

We are currently running 3.6.4, but DESPERATELY want to upgrade to

3.8.2. Hence the desire to get this new zone set up right FIRST, before
trying to upgrade. We are an Oracle house, so that’s not on the table.
So far, I’m leaning toward Linux, but I haven’t heard from Jesse or
Ruslan, Stephen Turner, Joop, or Mike Peachy or any of the more
experienced players yet. I’m actually starting to get excited.

Kenn
LBNLOn 3/13/2009 1:16 PM, John Arends wrote:

Gary Greene wrote:

I would go CentOS for the machine if you’re a RH person, since it is
practically the same thing, and there are more than a few of us CentOS
users running RT with our own RPMs.

What version of RT are you running on top of CentOS? With 3.8.2 there
are so many dependencies it seems to be a near impossible task to build
RPMs for all the required perl modules. I’ve been playing with the
script included with RT and it does a pretty good job of pulling
everything down from CPAN and installing it.

The rt-users Archives

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Sean5 · March 13, 2009, 8:26pm

Gary Greene wrote:

I would go CentOS for the machine if you’re a RH person, since it is
practically the same thing, and there are more than a few of us CentOS
users running RT with our own RPMs.

What version of RT are you running on top of CentOS? With 3.8.2 there
are so many dependencies it seems to be a near impossible task to build
RPMs for all the required perl modules. I’ve been playing with the
script included with RT and it does a pretty good job of pulling
everything down from CPAN and installing it.

We recently updated from 3.6 to 3.8. I tried to get 3.8.2 going in an
OpenSolaris (snv_101) zone and Ubuntu 8.10 (also tried Jaunty alpha)
server installation. Neither was anywhere close to a clean install, and
neither worked to my level of satisfaction. I ended up using a Gentoo
server. In my opinion, Gentoo and RT 3.8 is a pretty good match. Being a
source based distribution helps, I think.

Just my 2c.

-Sean

Kenn_Crocker · March 13, 2009, 8:38pm

Sean,

Can I assume your voting for Linux?

KennOn 3/13/2009 1:26 PM, Sean wrote:

On Fri, 2009-03-13 at 15:16 -0500, John Arends wrote:

Gary Greene wrote:

I would go CentOS for the machine if you’re a RH person, since it is
practically the same thing, and there are more than a few of us CentOS
users running RT with our own RPMs.

What version of RT are you running on top of CentOS? With 3.8.2 there
are so many dependencies it seems to be a near impossible task to build
RPMs for all the required perl modules. I’ve been playing with the
script included with RT and it does a pretty good job of pulling
everything down from CPAN and installing it.

We recently updated from 3.6 to 3.8. I tried to get 3.8.2 going in an
OpenSolaris (snv_101) zone and Ubuntu 8.10 (also tried Jaunty alpha)
server installation. Neither was anywhere close to a clean install, and
neither worked to my level of satisfaction. I ended up using a Gentoo
server. In my opinion, Gentoo and RT 3.8 is a pretty good match. Being a
source based distribution helps, I think.

Just my 2c.

-Sean

The rt-users Archives

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Buy a copy at http://rtbook.bestpractical.com

Potla_Ashish_Bassali · March 13, 2009, 8:37pm

I am in the process of upgrading RT 3.6.5 to RT 3.8.2 . In fact I have it set up in Dev arena and waiting for user testing before I move it to production by the end of the month probably… hopefully

I use Solaris , Apache2 with mod_perl2 and DB on Oracle.
Doesnt seem too bad

-AshishFrom: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com [rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Sean [sean@ttys0.net]
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 1:56 AM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Advice for New Machine

Gary Greene wrote:

I would go CentOS for the machine if you’re a RH person, since it is
practically the same thing, and there are more than a few of us CentOS
users running RT with our own RPMs.

What version of RT are you running on top of CentOS? With 3.8.2 there
are so many dependencies it seems to be a near impossible task to build
RPMs for all the required perl modules. I’ve been playing with the
script included with RT and it does a pretty good job of pulling
everything down from CPAN and installing it.

We recently updated from 3.6 to 3.8. I tried to get 3.8.2 going in an
OpenSolaris (snv_101) zone and Ubuntu 8.10 (also tried Jaunty alpha)
server installation. Neither was anywhere close to a clean install, and
neither worked to my level of satisfaction. I ended up using a Gentoo
server. In my opinion, Gentoo and RT 3.8 is a pretty good match. Being a
source based distribution helps, I think.

Just my 2c.

-Sean
http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-users

Community help: http://wiki.bestpractical.com
Commercial support: sales@bestpractical.com

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Tom_Lahti · March 13, 2009, 8:50pm

I am running RT 3.8.2 on Slackware 12.0. I originally installed
3.6. and upgraded to 3.8.0 and then 3.8.2. The original install was
perfectly clean; no mess, no fuss. Upgrades were equally simple, once I
figured to actually do all of the upgrade and not just part of it.

– ============================
Tom Lahti
BIT Statement LLC

(425)251-0833 x 117
http://www.bitstatement.net/
– ============================

Sean5 · March 13, 2009, 8:54pm

Can I assume your voting for Linux?

Within the context of RT I don’t understand what “voting for Linux” is
supposed to mean. RT doesn’t care about what kernel is running. It only
cares about the supporting software, which itself is also independent of
the kernel.

Based on my experience, I believe a source-based distribution is the
best way to go, unless somebody wants to hand build every necessary
component, starting with perl and apache. That is something I
considered, but the maintenance involved with that kind of environment
is not something I wanted to tackle.

I have a lot of familiarity with the portage package management system
of Gentoo, which is why I chose it. It just so happens that the Gentoo
distribution is primarily a Linux based distribution. But the running
kernel played little to no role in my choice.

I suspect using ports with a FreeBSD platform would work just as well
for someone who is familiar with ports. It’s not about the kernel, it’s
about the software environment. In my opinion a software environment
with a source based package management system is the best option because
of all the different software pieces required for RT to function
optimally.

-Sean

Cassandra_L_Brockett · March 13, 2009, 8:59pm

When it comes to RT, I actually run a mixed approach.

I run a standard distro (in the case here Ubuntu Server 8 LTS), for things like apache, perl, etc. However once the basic system is installed, with the necessary build utilities (GCC, etc), I then compile RT from source.

Cass-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com [mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf Of Sean
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 1:55 PM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Advice for New Machine

Can I assume your voting for Linux?

Within the context of RT I don’t understand what “voting for Linux” is supposed to mean. RT doesn’t care about what kernel is running. It only cares about the supporting software, which itself is also independent of the kernel.

Based on my experience, I believe a source-based distribution is the best way to go, unless somebody wants to hand build every necessary component, starting with perl and apache. That is something I considered, but the maintenance involved with that kind of environment is not something I wanted to tackle.

I have a lot of familiarity with the portage package management system of Gentoo, which is why I chose it. It just so happens that the Gentoo distribution is primarily a Linux based distribution. But the running kernel played little to no role in my choice.

I suspect using ports with a FreeBSD platform would work just as well for someone who is familiar with ports. It’s not about the kernel, it’s about the software environment. In my opinion a software environment with a source based package management system is the best option because of all the different software pieces required for RT to function optimally.

-Sean

http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-users

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Gary_Greene · March 13, 2009, 9:44pm

-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf
Of John Arends
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 1:16 PM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Advice for New Machine

Gary Greene wrote:

I would go CentOS for the machine if you’re a RH person,
since it is
practically the same thing, and there are more than a few
of us CentOS
users running RT with our own RPMs.

What version of RT are you running on top of CentOS? With 3.8.2 there
are so many dependencies it seems to be a near impossible
task to build
RPMs for all the required perl modules. I’ve been playing with the
script included with RT and it does a pretty good job of pulling
everything down from CPAN and installing it.

3.8.1, I’ve yet to update to 3.8.2

Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Tel: (408) 240-1239
Cell: (650) 704-6633

Joop · March 13, 2009, 9:53pm

Ken Crocker wrote:

John,
We are currently running 3.6.4, but DESPERATELY want to upgrade to 
3.8.2. Hence the desire to get this new zone set up right FIRST, before
trying to upgrade. We are an Oracle house, so that’s not on the table.
So far, I’m leaning toward Linux, but I haven’t heard from Jesse or
Ruslan, Stephen Turner, Joop, or Mike Peachy or any of the more
experienced players yet. I’m actually starting to get excited.

Now I feel compelled to reply
We’re an Oracle shop too and have a mixed environment of servers,
Windows, Linux, Solaris (8 on sparc). Some of our customers do run
Oracle on Windows, either virtualised or on real hardware, and recently
we have gone Centos4(5) in a virtualised environment. Sofar we like it.
Currently we’re running our RT installation (3.8.2) on Ubuntu using
Oracle XE but thats going to be migrated to Centos too. There is a known
problem with Centos and RT but knowing it makes it no problem. Now we’re
a small shop probably compared to some of the people on this list, you
included so I don’t have to maintain 20+ servers with a small problem
which then mostly becomes a BIG problem.

So if you have access to half a decent PC you could install VMware or
VirtualBox or name you’re favorite and play around with it. To give you
some guidance about how long things take:
takes me about 30min to setup a centos4/5 server, mostly default
settings, about 30-60min to setup Oracle 10g and probably about the same
amount of time to install RT and thats mostly waiting for cpan to
install things.
Now I have done this quite a few times so be prepared if you’re really a
noob on linux/solaris commandline stuff (that is DEFINITELY not meant to
be negative to you)

So bottom line is I would go for Linux except when you need things
unique to Solaris (zfs,dtrace,zones,??).
Ubuntu is bleeding edge, Centos is ‘conservative’, RH get you support
(payed well probably), Suse ? (no experience, other then that its the
basis of our virtualisation layer)

If you need more help, either virtual or real, just let me know,

Joop

Gary_Greene · March 13, 2009, 10:04pm

-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf
Of Gary Greene
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 2:44 PM
To: John Arends; rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Advice for New Machine

-----Original Message-----
From: rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com
[mailto:rt-users-bounces@lists.bestpractical.com] On Behalf
Of John Arends
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 1:16 PM
To: rt-users@lists.bestpractical.com
Subject: Re: [rt-users] Advice for New Machine

Gary Greene wrote:

I would go CentOS for the machine if you’re a RH person,
since it is
practically the same thing, and there are more than a few
of us CentOS
users running RT with our own RPMs.

What version of RT are you running on top of CentOS? With
3.8.2 there
are so many dependencies it seems to be a near impossible
task to build
RPMs for all the required perl modules. I’ve been playing with the
script included with RT and it does a pretty good job of pulling
everything down from CPAN and installing it.

3.8.1, I’ve yet to update to 3.8.2

Also I forgot to mention, I cheat a little with building RPMs by using the cpan2rpm script and then hand mod the specs that it generates to build reliable packages.

Gary L. Greene, Jr.
IT Operations
Minerva Networks, Inc.
Tel: (408) 240-1239
Cell: (650) 704-6633

Jay_R_Ashworth · March 14, 2009, 7:47pm

I have been given the opportunity to have a new development zone
created for RT. I was asked if I wanted the new zone to be Linux or
Solaris based. So, all you gurus out there, what’s best?

Sorry to be so late chiming in on this, Ken; I’ve been following it on my
blackberry, but building a new 175 seat facility, and a bit tied up.
Here’s my humble opinion of the answer to your question, based on 25 years
of sysadminning:

What’s best is what you know. I believe I’ve heard you say that you aren’t
a particularly Unixy guy. As a fallback, then, what’s best is what they
develop on. If you plan to need advice, and you have a clear field to build
in and no local talent with expertise, then what you should pick is the same
environment in which the lead developer, or the active developers most active
in giving advice, work themselves – as their advice will then be most portable
to what you’re doing.

I think for this crowd that that implies at least Linux, over BSD or
Polaris, and also MySQL over PG – I understand PG is now at least a semi-
officially supported distro, which it was not back in 3.2 days when I was
trying to go there.

Precisely which distro, I’m not sure, but I would say you picked the right
list of people to poll.

As I believe you’ve inferred, though, RT, like WebGUI and a couple of other
packages, is now large and complicated enough that you don’t want to be trying
to share a machine with any other large subsystems. It’s the dirty little
secret of componentized software that dependency hell works in more than one
way. Once packages get complicated enough in their dependencies, they tend
to collide with one another when you try to co-reside them.

WebGUI is bad enough that it brings along everything: its own perl, its
own Apache, etc, etc, ad frickin nauseum.

And yet it’s worth it.

Cheers,
– jra
Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com
Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274

I wondered "Why is that Frisbee getting bigger?"  And then it hit me.