Am I using the right distro?

Seeing things like the free Ksplice Uptrack service for Ubuntu, I'm really starting to wonder if I'm using the right distro, on servers. Debian is my current preference, and has been for quite a while.

Ksplice is a product/project I've been interested in for quite sometime, but I've always had a bit of a problem with the implementation. I try and keep on top of vulns for as many as the products that I support at work, and personally, but inevitably I do miss things. The Uptrack service seems to solve this, but as an individual I couldn't justify what I suspect is a non-trivial cost for my Debian boxes.

So, as Ubuntu is Debian based, and the Canonical server team seems to hold a lot of the same values as the Debian team and myself, am I still using the right distro for the times? More importantly, is Debian destined to be nothing more than "meta-distro"[1] in the future[2]?

[1] A distro from which other distros are built.
[2] Given the number of distros which now depend on Debian, and the size and number of skilled people who contribute it, I don't believe that Debian will be going away any time in the future, nor can I see it's usage as a standalone distro diminishing to 0, I can see it shrinking with time. Especially if we keep seeing free/low cost, integrated, collateral services.

Server Naming Schemes & IP Assignments

It seems that I've only ever hinted to my current host naming scheme, and that was all the way back in 2007.

If you're not familiar with the concept of hostnames (for those non-techies out there), then a hostname is exactly what it sounds like. How we refer to a specific device on the network. You'll see lots of different schemes and there's not really a right or a wrong way of doing it in my opinion. It very much matters on your circumstances.

It was reading Geoff's post on hostnames that brought this up and made me smile for two reasons:

  1. We both use a very similar scheme (elements from the periodic table)
  2. He's got an extended scheme which helps him classify a host, based on the name.

Whilst I applaud the naming convention (mostly because I use it) and the shortening factor (which until now I really hadn't considered), I do wonder about the IP assignment. If you've not read the article it boils down to Geoff using the element's atomic number to define the host part of the IP address. For small networks assigning IPs in some sort of arrangement like this is fine. Especially in the context of a personal one. It's fun and easy to remember if you've got a periodic table handy. Or you just happen to be a complete element nut, know it off the top of your head.

But in the real world, it all seems a bit dirty. I've heard of all sorts of schemes that people use internally - from the host portion of IP addresses relating to rack and position within that rack, to using an entire /16 and arranging the addressing based on the role, with massive gaps between the assigned addresses. As nice as it seems on first glance, it can become painful when expanding. There are obvious benefits of splitting your address space - Geoff Huston has a great article on it - but it strikes me that you need to be careful that you don't take it a little bit too far. After all, who really enjoys renumbering a network?

LigHTTPD: Undecided

I've been using Apache longer and across more platforms, than almost any other single item of software. However, as I'm going through the process of moving server provider I thought that I'd give LigHTTPD (lighty) a go. After all it's an interesting bit of code that's gaining some use.

The main problem was, unsurprisingly, letting go of my Apache-isms. The configuration styles are radically different, and whilst I do like the LigHTTPD style something about it seems a bit... well messy. I expect the lighty hordes to blast me now, and I suppose thats sort of what I deserve. After all on initial inspection the lighty config is much shorter and arguably much more concise.

Or is it? Given the scripted-like nature of it's config you can acheive the same configuration in a number of different ways, some which appear (I've no solid numbers at all to back this up, it's all down to my perception for now) to have better performance than others.

I'll carry on with lighty for now on my personal server, and delve into how it all fits together. But after spending an evening with it, I'm not exactly sure that we've clicked.