Server issues?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Sep 8, 2017, at 11:48, Daniel J. Luke wrote:
> One solution might be to separate the build/distfile mirroring from the portfile mirroring. You could probably even do that by running separate rsync's for those on your home connection and doing some QoS setup to depref the build uploads (so they wouldn't block portfile updates).

I wouldn't know how to set up such QoS.

We did originally have FAU pulling multiple rsync modules at once. This resulted in a complete clogging of my upstream bandwidth, which resulted in downstream traffic stalling as well, which resulted in builds on the buildbot failing as they could not download the needed distfiles. To prevent this, FAU now does not attempt to pull multiple modules simultaneously, and my rsync server is configured to limit its upstream bandwidth to slightly below my upstream internet speed. If we allowed 2 concurrent rsync pulls, I would have to cut the rsync bandwidth limit in half, to prevent saturating the upstream, which would make uploading binaries to the public server twice as slow as it already is.


>> The buildbot setup currently consists of four Xserves and a Power Mac G5.
> 
> so ~ 1/4 cabinet?

I don't know. 1U for each Xserve (needs 4-post rack), plus a Power Mac G5 that is not designed to go in a rack.


>>>> My Internet connection is not consumer-class. If it were a consumer connection, it would be much faster and much cheaper, but ISPs does not allow running servers on consumer connections, so it is an expensive and slow business-class connection.
>>> 
>>> If we don't care about having static IP addresses for these machines, I have a 2 post rack in my basement that's mostly empty and a 1gig consumer connection that I'd be happy to share with the project.
>> 
>> Does your consumer Internet connection allow running a publicly-accessible server
> 
> yes, although running something like this would maybe require upgrading to a 'business' account (which they don't publish pricing for). I can ask.

Well, honestly, I'm not excited about sending my servers to someone else. And it would cost some money to ship, and there would be significant downtime while figuring out how to get everything back online at the new location. I might consider moving them to affordable colocation within driving distance of me, but I don't know where that would be. When I looked into it last year before deciding to host the servers at home, the cost to colocate was several times what I pay to have them at home.


>> We do currently have a single static IP with ports 80, 443, and 873 open for the buildbot web site and the rsync server. Although it is not entirely working at the moment, the server is also supposed to be sending emails on failed builds; my understanding is that sending mail from a dynamic address makes other servers more likely to classify the message as spam.
> 
> it shouldn't if it's set up correctly (ie. to relay through a smarthost).

I don't believe I currently have it set up that way. I know I experimented with it but don't think I ever got it to actually work. But if I can save the monthly cost of a static IP that would be good.