[Imc-uk-process] SERVER PROPOSAL: the next steps

[MrDemeanour]

GarconDuMonde wrote:
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> 
> hi
> 
> Chris wrote:
>> I *totally* agree with Zak on this -- it's still not clear to me 
>> that the 6 month outage of the wiki wasn't caused by it running in 
>> a vserver and we don't want anything like this to happen to a Mir 
>> production server.
> 
> we had a bit of a discussion about this earlier on irc. just to 
> clarify... i said "virtual server" and not "vserver" as i am aware of
>  this concern (it's not just shared by chris).

Unfortunately I find this 'clarification' makes things more, not less,
confusing.

The term 'Virtual Server' (in a Linux context) seems to refer to a
method for clustering multiple physical hosts, so that they appear to
the network as a single host, with the aim of providing enhanced
performance and availability.

The term 'vserver' refers to a sort of up-market chroot, i.e. a way to
allow multiple services on a single physical box to share the same
kernel, but otherwise to run largely in isolation from one-another, in
particular under possibly quite different Linux distros. VServer is one
of a number of approaches to virtualisation, or 'VM' technology, on Linux.

I don't think anyone has been proposing any kind of clustering; nor did
I initially think that anyone had been refering to any particular
approach to virtualisation. I had supposed that references to 'virtual
server' and 'vserver' were both intended to refer generically to ways of
isolating services one from another, within the same box.

Is it only the virtualisation technology known as 'VServer' that Zak and
Chris are deprecating, or all forms of virtualisation? FWIW, my own view
is that any kind of virtualisation around Mir would be a bad idea, and
that Mir should be allowed to run unmolested, on a dedicated real
machine. I.e.: keep it simple, smartass.

-- 
Jack.