From 7b1816e5fc469988f34452cfc154312fec173410 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Gibheer Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 16:34:59 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] add post 130 --- content/index.md | 1 + content/post/130.md | 74 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 75 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/post/130.md diff --git a/content/index.md b/content/index.md index 8deed49..95215ce 100644 --- a/content/index.md +++ b/content/index.md @@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ template = "index.html" This blog is maintained by [Gibheer](/author/Gibheer) and [Stormwind](/author/Stormwind) about various topics. + * [one yeart with Archlinux on a server](post/130.html) * [dual boot with root on ZFS](post/129.html) * [leaving FreeBSD for Archlinux](post/128.html) * [link summary 2016/07/08](post/127.html) diff --git a/content/post/130.md b/content/post/130.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b78b92 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/post/130.md @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ ++++ +title = "one year with Archlinux on a server" +date = "2023-09-18T19:00:00+00:00" +author = "Gibheer" ++++ + +It is now more than a year gone by since I left behind FreeBSD to run everything +on Archlinux. + +So how is it going? + +the first 6 months +----------------- + +The first 6 months went rather well and I mostly set the system up in a way +how I always wanted it. +Parts of the stack got split into machined instances, network was fine and I was +finally didn't have to build new packages all the time but instead ran +the update command once every week. + +ZFSonLinux gave me a bit of trouble a couple of times but that went away after +I switched to the linux-lts package for the lts Kernel. + +Archlinux also wasn't the best for running Postgres. But I made do with packaging +my own version of Postgres, each major version into its own package series. +This way I can update minor versions and don't loose my database instance with +major version updates. + +For certificate management I was using acme-tiny. To automate it a bit further +I wrote myself a small wrapper called [certmgmt](https://git.zero-knowledge.org/gibheer/certmgmt). + +the later 6 months +------------------ + +The later 6 months were a bit of a sad phase. I got tired of always taking care +of 20 machined instances. +There were also some changes in a couple services I've run that required more +care than I wanted to invest. + +One of these things was taking care of certificates. Sometimes the certificate +management broke out of the blue and caused some unnecessary downtime. + +So I moved some websites that were php based before into static websites and +replaced nginx with caddy to take care of certificate management. +Not all went well, but at the moment, everything works better than before. + +So now I am down to only 5 machined instances. It is by far much less work +overall and much less breakage. +It could probably work better if I automated the update and installation +process a bit. I have some ideas on how to do that, but I am missing the time. + +Is it better? +------------- + +But is it better overall? In comparison to the FreeBSD setup I had before, it +feels better and more stable. +Until now I only had one kernel issue with ZFS, which was resolved by switching +to the LTS kernel. +But being able to utilize systemd with all its features definitely helped a lot. + +Would I ever go back to FreeBSD? + +If I would be able to run systemd (or a similar tool with very good tooling) +on FreeBSD, I think I would switch back instantly. +I miss pf and some of the really good tools of FreeBSD, but the quality of +Archlinux and systemd is definitely there. + +And who knows, maybe the next cow Filesystem [bcachefs](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git/commit/?id=94dd1c72d0e882ffd01f929daf06c38924d8447b) makes ZFS obsolete on +Linux. +It would be sad, because running [multiple OS' from one zpool](129.md) is working great, +but sadly that isn't needed as often. + +But it would be nice if FreeBSD could make some kind of come back, just to keep +the competition alive.