1. Why we are switching to Slackware
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com>
Chief System Architect of SiteGround.com
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
2. Currently we support 3 operating sytems:
CentOS 5.x
CentOS 6.x
Our BaseOS
which is based on CentOS 5
has quite a few newer(latest version packafes)
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
3. We have a lot of software that we support inhouse
The most prominent are:
Apache (with lots of our own modules)
Nginx (with our own modules)
PureFTPd
Exim
Crond
OpenSSH
LXC + CRIU
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
4. New software
We had to build “some” new versions of
curl
wget
php
perl
python
They all required rebuilding openssl.
then the GCC became too old
then something else broke. . .
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
5. So why Slackware
One of the few non-systemd distributions
Rolling upgrades
Easy package management
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
6. Non-systemd? Why?
Systemd introduces more complexity
Systemd is incompatible with out cgroup scheme
We would need to recompile it without the chroot protection
We have our own monitoring system - Guardian
Integrating Guardian with systemd is pointless
Both overlap in functionality
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
8. Systemd distributions that we considered
CentOS 7
Debian Stable/Testing
ArchLinux
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
9. Upgrades 1/2
Upgrading distribution is a pain
No easy way of keeping multiple versions of a library
like openssl and libcurl
Old software in the main repos
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
10. Upgrades 2/2
Even thou the software is secure, users require from us new
versions
newer apache
newer openssl
We also had to run very old software
like php 4.4, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
11. Package management 1/2
RPM caused us a lot of trouble
dependancy hell
pre/post install/upgrade script mismatches
inter-package locking in the scripts section
we were loosing more time trying to test and solve the above
problems then building the actual packages
Deb packages had the same problems
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
12. Package management 2/2
RPM/Deb distros require too many useless packages
cups, bluetooth, wifi
Slackware simpler “package managment” was what we were
looking for
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
13. The BaseOS
our BaseOS was based on CentOS 5
upgrading it is painful
we had to do it all in one, can’t do it package by package
supporting it is also a pain
if we switch to systemd distro
some packages become dependant on it
even if we don’t use it, we will need to build it
With slackware we would simply rsync a list of files inside the
baseos
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
14. The missing parts in Slackware
Slackware was missing per-file signatures
I added them :)
Easy repository management
what packages are newer in the repo
cache of that information
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
15. Security updates
Slackware security team is fast
It sometimes produces fixes to the packages even before
CentOS/Debian
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
16. Fin
Slackware would allow us to have:
smaller more compact distro for the LXC nodes
smaller more compact distro for the containers
rolling upgrades
easyer “package management”
We are switching to Slackware current
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware
17. Thank You
Thank You
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com>
Chief System Architect of SiteGround.com
Marian HackMan Marinov <mm@1h.com> Why we are switching to Slackware