Tag Archives: Linux

Xen vs OpenVZ

Posted on July 15, 2013.

Some things I have been able to measure after I changed from OpenVZ to Xen.

BackupPC has 62 hosts reporting “Pool is 348.76GB comprising 2086499 files and 4369 directories” using 6.5mil inodes on XFS on its own separate set of disks.

Load during BackupPC usage on OpenVZ used to send the host into a frenzy of 10+, with the guest at 2-3. Whilst BackupPC was running, all guests felt sluggish.
Load with Xen has the host and all other VMs completely unaffected, and the guest at 3-5.

BackupPC nightly takes 2x the time on Xen than it does on OpenVZ. I have adjusted the nightly to be split up over 2 days instead of all in 1.

All backups are taking ~20% longer with Xen.

Memory usage on the host with OpenVZ used to climb to 12GB+ (out of 16GB total) when BackupPC nightly was running, and then slowly dissipate during the day. The memory usage wasn’t in the cache/buffer section either, it was marked as actually in use. However no application was using all that RAM. The RAM being used was listed as “slab” RAM (tip: run “slabtop”) which is what XFS uses as cache, however the free command sees the RAM as used which is confusing. I think as the host had 14GB+ free most the time, it used as much as it could.

Memory usage on the host whilst using Xen was obviously not affected by the BackupPC guest. BackupPC guest total RAM is only 2GB, so memory usage would climb to 1.5GB, in line with expectations. 1GB+ of this was slab memory.

In general I have noticed most VMs to feel slower with Xen, especially with disk read/writes. However hdparm tests show raw throughput has remained unchanged (~80MB/s). I have noticed though that when another VM is busy, the other guests have no noticeable reduction in performance on Xen. This was my main reason for switching, as BackupPC was bringing all other guests to a near halt on OpenVZ.

I think the reason for the reduction in performance is the fact each guest has to manage its own disk cache whilst during OpenVZ, the majority of data was mounted on the host with plenty of free RAM available for caching. This is a fundamental difference between containers and hypervisors.

I have reduced MySQL guest RAM from 4GB to 1GB. The Zabbix database alone is 14GB, but in all I haven’t noticed any noticeable difference in performance for Zabbix, or its frontend with both the move to Xen and the RAM change. The daily-backup on the SQL server (backup all databases) takes 50% longer to complete (~1min, now ~1m40s).

The small number of timed tests I could compare from one to the other may show a performance loss on Xen, but with this being a true hypervisor system, it was expected. I didn’t expect BackupPC to suffer as much as it did during the nightly, but I believe this to be because it no longer has the freedom of 14GB free RAM to use as cache.

I have also lost the RAM flexibility that comes with OpenVZ, but overall I am happy with the move back to Xen. I moved to OpenVZ as my DVB-T card didn’t function when booting on the Xen kernel, but I plan to replace MythTV with a Sky box in the near future and was getting frustrated with BackupPC on OpenVZ.

5 Comments

logcheck — amavisd-new filter

Posted on July 14, 2013.

Tested using Debian 7 Wheezy. To be added to /etc/logcheck/ignore.d.server/

^\w{3} [ :[:digit:]]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ amavis\[[[:digit:]]+\]: \([-[:digit:]]+\) Passed (CLEAN|SPAM|SPAMMY),( LOCAL)?( \[(IPv6:)?[[:xdigit:].:]{3,39}\]){0,2} <[^>]*> -> <[^>]*>(,<[^>]*>)*,( Message-ID: <[^>]+>( \((added by[^)]+|sfid-[_[:xdigit:]]+)\))?,)?( Resent-Message-ID: <[^>]+>,)? mail_id: [-+[:alnum:]]+, Hits: (-?[.[:digit:]]*)+, size: [[:xdigit:]]+, queued_as: [[:xdigit:]]+( OK id=[-[:alnum:]]+)?, [[:digit:]]+ ms$
^\w{3} [ :[:digit:]]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ amavis\[[[:digit:]]+\]: \([-[:digit:]]+\) Blocked SPAM,( LOCAL)?( \[(IPv6:)?[[:xdigit:].:]{3,39}\]){0,2} <[^>]*> -> <[^>]*>(,<[^>]*>)*,( Message-ID: <[^>]+>( \((added by[^)]+|sfid-[_[:xdigit:]]+)\))?,)?( Resent-Message-ID: <[^>]+>,)? mail_id: [-+[:alnum:]]+, Hits: (-?[.[:digit:]]*)+, size: [[:xdigit:]]+, [[:digit:]]+ ms$
^\w{3} [ :[:digit:]]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ amavis\[[[:digit:]]+\]: \([-[:digit:]]+\) Passed (BAD-HEADER),.*$
^\w{3} [ :[:digit:]]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ amavis\[[[:digit:]]+\]: \([-[:digit:]]+\) Blocked BANNED \([.,_ [:alnum:]-]+\),( LOCAL)?( \[(IPv6:)?[[:xdigit:].:]{3,39}\]){0,2} <[^>]*> -> <[^>]*>(,<[^>]*>)*,( quarantine: [/[:alnum:]-]+,)?( Message-ID: <[^>]+>( \((added by[^)]+|sfid-[_[:xdigit:]]+)\))?,)?( Resent-Message-ID: <[^>]+>,)? mail_id: [-+[:alnum:]]+, Hits: (-?[.[:digit:]]*)+, size: [[:xdigit:]]+, [[:digit:]]+ ms$

^\w{3} [ :[:digit:]]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ amavis\[[[:digit:]]+\]: $[-[:digit:]]+$ Passed (CLEAN|SPAM|SPAMMY),( LOCAL)?( \[(IPv6:)?[[:xdigit:].:]{3,39}\]){0,2} <[^>]*> -> <[^>]*>(,<[^>]*>)*,( Message-ID: <[^>]+>( $(added by[^)]+|sfid-[_[:xdigit:]]+)$)?,)?( Resent-Message-ID: <[^>]+>,)? mail_id: [-+[:alnum:]]+, Hits: (-?[.[:digit:]]*)+, size: [[:xdigit:]]+, queued_as: [[:xdigit:]]+( OK id=[-[:alnum:]]+)?, [[:digit:]]+ ms$

^\w{3} [ :[:digit:]]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ amavis\[[[:digit:]]+\]: $[-[:digit:]]+$ Blocked SPAM,( LOCAL)?( \[(IPv6:)?[[:xdigit:].:]{3,39}\]){0,2} <[^>]*> -> <[^>]*>(,<[^>]*>)*,( Message-ID: <[^>]+>( $(added by[^)]+|sfid-[_[:xdigit:]]+)$)?,)?( Resent-Message-ID: <[^>]+>,)? mail_id: [-+[:alnum:]]+, Hits: (-?[.[:digit:]]*)+, size: [[:xdigit:]]+, [[:digit:]]+ ms$

^\w{3} [ :[:digit:]]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ amavis\[[[:digit:]]+\]: $[-[:digit:]]+$ Passed (BAD-HEADER),.*$

^\w{3} [ :[:digit:]]{11} [._[:alnum:]-]+ amavis\[[[:digit:]]+\]: $[-[:digit:]]+$ Blocked BANNED $[.,_ [:alnum:]-]+$,( LOCAL)?( \[(IPv6:)?[[:xdigit:].:]{3,39}\]){0,2} <[^>]*> -> <[^>]*>(,<[^>]*>)*,( quarantine: [/[:alnum:]-]+,)?( Message-ID: <[^>]+>( $(added by[^)]+|sfid-[_[:xdigit:]]+)$)?,)?( Resent-Message-ID: <[^>]+>,)? mail_id: [-+[:alnum:]]+, Hits: (-?[.[:digit:]]*)+, size: [[:xdigit:]]+, [[:digit:]]+ ms$

With javascript enabled, the above regex block has a toolbar with a copy-to-clipboard button.

I have quite a few of these custom filters, I’ll post some more at another time.

1 Comment

Installing TShock Terraria Server on Debian Wheezy

Posted on January 6, 2013.

The following is how I installed TShock Terraria Server on a clean Debian Wheezy machine. The same method has been tested working on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise).

One important difference to other howtos is it does not install mono-complete and the plethora of dependencies that requires (including x11-common). This only installs the required libraries to run, nothing more.

Run these commands individually, this is not to be copy pasted into your shell in full.

Update: A few users are complaining of missing packages, however I have re-run the instructions in a fresh Wheezy guest and found no issues (see transcript of installation here).

Update2: I have successfully tested the following instructions using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise (transcript here)

Update3: Tested working with TShock 4.2

Make sure you are using Debian 7 Wheezy or Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise.

# Need root
sudo su -

# Install dependancies
apt-get update && apt-get install unzip screen \
   mono-runtime libmono-system-core4.0-cil libmono-sqlite4.0-cil libmysql-cil-dev \
   libmono-system-runtime-serialization4.0-cil libmono-web4.0-cil libmono-system-xml-linq4.0-cil

# Add terraria group and user
sudo groupadd --gid 70001 terraria
sudo useradd --gid 70001 -d /home/terraria -m --uid 70001 -s /bin/bash terraria

# Change user to terraria
su terraria
# Make and change to bin folder
mkdir ~/bin
cd ~/bin

# Download and extract TShock Terraria Server
wget http://cloud.github.com/downloads/TShock/TShock/TShock-4.0.zip
unzip TShock-4.0.zip

# Fix case-insensitive folder
ln -s serverplugins ServerPlugins

# Run Terraria for first time, create world
# (note down auth code for admin access, and exit-nosave)
mono TerrariaServer.exe -ip 0.0.0.0 -port 7777 -maxplayers 8
# Change server password
TERRARIAPASSWORD="password";
sed -i "s/("ServerPassword": ")[^"]*(",)$/1${TERRARIAPASSWORD}2/" tshock/config.json

# Terraria is now installed, keep reading to setup startup init script

# Go back to root
exit

# Download init script to /etc/init.d/
wget -O /etc/init.d/terraria-server http://www.nooblet.org/blog/download/terraria-init.sh
# Fix permissions
chmod +x /etc/init.d/terraria-server
# Insert to startup
insserv -v /etc/init.d/terraria-server

# At this point you may want to edit the init script if you are using a
# different world-file or server-port
# Also by default, the script does not save on exit, see variable: EXIT_COMMAND

# Start the server
invoke-rc.d terraria-server start

# Check its running in screen (press Ctrl-a then d to exit)
invoke-rc.d terraria-server connect

# Need root

sudo su -

# Install dependancies

apt-get update && apt-get install unzip screen \

mono-runtime libmono-system-core4.0-cil libmono-sqlite4.0-cil libmysql-cil-dev \

libmono-system-runtime-serialization4.0-cil libmono-web4.0-cil libmono-system-xml-linq4.0-cil

# Add terraria group and user

sudo groupadd --gid 70001 terraria

sudo useradd --gid 70001 -d /home/terraria -m --uid 70001 -s /bin/bash terraria

# Change user to terraria

su terraria

# Make and change to bin folder

mkdir ~/bin

cd ~/bin

# Download and extract TShock Terraria Server

wget http://cloud.github.com/downloads/TShock/TShock/TShock-4.0.zip

unzip TShock-4.0.zip

# Fix case-insensitive folder

ln -s serverplugins ServerPlugins

# Run Terraria for first time, create world

# (note down auth code for admin access, and exit-nosave)

mono TerrariaServer.exe -ip 0.0.0.0 -port 7777 -maxplayers 8

# Change server password

TERRARIAPASSWORD="password";

sed -i "s/("ServerPassword": ")[^"]*(",)$/1${TERRARIAPASSWORD}2/" tshock/config.json

# Terraria is now installed, keep reading to setup startup init script

# Go back to root

exit

# Download init script to /etc/init.d/

wget -O /etc/init.d/terraria-server http://www.nooblet.org/blog/download/terraria-init.sh

# Fix permissions

chmod +x /etc/init.d/terraria-server

# Insert to startup

insserv -v /etc/init.d/terraria-server

# At this point you may want to edit the init script if you are using a

# different world-file or server-port

# Also by default, the script does not save on exit, see variable: EXIT_COMMAND

# Start the server

invoke-rc.d terraria-server start

# Check its running in screen (press Ctrl-a then d to exit)

invoke-rc.d terraria-server connect

Debian init-script

The following init-script can:

Connect to the screen console with ./terraria-server connect
Exits the server cleanly by issuing the “exit” or “exit-nosave” command to the server console
Fits perfectly if installation was made by the above howto

Download
terraria-init.sh (2.6 KiB, 4,974 hits)

32 Comments

Create md5 checksum files for each sub-directory

Posted on October 7, 2012.

This bash script creates checksum files for each subdirectory and the files within.

If the script is run, and there are no changes, then there is no output. This makes it safe to put into a cronjob without fear of getting spammed.

Output can be forced with a “-d” flag.

Requires “md5sum” package to compute checksums.

Syntax:
md5-all-dir.sh [-d] <directory>

Download
md5-all-dir.sh (4.1 KiB, 2,204 hits)

Continue reading →

Disable IPv6 on CentOS6 OpenVZ

Posted on September 5, 2012.

In order to disable ipv6, you will have to disable checkpoint/restore (suspend/resume/migrate functionality) as the modules vzrst and vzcpt have ipv6 as a dependancy.

Edit /etc/init.d/vz, find and comment out this line:

CPT_MODULES="vzcpt vzrst"
Disable ipv6 module by creating /etc/modprobe.d/ipv6-off.conf

alias net-pf-10 off alias ipv6 off
Reboot.

#!/usr/bin/nooblet.org

/* not just your average nub */