Removing the fat from Debian

[BloodAngel]

Hi,

I have been wondering for a while, how much of a performance/FPS stability increase would be gained, from removing unessential processes from Debian, I am not confident enough to remove them myself. So I was hoping we could create a tutorial for this? Add this to Be's wiki as well?

[BehaartesEtwas]

there is not much to do usually. unless you've installed stuff like web servers etc. you can't really drop much. but even running an unused web server in the background won't hurt. I have the web server serving the FPS meter together with it's backend running on the same root as my CS:S servers :-) Thanks to realtime scheduling this is not a problem.

[css]

BE's right. If you search the web and even this site, many server admins instruct NOT to run web servers, databases or anything else than SRCDS on the same server. It's just general tech babble, which does not reflect the reality. I've got web server and lots of other stuff running on my server, but still the SRCDS servers are high quality. For example the database is doing hundreds of queries per second. Nobody notices.

So, useless processes in the background are not a problem. Let's hope none of the "noob" server admins reply this thread and claim otherwise. It usually happens. Then the "fact" spreads and soon we'll have tutorial how to boost Debian performance by shutting down useless processes.

[BloodAngel]

Thanks for clearing that up

Christy

[Terrorkarotte]

What is wrong with removing not needed packages? Even if you can not gain performance in most cases a server with less packages has less (undiscovered) security holes. That will result in less updating and saving bandwith and so on.

Also many admins do not use rescheduling and setting prioritys for their processes. This can lead to fps drops if a corrupted table or a load peak increases the cpu usage of the mysql server too much. That is a common scenario on many root servers because the "admins" just installed some things using a how to and were happy that everything was working.

Still you can run web and gameserver on the same root, but not without some adjustments. As BE already mentioned he has no problems because he does that (realtime scheduling).

[css]

(02-24-2010, 08:24 PM)Terrorkarotte Wrote:  Still you can run web and gameserver on the same root, but not without some adjustments. As BE already mentioned he has no problems because he does that (realtime scheduling).

The real-time kernel is not needed. Even without adjustments it's possible to run www server and srcds on the same host.

It's not common scenario for srcds to lag on many root servers where "admins" just installed some stuff and were happy about it.

Actually it's possible to run srcds and web server on the same root without any adjustments.

[3choE]

(02-23-2010, 08:17 PM)css Wrote:  Let's hope none of the "noob" server admins reply this thread...

Hello.

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I guess after the original poster, and the other new admins, have read about that performance-wise, it is OK, they might then consider hosting everything on the same dedicated box.

Therefore, I would like to talk about my view, even though it isn't about the performance issue. Especially since I have made a few suggestions about not hosting SRCDS and web server on the same box.

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First of all, I am just a newbie, which I have stated many times already.

For my own need, I host SRCDS and my web server separately, but not really because of the CPU & RAM usages.

I started my box with 10 mbps uplink, and I don't want to host the fastdownload on the same box, so I got a web account from Bluehost (which was suggested by the creator of PsychoStats). Yet I then read quite a few posts on the HLX:CE forum, that Bluehost, as well as many other popular web hosting providers, would suspend an account for hosting stats apps like PsychoStats or HLX:CE. So I checked with Bluehost, and 2 staffs and 1 manager replied, saying it would most likely violate their TOC, so I got myself a VPS account.

The logically thing for me to do then, is host SRCDS, and nothing else, on my dedicated box, and host my website/forum/HLX:CE/other web related apps, with my VPS.

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Usually I suggest people to host SRCDS by itself, for the following reasons:

- they need a fastdownload server.
- they have more than a single dedicated box for SRCDS.
- they are just learning how to use Linux.

And as a fairly new Linux user and SRCDS admin, the more stuffs I host on my box, the better chance I would screw up something, and need to take my box offline for troubleshooting.

For my home Linux sandbox, I run lots of stuffs with it, and for so many times I ran into problems, then visited many forums for help, yet ended up restoring everything from scratch.

---

It is like a more knowledgeable person can do a task with a super effective regular expression, but for a newbie like myself, clarity & simplicity are more important.

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As for the "tech babble," from what I have seen, the worst is from those game server providers. My friends & I had tried 4 different ones over a year long, and those providers often made claims to their clients, that hosting a game server with stuffs like web server, or MySQL, would affect the performance. Since such claim is from a hosting provider, one would think that the provider must have done some testings, and came up with such conclusion.

That's most likely why we see people on various forums making such claims, because they got the idea from a "reliable" sources.

[Terrorkarotte]

Why do you always start a discussion when you read the word real time? I only said that this is one way to limit the usage of a web/mysql server. There are many ways to limit them. Config, cpulimit, taskset, rescheduling, Xen and so on. I also meant that options when I wrote adjustments...

I know it is possible without. But you need enough hardware. I know you use a hetzner eq4 with 8gb ram and a core i7 920 which has hyper threading. With such a system you wont have trouble that fast.
On a x2 for example it is not that easy. 1x32 slot @ tick 66, 12 slots @ tick 100 with stats and hp the servers wont be stabel when the gameservers are full and no adjustments were made. I also heard from an other admin that an opteron with 4 cores wasnt able to run a well visited website, stats, voice and some gameservers without limiting the mysql and lighttpd server.

I do not want a black and white discussion. I just wanted to point out that there are greys in between and every admin should test what it is best for his system. On some systems you can not gain anything on some it is necessary to make some adjustment. Even if you can not gain anything on the first type you also do no harm to the gameplay.

[css]

@Terrorkarotte
Would you really suggest that BloodAngel uninstalls Apache and Mysql from his box? Then he can't have Munin, web GUI based SRCSD control system or any other database requiring software on his box. Would you consider that running those would hurt the SRCDS performance? Would you really do that?

Then if somebody has "well visited" site, I'd assume the admin is not "noob admin" anymore. He knows he won't be uninstalling Apache or MySQL from the box.

Sometimes the "noob admin" logic baffles me completely. But hey, everybody begins as a newbie!

[saintjimmygd]

css,what happened with setti ?

[Terrorkarotte]

Still thinking black and white arent you?
I only can repeat myself that on some systems you need to limit the recources for mysql/apache/lighttpd if you want to have a smoth gameplay. The less core you have and the more gameserverslots you run it becomes more likely that you have to limit recources for the webapplications. I never suggested to remove them.
But: If you have the recources why do not split the web from the gameserver part? The more processes run the more likely you will run into conflicts.

Also i never used the word noob. Sad but true there are plenty of people out there that rent a linux root server without any knowledge to save some money. This kind of admin normaly uses some howtos to get his programs running without proper planing of the system using the root account for nearly everything. Because the server "work" they tend not to spend more time with it and let it as it is sometimes even for a year or so... Thats the lazy kind of admin i was referring to whos processes often do not run as smouth as they could.

For me there are only two types: Lazy and the rest that care about their system by keeping it up to date and think about if something can be done better.

[BehaartesEtwas]

nice flame war discussion

(02-24-2010, 08:24 PM)Terrorkarotte Wrote:  What is wrong with removing not needed packages?

nothing is wrong. but there is no proof that it helps anything. in fact there are many examples that this can work even *if* the web server etc. is actually used. but that was not the question.
clearly on linux (on contrast to windows) unused packages (I mean really unused, i.e. not running) have no (I mean really no!) negative impact other than their use of disk space. there is no registry or so that will be spammed with unnecessary entries that might slow down anything. so there is really no point in spending hours and hours to find all installed but unused packages.
on the other hand, a running but unused web server can have at least in theory a negative impact. but, as even my web server that is actually used (the FPS meter is not a small project...) has no negative impact. I had some problems with mysql using too much RAM, but they are gone since I upgraded my RAM. and those problems were related to the FPS meter backend, not to the web part...

so: there is no point in spending much time on this. unless someone shows a proof that says something else a proof would be e.g. a long time fps meter measurement showing a clear difference at the time when the web server was switched on or off. everything else is pointless rumor.

[BloodAngel]

I don't how my site on my server, sponsored webhosts take care of that , I do run apache2+php, no mysql server or anything like that. Just for game servers really, just wondering about all the random Linux background processes.

[BehaartesEtwas]

well linux has many "background" processes that are vital for the functionality of linux...

[css]

I guess the question was which ones are the non-vital.

Summary: There are no useless background processes that would affect SRCDS performance negatively.