[CLUE-Tech] Hack information

[Roy J. Tellason]

On Monday 02 August 2004 04:52 pm, Eric Jorgensen wrote:
> --- "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net> wrote:
> > On Friday 30 July 2004 06:10 pm, Eric Jorgensen
> >  wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I would like to add to the discussion my favorite
> > > way to deal with the "crack one service, crack my
> > > whole box" problem:  vservers
> > >
> > > http://www.linux-vserver.org/
> > >
> > > With this patched kernel, you can instantiate
> > > multiple virtual linux machines inside your single physical
> > > linux box.  This makes it nice to set up a firewall,
> > >
> > > with ftp in a vserver, smtp and pop in a vserver,
> > > httpd in a vserver, all isolated from the others.
> > > It is a "chroot jail on steroids".  The one problem
> > > that I've found is that the releases always seem to lag
> > > behind kernel releases substantially.
> > >
> > > I don't know if it would have helped in this case,
> > > but I been using it for a while now and I'm very happy
> > > with it.

> > This sounds kind of interesting,  but it also sounds like it would make
> > some nontrivial demands on the hardware,  and I tend to use lots of older
> > stuff. Is that the case?

> First, let me say that I use a variety of linux-windows interoperability
> tools.

I've little interest in windows here,  excepting one machine that's got a 
bunch of games on it for the grandkids to play on,  which is an old P66 
(P60?) running 98.

> I use Codeweavers Crossover to run Quicken, and it runs very well.

Hm.  Last version of that I messed with was running under DOS!  :-)

> I also use VMWare, so that I can use MS specific tools, such as a VPN
> client, and only have it affect the virtual machine, not my entire physical
> machine.
>
> VMWare is a resource hog, mostly of memory.

That's about what I figured.

> It creates a PC from scratch with virtual hardware in which you can run
> windows, linux, qnx, almost anything.  But because it's a PC within a PC,
> you do need at least 256M of memory, and 512M works best.

That's what I was afraid of.  This box I'm typing on at the moment was 
supposed to be at 384M (the maximum the MB will support) but one of the 128s 
I was planning to use was bad,  so there's a 64M stick in that slot.  And 
right now that's the most machine on the LAN...

> But if you think about it, would you want to run windows xp on a machine
> with less than 256M?  Probably not.

I wouldn't want to run XP at all.  :-)   We had one family member who was 
using it (he's since gone back to 98) and he had lots of trouble with it.

> So it does seem reasonable, for what it's doing.

I can't argue with that.

> I would also put user mode linux (UML) into this same
> resource-intensive category.

Ok.

> However, with linux-vservers, the resource overhead is quite minimal.

That's what I was wondering about.

> Because you are only using one kernel and the virtual memory space is
> shared, it is much more efficient (though much more limited).

Limited in what way?

> I am currently running it on a celeron 366 with 128M of memory.  The vserver
> is running a tikiwiki server, and it doesn't run any more slowly that it
> would running natively on the hardware.

That's what this box is,  a Celeron 366.  I have some other stuff here,  some 
a bit slower,  some a bit faster,  and am waiting to get a hold of some more 
RAM and ATX cases to add to the mix here.

> Hope this helps,

Sure.

I guess what's workable depends on what services you want to run?