Running some other Unix flavour on a Xserve Intel

[Smop]

Hi –

On my Xserve Intel box, I’m considering replacing Mac OS X Server 10.4 by some other Unix flavour, such as FreeBSD.

Is there someone here who did it? I can’t find any reliable information on that topic…

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Georges

[Smop]

Hi –

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: macshome[/u][p][…] What is prompting the move away from Mac OS X Server?[/p][/QUOTE]
Well, because I’ve been struggling for seven months to make that bloody Xserve box running smoothly andI’m sick and tired of not succeeding. If I can’t install another operating system, I’m gonna sell it right away.

For the same purpose (a small Internet server) I’ve been running for ten years several Sun servers running Solaris and never had a single major issue other than a couple of dead hard drives.

I love and use Apple products and I thought that their servers were now mature enough to meet my requirements and I was wrong. Perhaps that I’m just too much used to the flexibility of the traditional Unix command line interface or there are subtlelties that I can’t get, but I’ve wasted enough time. I experienced numerous kernel panic, filesystems corruption, and I’m not even talking about all the little annoyances and limitations of Mac OS X Server. As the machine is covered by an AppleCare Premium maintenance contract, Apple changed once the motherboard, but their so called professional support is a real nightmare, at least here, in Europe.

I’ve spent this year more than $17K for this personal project and that’s also more than enough. It’s time for me to put back a good old Sun box. I’ll consider perhaps again Apple’s stuff in five years.

Anyway, thanks for your answser ! Sorry if I’m a little upset by this whole situation.

Georges

[Smop]

Hi –

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: macshome[/u][p] […] What is causing the panics? With any luck the OS was able to finger the troublemaker in the panic.log.[/p][/QUOTE]
Not really.

[i]Kernel version: Darwin Kernel Version 8.9.1: Thu Feb 22 20:55:00 PST 2007; root: xnu-792.18.15~1/RELEASE_I386

Thu May 3 00:03:35 2007 : panic(cpu 3 caller 0x002ECA06): btree_journal_modify_block_end: about to write corrupt node!
Mon May 7 00:03:36 2007 : panic(cpu 0 caller 0x001A429B ): Unresolved kernel trap (CPU 0, Type 14=page fault)
Mon May 7 05:04:21 2007 : panic(cpu 0 caller 0x00199F16): simple lock deadlock detection
Mon May 7 05:12:33 2007 : panic(cpu 3 caller 0x002ECA06): btree_journal_modify_block_end: about to write corrupt node!
Sun May 13 04:45:59 2007 : panic(cpu 1 caller 0x002ECA06): btree_journal_modify_block_end: about to write corrupt node!
Tue May 29 06:11:35 2007 : panic(cpu 0 caller 0x002ECA06): btree_journal_modify_block_end: about to write corrupt node!
Thu May 31 00:03:45 2007 : panic(cpu 2 caller 0x002ECA06): btree_journal_modify_block_end: about to write corrupt node!
Mon Jun 4 00:04:39 2007 : panic(cpu 1 caller 0x002ECA06): btree_journal_modify_block_end: about to write corrupt node!

** MOTHERBOARD CHANGED **

Kernel version: Darwin Kernel Version 8.10.1: Wed May 23 16:33:00 PDT 2007; root: xnu-792.22.5~1/RELEASE_I386

Wed Oct 24 00:07:47 2007 : panic(cpu 1 caller 0x001A4A55): Unresolved kernel trap (CPU 1, Type 14=page fault)[/i]

The two last DiskWarrior reports (Apple’s Disk Utility nor diskutil/fsck couldn’t repair the filesystem):

[i]Time: 9/14/07 5:06:13 AM (DiskWarrior Version: 4.0)

• 7 files had a directory entry with an incorrect text encoding value that was repaired.
• 1 file had an incorrect actual size that was repaired.
• 1 folder had a duplicate ID that was repaired.
• 1 folder had an oversized thread that was repaired.
• 1 folder had a directory entry with an incorrect custom icon flag that was repaired.
• 2 folders had an incorrect key that was repaired.
• 2 folders will now become accessible.

Time: 10/30/07 4:57:09 AM (DiskWarrior Version: 4.0)

• 6 files had a directory entry with an incorrect text encoding value that was repaired.
• 1 file had an oversized thread that was repaired.[/i]

I also have lots of annoyances with the LOM and the Server Admin utility…

Georges

[Smop]

Hi –

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: macshome[/u][p]Does the SMART data check out for the drive. That is most defiantly [u]not[/u] normal and looks like a possible disk issue.[/p][/QUOTE]
That Xserve (2*2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon, 4GB RAM) is brand new (delivered by the end of March 2007) and it hosts three Apple original 73GB 15,000-rpm SAS drive modules (Seagate Cheetah 15K.5 mod. ST373455SS). The two first drives are mirrored using Mac OS X’s RAID.

Unfortunately, S.M.A.R.T. doesn’t seem to be implemented on that kind of drives:

[i]diskutil info disk0 | grep SMART
SMART Status: Not Supported
diskutil info disk2 | grep SMART
SMART Status: Not Supported
diskutil info disk3 | grep SMART
SMART Status: Not Supported[/i]

Apple support suggested to use SoftRAID instead of their own RAID driver, but based on what SoftRAID’s support said, it won’t likely change anything. Besides that, I can’t afford to play too much as the server is located 11000 miles away from me, running unattended and locked in a huge datacenter. Each time I have to bring down the machine for some maintenance, I have to book (and pay) a technician. I went just there to install the Xserve, early April this year.

Georges

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