SL's Network

This is a goofy question, and I don't really expect an answer it. I only ask because if i don't ask, or if no one asks, then there's no chance of it being answered.

Has anyone at Linden Labs drawn up a flowchart or diagram of how all the servers work? LiveJournal did one a while back, and I was curious if LL had done one. Thanks!

We can infer that there is a user server, an asset server, a web server, probably a couple NetApps or other RAID devices, and of course a lot of 1U pizza boxes. There are probably several other machines that do things like billing and e-mailing and they probably have DLT or similar drives, or a hot mirror system that takes snapshots of production RAIDs. There is probably a DMZ machine whose sole purpose is to let certain system admins in, and then to let them SSH into the grid and its supporting machinery. And of course at least one dev box, since you don't screw around with code on production servers. I would guess 100Base-TX ethernet between everything, maybe gigabit between some critical systems, and probably a gigabit or multiple 100 megabit connections to the data center's switches and/or routers. They probably have a few modems as well, serving multiple purposes that are known to people who have worked in data centers. There may be a dedicated frame relay circuit (or two) between the data center and the Linden Lab office.

Some very important machines may have "clones" that can be failed over to. Where I used to work, we had dual Sun StarFire E10Ks that handled user registration. I don't know what each individual machine cost, but everyone was at pains to avoid clumsiness in their vicinity.

Jarod:

We don't actually have anything drawn up; otherwise, I'd be happy to post it.

Huns is mostly right.

He left out the database server, and we don't use NetApps (but we do use large RAIDs). We have 3 development grids that are snapshots of the public grid, but are much smaller.

We have a dedicated DS3 between our office and the data center, but that's only used for testing and backups.

All of the core machines have hot backups. we don't have automated failover of any systems in place (it tends to cause more problems than it solves), but we can manually failover in a few minutes, which is Good Enough for now.

Our network has a GigE core, with 100Mbit to each simulator node. The core servers sit on the GigE switch.

We use Debian for our OS distribution.

Please allow me to be the first to compliment you on your excellent taste.

And let me be the second.

Mark, thanks! And let me be the third to compliment you on using Linux.

I assume "development grid" refers to a Beowulf-esque development system?

We refer to the collection of machines that runs a world as a grid, or farm. Development grid is just a grid where we do development on the next version of Second Life.

We don't use Beowulf; our clustering system is all in-house.

Debian rocks!

It will, undoubtedly, be the first linux distribution to get a working SL installation.

Oh, man that will be so cool:

apt-get install secondlife

My machine is ready. Soon as the linux (Debian) version works it will no longer be a dual-boot system.

Only possible issues for me: Will it work with Stable? Do I have to wait for 2.6? Other than that, I'm good to go I think.

Next question: IM interface for SL? Jabber?

SL likes Debian. SL will (possibly, maybe, it's heresay, all right) make a Linux client for Debian. Knoppix is derived from Debian.

w00t!

Jabber would make sense for the IM implementation.

Knoppix is great! I'm running it at home, and will soon be upgrading my main dev-box to Knoppix. I take it back... I'll bet Knoppix (i.e. debian/testing) gets the first working SL linux installation.

# apt-get install secondlife -- absolutely

Incidentally, the 'knoppix-installer' script is the right way to install it on your hard drive. The documentation on the CD is totally out of date.

Call me a noob, but I use mandrake. At home, I've used just about every mandrake release since version 7.
At college we used to use slackware 4, then redhat 5, 6, 7, and now they switched to mandrake 9 (woohoo).
I used to use twm back when I was a freshman. It gives me nightmares to this day
Of course all I needed to do with it was boot Nutscrape 4 and browse some web pages to pass the time, but it still sucked
I have fond memories of the slack-redhat changeover and actually having a windows-like start menu, courtesy of fvwm =)
By the time we got to KDE 1.0 I already knew all about the command line so I didnt waste too much time with X

ROFLMAO!!!

I dislike RedHat and its derivatives because of the .rpm "Dependency Hell" that inevitably happens.

Gentoo and Debian are sorta tied for favorite; they both have strong points. Gentoo is really slow to install things, but I feel like I have more control over the system. Debian's apt-get is great, but the packages tend to install wherever the developer wanted them, rather than where you want them. ^_^

YOU MEAN THAT THERE's LINUX WITHOUT THIS!?

WHOA!
I totally did not know that RedHat/Mandrake were known for this. The RPM crap that I had to go through was the main reason I abandoned Linux as an everyday operating system.

Yep. ^_^ In debian, to install apache and all of its dependencies you would type:

"apt-get install apache"

And it looks up the package on the online database, downloads dependencies, configures everything, and puts it where it needs to go.

Of course, if what you want is really strange and not in any apt-get databases, you still have to deal with it. But there are tens of thousands of packages, so usually you can find what you need.

Regular old Debian is a nightmare to install the first time. Unless maybe you're installing from a CD, which I never have.

Your reward is a distro that is incredibly awesome. Package management is ridiculously easy.

I used RedHat for a long time, finally got fed up with the aforementioned dependency hell, and installed Debian. I have never found cause to look back.

It's a lame excuse, but one reason to use Redhat or Mandrake is because they're more often used by businesses, so it'll look better on your resume...

Eh..yea kinda Mikrosoftish reason I guess.

My OS is based on chocolate pudding.

Dependency hell? WTF? You never heard of urpmi I guess.

a debian client will work on a knoppix live dist! my little laptop won't do anything else while i'm in world anyway. plus i have to leave windows installed on the hard drive for work related software. a live distribution with the client on it will be a dream come true.

Is weird...

On one hand, you see vast 3D worlds, fields, mountains, valleys...

And on the other hand you hear about so much network cable, linux OSes, hard disk strategies... It is kind of cool to imagine the hardware behind the fields, and kind of weird to think of all that real estate being just so many linux computers and smart set up of equipment

Makes computers seem exciting all over again

i will be happy with an

"emerge SecondLife"

This is why I read the forums.
learned so much just finding stuff about what everyone is posting about here.

Thanks!