Message-ID: <50FC01AD.9020707@arcor.de>
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:39:41 +0100
From: Der Tiger <der.tiger.alpine@arcor.de>
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To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Roger_Pau_Monn=E9?= <roger.pau@citrix.com>
CC: "alpine-devel@lists.alpinelinux.org" <alpine-devel@lists.alpinelinux.org>
Subject: Re: [alpine-devel] Use cases of Alpine Linux and Xen
References: <50F92E77.4050406@citrix.com>
In-Reply-To: <50F92E77.4050406@citrix.com>
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Hi Roger,

> * Why did you choose Alpine Linux as your Dom0?
Before settling on Alpine Linux, I ran a comparison between 48 Linux or
FreeBSD based OS developed targeting (or at least supporting) SOHO
router hardware. I'm quite sure I've overlooked some, but if an OS is
hard to find it is most likely too new to be stable and/or has a small
group of followers and contributors, perhaps even too small to stay alive.

My personal main criteria were:

1) OS has to run on low-end machines (e.g. Intel Atom) for economic 24/7
availability. To reduce the hardware requirements, it has to be modular
with a small footprint base system.
2) There has to be an open and active group of developers. Any company
based, closed development won't cut it.
3) Keeping the OS up to date and installing software has to be easy, so
there has to be a packet manager or something similar and a large
software library with reasonable number of software packets available.
4) There has to be a self-explaining, web based GUI available for
configuration and maintenance. Adding my own programs and creating
extensions to the GUI for them has to be practicable.
5) The base system has to provide proper security like grsec/PAX or SELinux.

Alpine Linux was one of the very few OS that met all five criteria.

> * What do you think are the benefits of using an Alpine Linux Dom0 over
> other distributions?
Even the base system installation of any major Linux distribution (e.g.
Fedora, Ubuntu) creates much more overhead and requires higher
performance hardware, than a smaller OS like Alpine Linux or Voyage
Linux, without any considerable benefit. The implementation and
distribution of bug fixes for any non-kernel related problem takes
forever in most popular Linux and FreeBSD distributions, while Alpine
Linux has a very active XEN users and developers group supplying both,
maintenance to XEN and some degree of support through the Alpine Wiki
and this mailing list.

> If you would also like to contribute with specific use-cases or examples
> where Alpine Linux Dom0 is a good choice I would also welcome them very
> much.
My Alpine Linux system centralizes a number of peripheral functions like
network routing and filtering (Privoxy), in-house, in- and outgoing
telephony with several extensions including a door intercom (Asterisk),
controlling the electric heating of the top floor of the building,
supervising the gas powered heating of the rest of the house as well as
the warm water supply (OWFS). Some of those functions have to be highly
available like the heating during winter, why changes to the related
software have to be done very cautiously, while other parts of the
installed software (e.g. Asterisk) require frequent updates to get rid
of security holes and annoying bugs.

It therefore is recommended to install the software required to be
highly available onto a virtual machine (DomU) in order to isolate it
from changes to the rest of the software. Further, if the Dom0 somehow
becomes inoperable, the DomU can easily be transferred to any other
system using the Alpine Linux XEN LiveCD in order to restore the highly
needed functions shortly.

Hope it helps, Tiger


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