Well, my linode got activated a couple of days ago. I am planning on upgrading to 128M or more to run java stuff, but I figured 64M ram would be plenty to generally get my feet wet.

Oh how wrong can you be?

I downloaded the latest java rpm. It's now been installing for over 20 minutes. I'm not *running* any java, just trying to install the rpm.

A brief scan of this forum tells me to look at /proc/io_status; sure enough I have no IO tokens left. WTF? My memory usage is 16M, so no swapping is going on.

So it appears you can't actually install anything on the linode, because you'll run out of IO. I know there's 40 users on the box, but I'd also expect $800/month income to pay for a kickass raid array.

I'll be asking for a refund tomorrow if things don't improve PDQ.

Aled.

OK io_count=1677380 io_rate=0 io_tokens=399997 token_refill=512 token_max=400000

I'm showing you have all of your tokens, in addition, you can put in a ticket and we can bump up your token_refill durring io intensive proccesses like this rpm install seems to be.

Michael

I'm sorry you are having a bad experience. There are many people that survive with L64 though I would think java in 64megs is a bit of stretch in the first place. I would look around to see if there is anything else that could be eating your IO, there was also mention in the IRC channel of another person experiencing a similar problem that was caused by a broken rpm. If you are 16M into your swap you could actually be swapping as there maybe some Java tests in the pre/post parts of the rpm install that require actually running java. You should monitor IO and Memory usage frequently during the install to try and track down what exactly may be causing the hungry IO.

If you have any questions or want to report in live time join us in the irc channel #linode on irc.oftc.net:6667

Hmmm, now I'm not at all sure what's going on. Did I misread /proc/io_tokens? Whatever, I seem to have lots of them now.

It's still really slow though.

Top does show a java process running, presumably as part of the install, so that has to be a prime candidate.

33 minutes and counting

Aled.

Maybe this is a good time to bring up the topic once again of adding more memory to the base plans?

If everyone's memory was doubled, it would go along way towards reducing swap usage, and thus I/O load on the hosts. More files would be cached in memory also which would further reduce disk usage.

Of course, this 128 MB * 40 Linodes on a Linode64 host would be more than 4 GB RAM on a Linode64 host, which would mean that maximum number of Linodes on a Linode64 host would have to be reduced.

Linode has what, 45 hosts? If each needs to add 2 GB of memory to double the amount of RAM in each Linode, then at $160 per GB of ECC PC2700 RAM, that's $320 per Linode or $14,400 total. Not cheap, but then again each full Linode host is pulling in over $2,000 per month ...

My basic point is this: in the nearly 2 years since Linode opened its doors, the only enhancement to the plans has been an addition of from a GB to 3 GB or so (depending upon the Linode plan) of disk space. Then again, there was also an increase in the contention ratio of Linode64 hosts from 32 to 40 (not sure about the other plans). In the nearly two years since Linode started, RAM prices have dropped by at least 50%, and disk prices by even more. But Linode prices have stayed the same and the hardware has not been upgraded significantly.

I'm very happy with my Linode service but I would be really happy if we saw some extra memory/disk space soon ...

The memory doesn't have to be doubled (I don't even think ram has even been dropped to 50% of the price it was 2 years ago), but I had mentioned in that thread some time ago that the 64 plans could just be upgraded to 96mb == 3,840mb. Also, as far as I've heard, all the new linodes have been shipped with 6GB of ram for a little while now, making this a good possibility for upgrades pretty soon. And the impression I've gotten from Chris is that he's well aware of this and has already got plans to do upgrades. Though I do wish he would give us a hint as to what those plans are, maybe just some reassurance that there are some changes coming soon related to this problem.

A few months ago I got java working on a linode 64 and didn't notice it taking much time to install at all.

I installed the .bin java download from sun, not the rpm. I really prefer the bin install, it is basically a self extracting archive. I don't use redhat, and java doesn't need to be highly integrated into the OS so I never messed around with the RPM version on linode.

Java really isn't bad on a linode 64, as long as you can run stuff that doesn't need much memory -- use -Xmx to limit the usage to well below available RAM and you should be good.

On the memory topic, I would really like more memory for free too, but I have a hard time questioning the linode business model. They seem to be growing quickly enough with the current rate structure. The unique thing here seems to be the powerful control panel, the kernel versions available, the forums, those aspects are way cool. As far as the hardware and CPU you get for the money I think linode is indeed overpriced. I have seen UML services out there for about half the price of Linode hardware equivalents, and the high-end linodes don't even compete with dedicated server prices these days, but those options don't have the cool control panel, easy of administration, etc.

If those alternatives can catch up to linode in terms of ease of administration, linode is going to be in trouble I think.

Linode has competent staff, and excellent uptime.

I can't say that about any other VPS I've ever used.

_________________
Jay Faulkner
http://oldos.org

VPS characteristics:

• cheap,
• reliable,
• easy to administer.

Pick any two.

_________________
/ Peter