I'm a new linode customer. I've been diligently working to setup my linode and the documentation is great (really, I can't stress that enough). Based on that documentation I was able to get a LAMP server up and working, complete with a domain name.

The one thing that I've not been able to find detailed documentation on is the purpose of multiple configuration profiles.

It appears that on the Linode'dashboard, I have a configuration profile. It is named: My Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Profile.

That is the distribution I had selected when I went though the wizard.

If I add a new profile, what will that give me? Why would I have multiple profiles? I assume one linode allows for one server... Am I wrong on that? Can my one linode account in fact run several virtual servers? (Assuming I balance my allotment of RAM and Disk resources...?)

Thanks,
Frank

Note: It has occurred to me that I might have asked this in the wrong forum. If this is the case, can someone point me to a more appropriate forum.

Profiles allow you to reboot your linode in different ways; for example you might have a Ubuntu image, a CentOS image, a Debian image. Or you might want to clone a disk before doing a major upgrade, so set up one profile with the old disk, and one with the new. Quick simple reboot to bring you back to your working config.

You can only run one profile at a time on a linode

_________________
Rgds
Stephen
(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

Thank you for your reply. I do have a follow up question though.



I'd need to have a disk set aside and dedicated to each of these, correct?

It also assumes that I keep my Website pages and the database on a separate partition from the OS. (I've not figured out how to do this one yet. )

Your point about quickly swapping during an upgrade or change makes sense.

Yes, each OS image you deploy needs to be on its own disk.


If you want the data to be visible from multiple profiles then a good way is to set aside a disk for your data and then have this visible in the profile(s) you care about. Then when you boot that profile the disk will be visible and the files available in that profile.

You can also use this for data separation (eg one profile for development, one for UAT) and configure the disks so that each profile can not see the other. But that's an advanced code lifecycle technique and may not be of interest to you

For most people just keeping the one profile is normally sufficient. It's all I have, and I've had a linode for 6 years, now.

_________________
Rgds

Stephen

(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

Cool, thank you very much.

Even if you can't see yourself wanting to try multiple distributions, you'll probably want your standard profile and a Finnix profile ready to go.

If your virtual machine has any problems at all then being able to quickly access Finnix is highly useful.