You are here
Hi,
Outstanding effort people!
However, I see what seems to be a missed design concept. Let me explain ...
I see the world of "appliances", in the strictest sense, being very light weight devices. Likely small, passively cooled, with little or no expandability. And the primary storage device will likely be a flash style device. And in the world of flash devices, the re-writability is limited.
However, in a LAMP environment the file structure should be strongly segregated. That which is static or relatively static … AND the rest. The "rest" being log files and the actually delivered content (e.g. html, images, database(s), media files, etc.).
It doesn't seem, currently, that the pathing structure has been implemented in any way to [easily] setup such directory/partition structure. Log files and site data should be stored on an external media for a LAMP device (appliance). A USB drive or perhaps a network drive, either local or remote (cloud), being obvious choices.
To summary, I would like to see the setup options to include a method to separate that which is static (e.g. OS, application files and other infrequently altered data) to be stored on a re-write limited flash media, and that which is dynamic or user created (e.g. web content, database, log files, media files, cache, etc.) to an external [re-writable] storage device
Obviously these comments are focused at the LAMP appliance. But this concept would apply to all TurnKey appliances that have a very distinct and separate, static-to-dynamic file requirements.
Any thoughts?
Interesting perspective...
Rather than thinking of them as appliances in the traditional sense of the word, I tend to look at TKL as software or virtual appliances, much like the appliances available in the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace (but much more flexible as they can also be used under alternative VEs, in the public cloud or installed to bare metal). Similar to 'real' appliances they have the minimum requirements to do a specific job and that's all (as opposed to a 'normal' server OS which does multiple tasks). But different to a hardware appliance they are much more flexible.
I can see that for some your ideas may be useful, it would be especially relevant if TKL were to ever come bundled with some hardware. But I suspect that many users use the appliances as I do; as virtual machines, so that sort of thing would not be that useful. Most of the rest I imagine are using existing hardware such as preexisting servers and old PCs and Laptops so may not be that useful for them either.
Having said all that, one of the beauties of Linux specifically, but open source software in genera is that if you have enough patience and the skills, then you can make it do anything you want! TKL is based on Ubuntu and the scenario you mention should be relatively easy to configure if you are willing to get your hands a bit dirty at the command line. Have a read through the Ubuntu documentation and forums and I'm sure you'll find all the info you need. The current stable TKL (v2009.10-2) is based on Ubuntu Hardy/8.04 and the new version in testing (v11.0RC) is based on Ubuntu Lucid/10.04.
If you choose to go ahead with this then it'd be great if you document what you do/did and post it back here as it may be of interest to other TKL users. Good luck!
Add new comment