The server that handles the Linux Kernel Mailing List [archive] recently got an upgrade. Matti Aarnio explains, "folks at Dell have donated a new machine to be VGER, and folks at RedHat have installed it into [a] co-location facility with [a] 1000Mbps network connection into the machine." The upgrade offers much more performance for handling the extremely high-traffic mailing list.

The Linux Kernel Mailing List is usually referred to as the lkml. It evolved many years ago from the "Linux Activist" and other early Linux mailing lists run in Finland. Eventually the early mailing lists were replaced by the Majordomo powered lkml, managed by David Miller at Rutgers University on a server called "vger". When David went to work at RedHat, the server and mailing list went with him. To this day, it continues to be housed at RedHat. Even though it has a kernel.org domain name, it is not actually part of the Linux Kernel Archives [story] or their infrastructure. Instead, it's included in the kernel.org domain due to its function as the primary Linux development mailing list.

From: Matti Aarnio [email blocked]
To:  linux-kernel
Subject: VGER news
Date:	Tue, 9 Aug 2005 17:12:17 +0300

Folks at Dell have donated a new machine to be VGER, and
folks at RedHat have installed it into co-location facility
with 1000Mbps network connection into the machine.

This update got considerable performance increase into the
machine for our list loads.  In terms of Bogomips around 7-8,
but for actual loads nearly twice as much.

We did system switchover last weekend, and nobody reacted trulu
adversely.    Probably nobody noticed it either.   :-)


/Matti Aarnio



From: Jan Engelhardt [email blocked]
Subject: Re: VGER news
Date:	Tue, 9 Aug 2005 16:33:47 +0200 (MEST)


>Folks at Dell have donated a new machine to be VGER, and
>folks at RedHat have installed it into co-location facility
>with 1000Mbps network connection into the machine.

May 24 2004 on kernel.org:
  ISC has upgraded our outbound connection to 1000 Mbit/s. Thanks!

So you have 2000 Mbps now?

>This update got considerable performance increase into the
>machine for our list loads.  In terms of Bogomips around 7-8,
>but for actual loads nearly twice as much.

Wow, that's a lot of bogomips. That's just a little faster than my 386 
(running 2.6.13-rc1): http://jengelh.hopto.org/GFX0/proc386.jpg

>We did system switchover last weekend, and nobody reacted trulu
>adversely.    Probably nobody noticed it either.   :-)
>
>/Matti Aarnio

Or were you missing a 'k' suffix in the bogo number <grin> + ;-)



Jan Engelhardt
-- 
| Alphagate Systems, http://alphagate.hopto.org/



From: Erik Mouw [email blocked]
Subject: Re: VGER news
Date:	Tue, 9 Aug 2005 16:39:24 +0200

On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 04:33:47PM +0200, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> 
> >Folks at Dell have donated a new machine to be VGER, and
> >folks at RedHat have installed it into co-location facility
> >with 1000Mbps network connection into the machine.
> 
> May 24 2004 on kernel.org:
>   ISC has upgraded our outbound connection to 1000 Mbit/s. Thanks!

That's www and ftp.kernel.org, the archive server.

> So you have 2000 Mbps now?

No, this time vger.kernel.org (the mailing list server) got an 1000
Mbit/s connection.

> >This update got considerable performance increase into the
> >machine for our list loads.  In terms of Bogomips around 7-8,
> >but for actual loads nearly twice as much.
> 
> Wow, that's a lot of bogomips. That's just a little faster than my 386 
> (running 2.6.13-rc1): http://jengelh.hopto.org/GFX0/proc386.jpg

Matti is talking about an increase, which implies a difference.


Erik

-- 
+-- Erik Mouw -- www.harddisk-recovery.com -- +31 70 370 12 90 --
| Lab address: Delftechpark 26, 2628 XH, Delft, The Netherlands



From: Matti Aarnio [email blocked]
Subject: Re: VGER news
Date:	Tue, 9 Aug 2005 17:53:23 +0300

On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 04:39:24PM +0200, Erik Mouw wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 04:33:47PM +0200, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> > 
> > >Folks at Dell have donated a new machine to be VGER, and
> > >folks at RedHat have installed it into co-location facility
> > >with 1000Mbps network connection into the machine.
> > 
> > May 24 2004 on kernel.org:
> >   ISC has upgraded our outbound connection to 1000 Mbit/s. Thanks!
> 
> That's www and ftp.kernel.org, the archive server.

Different location, different services.

> > So you have 2000 Mbps now?
> 
> No, this time vger.kernel.org (the mailing list server) got
> an 1000 Mbit/s connection.
> 
> > >This update got considerable performance increase into the
> > >machine for our list loads.  In terms of Bogomips around 7-8,
> > >but for actual loads nearly twice as much.
> > 
> > Wow, that's a lot of bogomips. That's just a little faster than my 386 
> > (running 2.6.13-rc1): http://jengelh.hopto.org/GFX0/proc386.jpg
> 
> Matti is talking about an increase, which implies a difference.

In "absolute" terms about 5600 BogoMips, although all bogos are
not quite the same...   (E.g. Coppermine -> Xeon gives a bit
more difference than just bogos would imply.)

> Erik

/Matti Aarnio



From: Lee Revell [email blocked]
Subject: Re: VGER news
Date:	Tue, 09 Aug 2005 10:39:57 -0400

On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 17:12 +0300, Matti Aarnio wrote:
> We did system switchover last weekend, and nobody reacted trulu
> adversely.    Probably nobody noticed it either.   :-) 

It's definitely faster.  Lately I have had a few replies to list
messages where the reply hit LKML several minutes before my inbox.  This
*never* happened before the changeover.

Lee

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