[Request] Lightweight packages recommendations

Letzien

@rajprakash said:
https://lowendbox.com/blog/wordpress-cheap-vps-lowendscript/

The script needs a little tweaking to run on more recent Debian, but still great start.

function get_domain_name() {
    # Getting rid of the lowest part.
    domain=${1%.*}
    lowest=`expr "$domain" : '.*\.\([a-z][a-z]*\)'`
    case "$lowest" in
    com|net|org|gov|edu|co)
        domain=${domain%.*}
        ;;
    esac
    lowest=`expr "$domain" : '.*\.\([a-z][a-z]*\)'`
    [ -z "$lowest" ] && echo "$domain" || echo "$lowest"
}

This is the weirdest way I've seen to use rev and basename and be less portable.

function get_base_domain() {
    echo ${1%.*} | sed 's,\.,|,' rev | cut -f1 -d\| | rev
}

LOL typo missed for about a decade:

SALT=/var/lib/radom_salt

Mark_

@jsg said:

@Mark_ said:
I am wondering if there is a list of recommended lightweight packages for Linux server to use in low end VPS solutions. For example, Nginx, Sqlite, PHP-FPM, Dropbear, ...

I would like to replace as much as possible to get the maximum performance with little ram / processing power.

• What OS?
• If linux, do you need a "comfortable" distro (package manager, etc) like Debian or Centos or will any distro do?
• Do you need ready to be installed packages?
• Do you need "some scripting capability" or do you expressly need PHP?
• Do you know how (and are you willing) to config & compile a kernel?

OS: Debian 9 Stretch
Yes
Yes
PHP and Python (for now)
Nope (only if it is easy and safe)

jsg

@Mark_ said:

@jsg said:

@Mark_ said:
I am wondering if there is a list of recommended lightweight packages for Linux server to use in low end VPS solutions. For example, Nginx, Sqlite, PHP-FPM, Dropbear, ...

I would like to replace as much as possible to get the maximum performance with little ram / processing power.

• What OS?
• If linux, do you need a "comfortable" distro (package manager, etc) like Debian or Centos or will any distro do?
• Do you need ready to be installed packages?
• Do you need "some scripting capability" or do you expressly need PHP?
• Do you know how (and are you willing) to config & compile a kernel?

OS: Debian 9 Stretch
Yes
Yes
PHP and Python (for now)
Nope (only if it is easy and safe)

Then you'll be quite limited. Try to avoid MySql and rather use Sqlite and use one of the not monstrous web servers like cherokee. But evidently PHP plus the ugly familiy it brings along will occupy much space anyway.

rm_

Letzien said: I think OpenWRT 15.05 was the last one to run in 32/4, and barely.

No, 17.01 works fine. And I don't mean any special recompile, just the stock download with web interface included.

But on 18.06 there's too little space left on the flash to be usable.

Letzien

@rm_ said:

Letzien said: I think OpenWRT 15.05 was the last one to run in 32/4, and barely.

No, 17.01 works fine.

Stickler: That would be LEDE, wouldn't it?

Really, though? Stock firmware with LuCI fits in 4M and 32M RAM? Can it do anything?

edfox

@eol said:
Lighttpd.

Nice memory leak you got there

Letzien

@jsg said:

@Mark_ said:

@jsg said:

@Mark_ said:
I am wondering if there is a list of recommended lightweight packages for Linux server to use in low end VPS solutions. For example, Nginx, Sqlite, PHP-FPM, Dropbear, ...

I would like to replace as much as possible to get the maximum performance with little ram / processing power.

• What OS?
• If linux, do you need a "comfortable" distro (package manager, etc) like Debian or Centos or will any distro do?
• Do you need ready to be installed packages?
• Do you need "some scripting capability" or do you expressly need PHP?
• Do you know how (and are you willing) to config & compile a kernel?

OS: Debian 9 Stretch
Yes
Yes
PHP and Python (for now)
Nope (only if it is easy and safe)

Then you'll be quite limited. Try to avoid MySql and rather use Sqlite and use one of the not monstrous web servers like cherokee. But evidently PHP plus the ugly familiy it brings along will occupy much space anyway.

Atop of this, you might consider Devuan - it's Debian, but without systemd, so it uses a lot less memory. If you're using a stock kernel, start learning how to lsmod, see what you aren't removing, add it to the blacklist, and update-initramfs to keep them from loading. Who the hell needs pcspkr or floppy in 2019?

eol

@edfox said:

@eol said:
Lighttpd.

Nice memory leak you got there

Never had an issue.
Proof?

rm_

Letzien said: Stickler: That would be LEDE, wouldn't it?

Yes.

Letzien said: Really, though? Stock firmware with LuCI fits in 4M and 32M RAM? Can it do anything?

What wouldn't it do? O.o

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:         28176      22216       5960        564       2168       7284
-/+ buffers/cache:      12764      15412
Swap:            0          0          0

A typical home router with PPPoE and IPv6.
448KB total space in the /overlay partition, 196 KB free.
If you wanted samba and webserver and owncloud and node.js, then maybe not. But as a router this works no problem, especially as you can see RAM is not an issue whatsoever. For storage, if there's a USB port, you can plug in any old flash stick and have gigabytes free.

jsg

@Letzien said:
Atop of this, you might consider Devuan - it's Debian, but without systemd, so it uses a lot less memory. If you're using a stock kernel, start learning how to lsmod, see what you aren't removing, add it to the blacklist, and update-initramfs to keep them from loading. Who the hell needs pcspkr or floppy in 2019?

I agree, but I assumed that by now everyone knows that there is a "Debian without systemd" (Devuan). FWIW, I use only Devuan (as far as debian type distros are concerned).

Letzien

@rm_ said:

Letzien said: Really, though? Stock firmware with LuCI fits in 4M and 32M RAM? Can it do anything?

What wouldn't it do? O.o

IPv6? Many of these are locked to 4 in hardware, even is superficially. Also, I was thinking of the 4ROM/16RAM boxes like my old favorite hardware (and I'm so fickle, I forget what it was called).

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
> Mem:         28176      22216       5960        564       2168       7284
> -/+ buffers/cache:      12764      15412
> Swap:            0          0          0

A typical home router with PPPoE and IPv6.
448KB total space in the /overlay partition, 196 KB free.
If you wanted samba and webserver and owncloud and node.js, then maybe not. But as a router this works no problem, especially as you can see RAM is not an issue whatsoever. For storage, if there's a USB port, you can plug in any old flash stick and have gigabytes free.

Ehh, I've got about 30+ active clients at all times due to a large household. I like the ability to open up SSH and have it not cycle ports on me after a few minutes of inactivity in an effort to conserve resources. Especially since I'm stuck with SuperMicro IPMI. I broke down and got a $20 used router off of eBay last year, and I love it. I've hooked up a low power HD in lieu of flash. I didn't feel like repartitioning so it has a hell of a lot of swap space.

Linux superrouter 4.9.146 #0 Fri Dec 28 13:43:59 2018 mips GNU/Linux
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        125116      90264      34852       9940      26332      28124
-/+ buffers/cache:      35808      89308
Swap:      1999868        392    1999476
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root                 5.3M      5.3M         0 100% /rom
tmpfs                    61.1M     10.1M     51.0M  17% /tmp
/dev/mtdblock5            8.9M      4.0M      4.9M  45% /overlay
overlayfs:/overlay        8.9M      4.0M      4.9M  45% /
tmpfs                   512.0K         0    512.0K   0% /dev
/dev/sda2               456.4G     93.5G    339.7G  22% /mnt/sda2

rm_

Letzien said: IPv6?

I specifically mentioned this is with IPv6, for a different reason though, because earlier versions of OpenWRT didn't come with v6-related packages by default, and you had to install those on top, consuming the valuable /overlay space.

Many of these are locked to 4 in hardware, even is superficially.

OpenWRT tends to not use any hardware accelerated packet processing engines, because those typically only have a proprietary binary-only kernel module in the vendor's firmware. And these older 32MB/4MB models are more likely to not have any such engines to begin with. And aside from those, there's nothing that would be locking a router with OpenWRT to be IPv4-only.

Letzien

@rm_ said:

Letzien said: IPv6?

I specifically mentioned this is with IPv6, for a different reason though, because earlier versions of OpenWRT didn't come with v6-related packages by default, and you had to install those on top, consuming the valuable /overlay space.

Which is also why I requested further information regarding your statement, saying this doesn't always work OOTB.

Many of these are locked to 4 in hardware, even is superficially.

OpenWRT tends to not use any hardware accelerated packet processing engines, because those typically only have a proprietary binary-only kernel module in the vendor's firmware. And these older 32MB/4MB models are more likely to not have any such engines to begin with. And aside from those, there's nothing that would be locking a router with OpenWRT to be IPv4-only.

As above, so below. We did have some interesting switch+bridge hardware back in the day so the 100Mhz mips processor would be able to handle the amazing task of actually handling out-of-local-area things without having to pass it back to the CPU to handle.

Older OpenWRT didn't have /any/ IPv6 support by default, and trying to run all of the goodies was /nearly/ impossible in low RAM, but again, I was thinking of 4/16, not 4/32, so that was my bad. I forgot just how shitty consumer grade routers were in the early 2000s.