Compiled or "repository-ed" packages

neboysha

Hi all,

title says it all. What you prefer or would like to have possibility to install, compiled packages for hosting services or it is better for you to go with packages from some official repos.

For example, when I compare Virtualmin to DirectAdmin I see that I was able to have as much as I need php versions from repo (sury repo for Debian) installed but with DA I'm stuck with 4 versions only.

I have experienced so far Plesk, cPanel and DiectAdmin panels and I have always thought that they should have better speed thanks to compiled packages, but in reality when started to use Virtualmin didn't see any noticeable difference.

And I have always been in fear that I will break something on hosting panels as they tend to store files on different places on OS system. It is much easier to me to deal with hosting panels that uses all packages from official repos for OS than if they compiled it.

The only thing that missed so far when using repos, is brotli for nginx so I had to compile brotli modules from source every time I updated nginx and linked them dynamically.

So what is your opinion?

yoursunny

We cannot stomach the idea of littering the host system with a compiler and millions of build artifacts.
Therefore, we install everything from packages.
At most, we can build a Docker image, but even that is usually done offline and pushed to yoursunny private Docker registry.

totally_not_banned

If you want to have the comfort of a panel you'll have to deal with the downsides too, which might mean that the creators build their own stuff as from an engineering standpoint it's actually cleaner than adding a bunch of customizations on top of the official packages. Changes there might break your customization, so have to constantly be on alert to not be suddenly surprised by a ton of people reporting broken installs, you need to keep track of those customizations as the underlying system wont when the package gets removed or updated, ...

Basically it's somewhat messy and (which a big and) you only get the compilations settings used by whatever OS you are basing your panel on, which often times aren't that great for the use case, optimization or at all. The idea behind panels is to isolate the user from the OS (or software in general), so in my opinion the bottom line is: If you want to directly control your software/OS don't use a panel.

neboysha

@yoursunny said:
We cannot stomach the idea of littering the host system with a compiler and millions of build artifacts.
Therefore, we install everything from packages.
At most, we can build a Docker image, but even that is usually done offline and pushed to yoursunny private Docker registry.

Thanks for feedback. This is my way to go also official repos packages.
When it comes to Docker not versed very well still use all officially supported images.

Is there any advantage doing own images and use them on projects on production servers, I mean do you get some better speed and more security? Presuming you still need to compile them from source locally / offline and you might need to recompile them every time new version was published.

neboysha

@totally_not_banned said:
If you want to have the comfort of a panel you'll have to deal with the downsides too, which might mean that the creators build their own stuff as from an engineering standpoint it's actually cleaner than adding a bunch of customizations on top of the official packages. Changes there might break your customization, so have to constantly be on alert to not be suddenly surprised by a ton of people reporting broken installs, you need to keep track of those customizations as the underlying system wont when the package gets removed or updated, ...

Basically it's somewhat messy and (which a big and) you only get the compilations settings used by whatever OS you are basing your panel on, which often times aren't that great for the use case, optimization or at all. The idea behind panels is to isolate the user from the OS (or software in general), so in my opinion the bottom line is: If you want to directly control your software/OS don't use a panel.

You are right about panels and use case like shared hosting especially if you have hosting panel support help if needed. I remember when used cPanel there was a link in admin panel to ask for support.

What I like about Webmin / Virtualmin is if I edit nginx config file from shell (and it is in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf where god put it) I don't need to worry if it will be applied in nginx config after reload/restart or not.

With plesk/cpanel and sometimes with DA I'm absolutely not sure if my changes will be applied and what files I need to edit.

eva2000

@neboysha said:
Hi all,

title says it all. What you prefer or would like to have possibility to install, compiled packages for hosting services or it is better for you to go with packages from some official repos.

It's not what you use that matters but how you use it. For my Centmin Mod LEMP stack almost everything is YUM package installed with exception of some key software like Nginx and PHP-FPM and some software which leverage optimizations and features that favour source compilation. Centmin Mod uses ccache compiling caching to speed up recompiles by as much as 80%

1. Centmin Mod supports various Nginx crypto libraries – OpenSSL 1.1.1, OpenSSL 3.0/3.1/3.2/3.3, and BoringSSL, LibreSSL, QuicTLS OpenSSL 1.1.1/3.0/3.1, Quiche/BoringSSL and Amazon AWS-LC for HTTP/3 QUIC. End users can switch between them for their own specific requirements. Centmin Mod Nginx supports on the fly patches so had HTTP/2 months before official Nginx releases. Want to use Nginx with Post-Quantum Safe KEM https://blog.centminmod.com/2023/10/03/2860/how-to-enable-cloudflare-post-quantum-x25519kyber768-key-exchange-support-in-centmin-mod-nginx/ ^_^

Centmin Mod also supports end users switching to Nginx forks like Angie and Freenginx with all the above mentioned crypto libraries as well.

2. PHP-FPM is source compiled and supports on the fly patching and backports security fixes to all EOL PHP 5.6/7.0/7.1/7.2/7.3/7.4/8.0 versions and in the past has patched security and bug fixes before YUM repo provided PHP-FPM versions. Also Centmin Mod PHP-FPM support optional (not enabled by default) Profiled Guided Optimizations improving PHP performance by 5-20% to the point that PHP version can perform as fast as one major version above it. So PHP 8.0 + PGO can perform like regular PHP 8.1 or PHP 8.1 + PGO > PHP 8.2 and so on. Centmin Mod has both PGO general code path training and also supports end users directing PHP PGO training against their own PHP scripts and code paths which result in better performance than PGO general training i.e. WordPress

• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profile-guided_optimization
• https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/docs/cpp-compiler/developer-guide-reference/2021-8/profile-guided-optimization-pgo.html
• https://go.dev/doc/pgo

neboysha

@eva2000 said:

@neboysha said:
Hi all,

title says it all. What you prefer or would like to have possibility to install, compiled packages for hosting services or it is better for you to go with packages from some official repos.

It's not what you use that matters but how you use it. For my Centmin Mod LEMP stack almost everything is YUM package installed with exception of some key software like Nginx and PHP-FPM and some software which leverage optimizations and features that favour source compilation. Centmin Mod uses ccache compiling caching to speed up recompiles by as much as 80%

1. Centmin Mod supports various Nginx crypto libraries – OpenSSL 1.1.1, OpenSSL 3.0/3.1/3.2/3.3, and BoringSSL, LibreSSL, QuicTLS OpenSSL 1.1.1/3.0/3.1, Quiche/BoringSSL and Amazon AWS-LC for HTTP/3 QUIC. End users can switch between them for their own specific requirements. Centmin Mod Nginx supports on the fly patches so had HTTP/2 months before official Nginx releases. Want to use Nginx with Post-Quantum Safe KEM https://blog.centminmod.com/2023/10/03/2860/how-to-enable-cloudflare-post-quantum-x25519kyber768-key-exchange-support-in-centmin-mod-nginx/ ^_^

Centmin Mod also supports end users switching to Nginx forks like Angie and Freenginx with all the above mentioned crypto libraries as well.

2. PHP-FPM is source compiled and supports on the fly patching and backports security fixes to all EOL PHP 5.6/7.0/7.1/7.2/7.3/7.4/8.0 versions and in the past has patched security and bug fixes before YUM repo provided PHP-FPM versions. Also Centmin Mod PHP-FPM support optional (not enabled by default) Profiled Guided Optimizations improving PHP performance by 5-20% to the point that PHP version can perform as fast as one major version above it. So PHP 8.0 + PGO can perform like regular PHP 8.1 or PHP 8.1 + PGO > PHP 8.2 and so on. Centmin Mod has both PGO general code path training and also supports end users directing PHP PGO training against their own PHP scripts and code paths which result in better performance than PGO general training i.e. WordPress

Hey,
I know your script, used to play with it when I was beginner and CentOS/RH fan. Just read your site and you got interesting concept there but still towards RH clones.

Is your script portable to Debian and clones? So you compile Nginx and PHP/FPM only and all other packages are from official repos? Do you have Brotli compression for Nginx, if not may I suggest to add it. I add it on top of reposed nginx as dynamically linked modules when client asks for it. More info here https://github.com/google/ngx_brotli .

I like support for http/3 and QUICK. From what I know it is UDP based and saw Fastly use it for media files. Not sure if it is good for html based files as I see they have fallback to http/2 on regular pages.

Thanks for your contribution, I will try your script when I catch a time. Now as CentOS 7 is eof what is your preferred OS? Alma?

eva2000

Centmin Mod is CentOS/AlmaLinux/Rocky Linux YUM based only.

And yes optional Nginx Brotli support disabled by default https://community.centminmod.com/threads/how-to-use-brotli-compression-for-centmin-mod-nginx-web-servers.10688/ and just added Nginx zstd support https://community.centminmod.com/threads/add-optional-nginz-zstd-module-support-in-130-00beta01.25479/. Centmin Mod Nginx has had Brotli support since 2015

I generally prefer AlmaLinux https://community.centminmod.com/threads/centmin-mod-130-00beta01-public-almalinux-8-rocky-linux-8-beta-testing.24227/. Example install https://community.centminmod.com/threads/digitalocean-almalinux-8-centmin-mod-130-00beta01-test-installation.24233/