FreeBSD 64 bit support needed!

V

Voland

Verified User
Joined
May 21, 2005
Messages
64
Hello guys!

I have purchased several new servers

2XQuad core xeon
8 Gb Ram

but FreeBSD 32 bit can't see more than 3 Gb of RAm
with FreeBSD 64 bit all is OK.

It will be very good if DA supports this OS

Thanks
 
Ye, this is kindof annoying. One of my Freebsd boxes can see more than 3GB whilte the other can only see 3 even though 4gb is installed. I dont think its DA that cant see it but rather the hardware, bios that cant.
 
Pucky, note that Voland writes that the machine can see all 8GB of RAM if FreeBSD 64 bit is installed, but not if FreeBSD 32 bit is installed. Can that really be a BIOS problem?
Jeff
 
I was referring to the 32 bit version myself. Yes its available under 64 but for everyone elses information it may not be able to see more than 3gb on a 32. But at times it can.
 
PAE is unsupported and untested so i wouldnt use it on a production server to be quite honest with you.
 
I have checked a lot of solutions before create this threed but all of it is unstable and not tested...
DA really need to goes 64 bit for this OS because it working smootly on it.
I'm using DA+BSD about 3 years and my servers last uptime was 570 days until 20KV UPS has gone :) and all that I done during the last 3 years is:

./build clean
./build update
./build all

and push the button "update DA"
no troubles no issues no errors
DA+BSD is best solution for hosting
 
Voland said:
DA really need to goes 64 bit for this OS because it working smootly on it.
Click to expand...
You've got that right. I need to put together a could new servers and I don't want it to be 32 bit. Servers are too much work to setup to be doing it very often. 32 bits might not last me a year. I noticed that cPanel and Plesk are in the game. I would think it would actually be a lot easier for DA. cPanel says they want people to do everything out of ports now. Interesting. I would think it would break. Apparently they do things way different now. We have automotive supplier customers and DA meets their FTP needs whereas cPanel & Plesk cannot.
 
jlasman said:
What's your reason for needing 64-bit?Jeff
Click to expand...
More memory. For the first time FreeBSD's 64 bit is also faster than their 32 bit as well.

It's also less stressful to start out 64 than to move to 64 later after the server has gone live. Pretty much all of the pieces are out there now to do 64 bit. In light of the advantages, why would someone not want to?
 
With about 200 FreeBSD licenses already and a couple years of now using DA only on new servers when a client wants a CP we would love to see this supported as well. Can we get an official reply from DA on this? Thanks.

- Matt
 
Hello,

At this time, if you want 64-bit, use CentOS 5.
We're not able to support every single variation of every single OS that comes out unfortunately.

John
 
EWH1 said:
...an official reply from DA on this?- Matt
Click to expand...
Great idea Matt! Not the answer I wanted to hear and we're only asking for a second OS, FreeBSD. Well...I guess I'll need to look around. There is a difference between officially and what works well. Some guys are getting DA to work on it. Else, I don't hear good about the Plesk option, but I do the cPanel 11 option. FreeBSD 7 is the only version they've been dead serious about since 4.x People say it works very well and 11 is the first solid version most people remember. I'm not sure I want to go back there, but I'm looking at Softlayer and they are trying to push me there if I come.
 
I also would like to see official FreeBSd amd64 support or at least a better answer than "it's not supported" when we ask if it's possible. Some have reported that it is...at least make it a beta or something and get working on it.

We are in a 64 bit world now. I can't continue running slow binaries because directadmin is lazy.
 
DA should think to start beta support for FreeBSD 7.x amd64
We are now moving on world of 64bit OS (as we were from 16bit to 32bit)
I use DA because it's support FreeBSD not CentOS
 
jlasman said:
Pucky, note that Voland writes that the machine can see all 8GB of RAM if FreeBSD 64 bit is installed, but not if FreeBSD 32 bit is installed. Can that really be a BIOS problem?
Jeff
Click to expand...

Yes it can, and is. As you are aware 32 bit addressing can only see 4 gigs. The BIOS, video, system roms etc. are part of that 4 gigs. There may be some holes in that range that in theory could be used, but without a BIOS and OS support to take advantage of the holes, about 3/4 of a gig gets eaten up, and that's with a 1/2 smart BIOS. Dumber BIOSes would lose the full GIG. Since those addresses reside in the same range as the RAM, the RAM addresses are inaccessible for use from the lowest (video) to the highest. (system ROMs) I'd bet he really sees 3 1/4 gigs with 4 installed. With some OS and BIOS combinations there are games they play with using unused ranges and shadowing, where you have more than one memory location at the same address. The two memory locations are disambiguated using several different methods such as entry points, etc. (Complicated code, risky, and sometimes you can't get it to work even when you have all the right pieces in place) You won't see this problem with 3 gigs of memory because the 3 plus 750 megs still falls inside of the 4 gig addressability limit. However, when you add the 4th gig, you normally only pick up about 250 megs of usable additional memory because the remainder is masked. 64 bit would of course easily see all 4. In theory, 64 bit would have a similar problem at a much higher address and perhaps over a larger range. However, AFAIK, there are no OSes and or hardware that can get anywhere near 64 bit limits at this time. PAE has been around since the Pentium Pro, but not many people had the need because there were no low cost machines to support that much memory. PAE does no good if the OS doesn't support it, and there is a cost to using it. By the time there was a widespread need, 64 bit OSes, wide busses, and straightforward processor support were available. Therefore, for the most part, 32 bit operating systems are limited to 3 1/4 gigs of RAM.
 
Last edited:
Hello Again!

As I see, a long time passed from my first post and many things has changed.
First of all, has changed the quantity of web users, thay grows up and 4 GB of ram isn't enough for serious hosting service.
4096 (RAM) - 256 (OS)-512 (mysql)-256 (for some services)= 3GB
3072 / 20(variable apache usage in Mb) = 156 online users
that's it. And it's superior limit.
156 users can be obtained by one site, but i can't give a server for each 4-20$ hosting.


For today, requirement is a 16 gb of ram and all servers I hawe purchased during the last 6 month has 16 GB because the connections per server are above 800-900.

I have tryed to use Freebsd with PAE but it sucks.
When i have compilled the kernel with it, the os can see more Ram but don't se the hard drives or something else.
Verdict - PAE is a Headache

Don't forget, We are not a LAB
We representing the Hosting Companies where stability is main task.
 
Voland said:
I have tryed to use Freebsd with PAE but it sucks.
Click to expand...

PAE sucks anywhere unless you can move from working of disk to memory. It throws a bottleneck into the memory access, but it gets people over the 3.25 gig RAM barrier with a 32 bit OS. It's claim to fame was data center processes where they could make "hay" by moving processes impractical for disk speeds to memory.

With the low cost high performance reliable servers today, being limited to 32 bits for a server OS is throwing money away.
 
IT_Architect said:
Yes it can, and is. As you are aware 32 bit addressing can only see 4 gigs.
Click to expand...
Yes, I do understand. I recently built an ubuntu desktop system with 64-bit ubuntu because I wanted all of my 4G to be used. My point was only that even with a bios fix, with 32-bit system he still couldn't see all 8G. The point was he wants to use 8G, not all of 4G.

Jeff
 
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