IBM on "When will Redhat Linux Enterprise Server 3 be supported?"

We are heavily into using RedHat Linux in our organisation, and have many versions ranging from 6.2, through 7.x, and have recently started to focus on using the ‘Enterprise’ class of offerings, ES2.1 and ES3. As many of you are aware, Domino only runs Uni-processor on ES2.1, and is unsupported on ES3.

I asked an IBM Business Partner “When will Redhat Linux Enterprise Server 3 be supported?”

This morning, I got this response…

It seems that the answer is that it won’t be supported, the technical reasons for this are detailed below.

In Domino 7 development is taking the work done for Domino 6.5 for Linux on zSeries and moving it over to Intel. Specifically, this work is based on the epoll kernel API that allows Lotus to use Domino “Thread Pools” to support clients instead of the “Thread per Connection” model used on Linux today. The “Thread per Connection” model is the fundamental bottleneck for Linux scalability. Internally, “Thread Pools” are handled differently to “Thread per Connection” model in Domino. As a result, Lotus can only develop one connection model for Domino 7. That model will be “Thread Pools” based on the epoll API.

United Linux:

 UL 1.0 SP2 supports epoll today

    Domino 7 will support UL 1.0  (and likely UL 2.0 post GA)

    This solution will scale comparable to other platforms

RedHat:

 RedHat AS 2.1 and  EL 3.0 do NOT support epoll

    Domino 7 will NOT support RH AS 2.1

    Domino 7 will NOT support RH EL 3.0

 RedHat EL 4.0 will support epoll

    RedHat GA Date is TDB (projected -> 4Q04-1Q05)

    Lotus will plan to pick up RedHat EL4.0 support in a 7.0.1 / 7.0.2

    depending on GA date of D7 and Redhat 4.0.

Any comments?

I know that Domino is supported on UnitedLinux, but we’d really prefer to stick with RedHat as we’ve a very strong internal knowledge of this brand of Linux and don’t want to have to change to UL.

Darren

Subject: IBM on “When will Redhat Linux Enterprise Server 3 be supported?”

Looks pretty straightforward to me, though with a hole or two. Some of the core technology for Domino 7 requires that the OS support certain calls for thread-pooling. The RedHat kernel won’t have these needed calls (epoll) until RH 4.0. Here’s a quick chart based on what I gathered in the e-mail:

Domino 6.5

Domino 7.0

RedHat AS 2.1

Supported in uni-processor, multi-processor supported under 6.5.1 (added from Alan’s response)

Not supported

RedHat EL 3.0

Not supported

Not supported

RedHat EL 4.0

(no info given in message)

Supported in 7.0.1/7.0.2 based on release date of Domino 7 and RedHat 4.0

United Linux 1.0 SP2

(no info given in message)

Supported

United Linux 2.0

(no info given in message)

Supported in 7.0 or 7.0.x, depending on release date of Domino 7 and UL 2.0

I can’t recall if Domino 6.5 is supported on United Linux, but if you know then you can fill in some of the blanks.

Subject: see www.lotus.com/dominolinux

Also, in 6.5.1 the RH uni-processor limit will be removed.

Subject: they should just say “needs Linux 2.6.x kernel”

Because that’s what they really mean. What would be nice is if they release epoll support in an earlier version of Domino (6.5.2?) and let the hackers test it on unsupported 2.6.x kernel Linuxes…I’m sure we’d be happy to report results back on these forums :wink:

Subject: RE: they should just say “needs Linux 2.6.x kernel”

This still doesn’t help with ND6.x on RHEL ES platforms though.

This seems like a major oversight by IBM in supporting United Linux and not the RedHat Enterprise offerings.

Are we really expected to skip ND6.x and stay with R5 on RH7.x until the arrival of Domino 7?

Subject: This could be promising …

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=102683