[Serusers] [Sems] SIP Express Bundle - let's get started

[Jeremy A]

Greger V. Teigre wrote:
> Hi guys, thanks a bunch for lots of input and I really appreciate the
> willingness to contribute.
> Thus, I have created a "project page":
> http://www.iptel.org/sip_express_bundle_sip_service_in_15_minutes
>
> I thought we could gather the current perspective on that page and
> document our decisions as we go. It will hopefully be useful in our
> process, as well as documentation for us and others later.
>
> I have noted the following volunteers:
> Jai: testing and installation work
> ram: testing
> SIP: tesing
> Jiri: anyting?
> Mike: testing and documentation
>
> Maybe we should set up a small mailing list for coordination emails,
> but for now, let's use serusers (where I think all the comments came).
> (I copy the other lists on this post, so the other lists know that the
> discussion will move to serusers).
>
> Out of the comments, I read CentOS and vmware as the most wanted
> combination. I have documented the pros and cons on the project page,
> and suggest that we do some testing before we decide. I also tried out
> rpath (which I have no previous experience with). My observations are
> documented on the same page.
>
> Thus, I have started setting up a minimal CentOS virtual appliance
> found in vmware's appliance directory on an esx server. I will send
> details on accessing it to the volunteers once it is up and running
> (decompressing, unpacking, and building a non-split disk takes an
> awful lot of time :-( ).
>
> Ok, further comments, ideas, etc, please post to serusers or edit/add
> comments to the project page (requires an iptel.org account).  I see
> the following steps with documentation as we go (steps also found on
> the project page):
> 1. Testing and specification of what we want to accomplish
> 2. Environment and OS setup to ensure that we easily can release new
> versions
> 3. Installation and configuration of the software. I assume this step
> also will involve development of some tools we need, as well as
> adaptation of existing stuff
> 4. Testing and user documentation
> 5. Packaging and deployment
>
> Let's get going!
> g-)

Regarding your project page, just a minor comment about your statement
about Centos (and other O/S that will give  the same impression)

"Recommended disk size and packaging creates a small OS image in zipped
format (something like 3-400 Mb), but actual virtual disk inside tar/zip
file is huge (10Gb) and results in loooooong unpacking times"

This is not necessarily correct. The typical Centos VM disk image is 4Gb
most of which is empty space. In my experiments with Centos and SER this
could be reduced to 2Gb without problems. In fact my current Centos
systems need around 500Mb plus data space.

Also, when the image is correctly constructed (empty disk space set to
zero) the image can be very rapidly expanded. If you have a downloaded
VMware image that expands to 10Gb and takes a long time then it is a
problem for the person who generated it rather than the VMWare system.

I recommend that you generate a custom VMWare image  (or get a more
efficient image to modify). You could start at 4Gb but perhaps 2Gb will
be sufficient as SER is not very demanding on most resources. I guess
you will need Apache, Bind, php, MySql etc. These do not take up a lot
of space.

If you are stuck with no help to make a basic Centos VMWare image I can
create one for you at a variety of sizes and with whatever support
software you need.

Jeremy