[OmniOS-discuss] OmniOS as web server: what good/best practices to follow?

[Davide Poletto]

Hello list,

I'm planning to use OmniOS 151014 as base OS for a Web Server in order to
deploy a little "Intranet-in-a-Box" project based on a Drupal 7
distribution called "Open Atrium 2" (other required mandatory components
are PHP and MySQL).

This is the very first time for me in using OmniOS to provide web services
considering I used OmniOS basically only as base OS to provide NFS storage.

I'm trying to understand (1st issue) what web server to use (both apache
and nginx are good candidates for Drupal, as far as I can see) and (2nd
issue) how to perform its installation (relying on specific repositories
that provide those packages or via pkgsrc as happens with SmartOS)
considering also the idea (hope that it will not be too silly) that (3rd
issue) it would be great to have the web server document root in a separate
ZFS dataset (so not into the root pool).

>From the hardware perspective my plan is to use a mirrored root pool for
OmniOS and another mirrored data pool especially dedicated to web server's
document root (which, by default, varies when using apache or nginx) OR to
have a dedicated dataset for the whole path in which the web server
application will be installed (I guess under /opt for both apache and
nginx?).

Not sure if my 3rd issue above is more (I presume less) important than not
using a NGZ (Non Global Zone) approach: actually I'm not planning to run
the web server into a dedicated NGZ (Non Global Zone) even if - I've read -
that should be the only right way to follow leaving the GZ (Global Zone)
practically untouched just for administrative maintenance (good practice).
I'm ready to change my plan if someone will show me benefits in doing so
(I'm a little bit worried on the networking part of the NGZ approach).

Both the ideas of dataset separation on /opt or just the one of a dataset
dedicated to the web server's document root don't appear so new...but, very
recently in this list, I've also read something related to /opt (when in a
separate dataset than root pool) that is scaring me a lot.

Any guidance/help is really appreciated (consider I'm a noob among experts).

Kind regards, Davide.
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