Should I run 32 bit and 64 bit production applications on a 64 bit Debian server?

I need to run 2 proprietary C++ applications, one is 64 bit and the other is 32 bit ,on a production Debian GNU/Linux server.

Both have a lot of dependencies for libraries provided by debian. Here are a few for example:

Application A (64 bit) depends on :

• mysql (64 bit)
• libssl (64 bit)
• Libboost (64 bit)
• ...

Application B (32 bit) depends on:

• libssl (32 bit)
• libboost (32 bit)
• ...

If I install debian lenny 64 bit, I will get a great OS for running application A on. But for application B, I will have to maintain (and update) the 32 bit libraries on my own, backporting each one to install itself to /usr/lib32.

Is there another way to go about this problem that I haven’t thought of? Or is this a bad idea which should not be used on a production server?

Solution 1:

One option is to build a complete 32 bit install to be run as a chroot environment, debian has good tools for this I would look at debootstrap for example

debootstrap --arch i386 gutsy /mnt/32bit_install http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian

See Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System

Solution 2:

It's a normal situation. Debian has some great howtos related to this problem. See here. Chrooting the 32bit app will give you a clean 32bit environment to play with and maintain properly.