Apache 2 on FreeBSD 5.3

[Sten Spans]

On Fri, 4 Feb 2005, Claus Guttesen wrote:

>> On a FreeBSD 5.3 web server with a very high load, I
>> recently switched
>> from Apache 1.3 and PHP 4.3 to using 2.0 with the
>> prefork MPM and PHP 5.
>> I noticed a drop in perfomance. What is currently
>> the best (in terms of
>> performance) choice for Apache w/ PHP on FreeBSD?
>> Which MPM should I
>> use? Does worker MPM use KSE on FreeBSD 5 and does
>> it perform better
>> than prefork? What about perchild and threadpool? Or
>> maybe I should go
>> back to Apache 1.3? Are there any sysctl or kernel
>> tunings that I should
>> use?
>
> It is not recommend to use apache 2 with PHP. That's
> at least what the folks at php says. We use 1.3 and
> are satisfied with the performance.

This could use some clarification.
Some of the mpm's for apache are threaded ( worker, perchild, etc ).
These require every apache module to be threadsafe. PHP itself
is threadsafe but quite a few of the libraries php links to aren't.

This is why the php folks have chosen a for the safe
advice of apache13. They in general don't see the advantages
of apache2. Which for most simple unix mod_php installs arent that
apparent.

>
> Have you tried to set the following in
> /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf?
>
> KeepAlive Off
> MaxClients (size of one process) / (avail. RAM)

Buffered logs should help a bit too, apache tuning
is quite a large topic, with some resource limiting and
security choises thrown in as well.

I run apache with php as cgi on some boxen for security reasons,
and will migrate to apache2 because of the improved errorlog handling
( try print stderr "\n\n\n"; in a cgi to see the difference ).

For a better answer to your questions a more detailed explanation
of what you are testing will be needed.

- What are you testing ( php ? static html ? is nfs involved ? )
- How are you testing ( ab, httperf ? from where ? )
- Which configuration choises ( childs, modules, memory usage, dns settings )
- etc.

-- 
Sten Spans

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen - Anthem