apache httpd performance

[Robert Watson]

On Sun, 22 Apr 2007, Stefan Lambrev wrote:

> I'm using my laptop to run ab in both test, and 2 totally different servers 
> :) That's why I do not pretend that the benchmark is done the right way.
>
> The linux host is with pentium 4 single core processor, The freebsd host is 
> amd64 athlon 3200+ (2GHz) - single core too
>
> Both servers share same dns server(s), so I do not think that the DNS can be 
> issue.
>
> I'm using 3com network card - 100mbps - xl.
>
> I'll test with accf_http and will report back. If there is a problem (as I'm 
> still not sure that there is) I'll make more accurate benchmark and will try 
> to find where is the problem (with your help) :)

If the hardware used for the servers and clients isn't identical between the 
two tests, then the results are at best misleading.  In this case, assuming I 
understand your hardware description correctly, the significant differences in 
server hardware make any comparison utterly meaningless.  We'd be better off 
ignoring the Linux results entirely and simply try instead to optimize your 
FreeBSD performance.  If you want to do side-by-side OS comparisons, you need 
to use the same hardware configurations in an otherwise identical software 
configuration.

If this is 6.x, try setting net.isr.direct to 1.  If running threaded apps, 
try using libthr instead of libpthread.  If using uniprocessor hardware, make 
sure you are using a UP kernel rather than an SMP kernel.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge