Configuring an older server for speed...

[Kurt Buff]

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Steve Bertrand <steve at ibctech.ca> wrote:
> Matthew Seaman wrote:
>
>>> should we use 7 or think about going with 6.3?
>>>
>>
>> I'd go with 7.x every time.  It wipes the floor with 6.3 performance-wise
>> and it is just as stable and bug-free as you'ld expect from FreeBSD.
>>  You've
>> seen it works for you: there's no conceivable reason to downgrade.
>
> I agree with Matthew here.
>
> We have a few production 7 boxes now, some being re-deployed completely from
> 4.x, and a couple that have come from 6.x.
>
> Although I don't have any documentation to show a performance increase, it
> certainly hasn't gotten worse. (I went to 7 for testing for particular
> reasons very early on).
>
> Any issues I've run into with 7 are just as prevalent in 6, so my vote would
> be to follow the 7 train. (Note: the only issues that I have *personally*
> run into so far are related to the 're' driver, which is out of context
> here).
>
> IMHO, more eyes are on the 7 track, so if you have the choice to build a new
> box, why 'downgrade' right off the bat (its not my intention to knock 6.x
> BTW)? Eventually you will be forced to jump a major revision which in some
> cases given user applications can be a bit of a headache.
>
> Stick with what is here and now, and leave 6.x as your upgrade path for your
> current 6.x boxen until you can get those boxes upgraded too.
>
> BTW, to the OP.... I would suspect that your initial delay that causes the
> 'Internet to be slow' is related to DNS somehow. Hit a webserver by its IP
> and see if the problem goes away.
>
> Steve

It's been suggested off-list that I put up a caching DNS server. I'm
in the process of doing that. Initial page load delay, however, is a
new phenomenon, cropping up after our move from the T1 to the DS3, so
I was putting it down to increased use of cache - I'm certainly
willing to be schooled on that, though. We'll see what happens with a
caching DNS server.

Thanks,

Kurt