Re: (Fwd) Re: Solaris HTTP server performance... (fwd)

Beth Frank (efrank@ncsa.uiuc.edu)
Tue, 19 Dec 1995 13:28:05 -0600 (CST)


>
> In message <9512191656.AA09771@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu>, Beth Frank writes:
>
> > At the Boston conf., I had a couple of requests for the
> > patch which significantly improved the TCP/IP performance
> > of the NCSA HTTPd on Solaris machines. It is included
> > below. It was submitted to us by Bob McGrath, the NCSA main
> > web site Webmaster, who had been working wih Sun.
>
> Two questions about running HTTPd under solaris:
>
> 1) is the patch needed for HTTPd 1.5 or is it already in the code?

The patch has been included in NCSA HTTPd 1.5, but needs to be applied
to 1.4.2.

> 2) will the system tuning guidelines described in
> http://www.sun.com/cgi-bin/show?sun-on-net/Sun.Internet.Solutions/
> performance/tun_mon/index.html
> work well with NCSA HTTPd (there is a section describing how
> application developers can maximize performance)? What about apache?

I don't know. Glancing over it, I'd say yes. They reference the Nagle
problem which is addressed by the patch, and increasing the TCP/IP queue
which I believe is necessary for any heavily loaded Solaris server. If
you are having performance problems under Solaris, you may need to look
at a threaded server. (Both NCSA and Apache servers are pre-forking.)
Also look at your DNS lookup times. If DNS is too slow it can slow down
your whole server. You can avoid (or at least significantly decrease)
this problem by compiling the NCSA server with GETHOSTBYNAMEISEVIL set.
This will prevent the server from doing IP address to hostname translations
(avoiding most of the DNS calls), but it will also mean that the logs
will contain IP addresses instead of host names.

> Any additional information from WWW administrators about maximizing
> performance on Solaris servers would be much appreciated...
>
> - Alberto
>
>
> ============
> Alberto Accomazzi Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
> alberto@cfa.harvard.edu 60 Garden Street, MS 70
> http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~alberto Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
>

-- 
		Elizabeth(Beth) Frank
		NCSA Server Development Team
		efrank@ncsa.uiuc.edu