[BLU] Red Hat, Speed, and a Web server (fwd)

[Ron Peterson]

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, Jesse Noller wrote:
> 	Now, I am wondering, if there is any interest in a project like
> this? I mean, we have numerous projects out there, like the Citi Project
> (http://www.citi.umich.edu/projects/citi-netscape/) However, not only is
> there information outdated, so are the kernel tweaks.
>
> 	Start with a vanilla Red Hat 7.0/7.1 box. Load ANY kernel you want,
> trim the entire system to be as fast as it can be, this means Disk and Stack
> I/O, tweaking nic card drivers, and ending up finally, taking a stock
> version of Apache 1.3.x and 'tweaking' it.

You might want to start with Mandrake, which will have everything compiled
for Pentium.

> 	1. Install 2.4.2 kernel, check internal kernel documentation for any
> tweaks

If you do use Red Hat, recompile for Pentium, I think there's an SMP
option too.

> 	2. Load IPtables so that it block all traffic with Reject packets
> except for port 80, that way, no other requests can come into the stack.

This may be better/faster done by a switch.

> 	4. Check hardware duplexing on Ext2 FS

Don't forget lots of separate physical disks so seeks are much faster.
You might want to put the content on one whole disk, as well as /tmp and
/var and /var/log.  I would get like 4-6 SCSI disks.  To split up IO even
more, maybe have / on Primary IDE and /tmp on secondary IDE, and put the
rest on a good dual-channel SCSI card.

> 	6. Load up on RAM, make sure almost nothing is swapping out, and
> everything is going into Ramspace

I think there is a kernel parameter to see over 128MB, but I'm not sure.

ALSO:
I agree with other comments that if you want reliable speed, you should
not be using Intel-based hardware, but understand the expense part.  Sun,
et al, actually have comparable TCO over time, but that's not what you
want to hear.  At least go with 1 or more 1.2Ghz Athlon Thunderbirds.
Buy large cases with lots of cooling and air filters (for uptime), and big
power supplies.

For the most kick-ass reviews on Intel hardware speed demons, check out
http://www.arstechnica.com.

Another consideration may be having a second smaller box for serving
images, and maybe even a third for static HTML.  Let the app server just
serve apps.


-------------------------------------------------------------------
DDDD   David Kramer                   http://thekramers.net
DK KD
DKK D  "All my life, I always wanted to be somebody.
DK KD  Now I see that I should have been more specific."
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