Mutiple web servers

[precharge]

We would like to move vbulletin to multiple web servers. We already have the images on one server, the db on another and the web server on another and the only problem issue is the web servers. Is there an issue with doing that? My concern is that some files will require that the user files be on one server like possibly session logs or attachments.

[ekool]

You would need to NFS the attachments directory -- which could create some overhead in itself... or, serve the attachments from the DB. All other files can be rsync'ed upon change (make sure to turn off store CSS as files as well).

[avdhesh]

I believe we can set up attachment folder as \\servername\sharename and give this share everyone write access. I think it should work.

As for CSS, simple copying css file to the new web server will do. I do not see much of an issue.

You would need to NFS the attachments directory -- which could create some overhead in itself... or, serve the attachments from the DB. All other files can be rsync'ed upon change (make sure to turn off store CSS as files as well).

[precharge]

Well, in another post, someone created a way of having attachments on a seperate server so that's what we will do. I was more concerned as to the other items. Is there anything that would prevent vbulletin from working in that situation of multiple web servers.

[Zachery]

Hmmm are you really sure that you want to move all of that to a remote server?

Really as I've been working more and more with LARGE ACTIVE sites (formerly zeldauniverse.net, and now mothering.com) I've found that apache is a very large part of issues. Apache is a _great_ webserver overall, however silly static things that get served several hundered times over and over again can make a signifncat load over time.

During E3 I was able to move (about 13 hours before it started) everything that was static (images, large media downloads, mp3's etc) to a remote server. The load drasticly droped down. On the remote server all I was using was lightttpd to serve all of the media.

I plan to follow this though on a new server setup I am working on for one of my clients. We are condensing our current network of main machines from 9 to 6 by way of a new setup.

Having a remote media server to deal with static images had been a big success.

Personally I'd rather avoid the default clustering matter as it just makes things much more complicated when it comes to serving attachments.

[precharge]

I agree Zachery. Typically apache is not used for image serving for that reason. I've had a lot of luck in using Tiny Server. Typically want the server doing those types of items to have as low overhead as possible.

[Erwin]

I have 5 web servers, and separate image and attachment servers - it can be done and works very well even at high loads. All using lighttpd.