Server loads and high volume sites
 

I've been meaning to post this for a while; but some time back I was having some performance issues on my server. With 1,000+ users online at my forums I was getting some long page generation times; after doing some research I found a solution that has helped me greatly.

I am running two web servers on my server - one Apache server bound to my main IPs and one thttpd server bound to a single IP which I use for all image hosting. By changing my configuration to load all the style images from the lightweight thttpd server I was able to remove the need for Apache to handle all the image requests. Using Apache to host up all those images was a resource dog because of the need to have PHP, MySQL and all the other extensions loaded when all I want was to serve up images.

So, if you have a forum with a high load and are looking to find ways to make your forums a little snappier; you might consider trying this solution.

Cheers.

Do you have a tutorial for something like this? I definately could use it! Thanks!!

I'd be glad to post how I did it - it was a little daunting at first, but it pretty straight forward.

Please!

Would the attachment images also be getting served from the thttpd server.

I'm serving up probably on average 15-50 attachments per thread and sometimes alot more, and i think its cuasing alot of my load issues.

Thanks

I know Erwin did something similar to this and it reduced his server load a lot! :) I have not gotten to the point where I need multiple servers yet, but I do plan on doing this is the need ever arises. :)

Basically it works like this - you need to have multiple IPs assigned to your server. You'll need an IP you haven't used because you'll be running a web server that doesn't process PHP or anything else, just serves up html and images.

Make sure your apache doesn't bind to that IP; just the other IP(s) for your apache sites which have PHP, MySQL, etc.

Install thttpd and configure it to run on the new IP address , create the images directory and move all your skin images, etc into that tree and start it. Then change your skins to use either the new IP or a domain you assign to the new IP.

I can post my thttpd config file if that helps. I created a domain that I use only to host my images from and all that traffic is offloaded from my Apache server saving alot of processing time loading the fullblown Apache when only a lightweight image server is needed.

The only trick is making sure you have a free IP to use (or getting one) and then making sure that thttpd is bound to that IP and everything else to Apache.

Page generated in 1.70361 seconds with 10 queries [Server Loads: 13.87 6.96 : 4.52]

Hostgator reseller plan.

Yikes! That's bad.... First you have a load over 3 - way over 3, over 10 means your server is struggling big time and possibly swapping.

Dang, that is bad.....Are you on a shared server? If so, contact them and have them look into that or move you to a less intense server.