Quad Opterons + FreeBSD + Lighttpd + FastCGI/PHP + APC = Fast vB :)

Yup, I migrated my forums to new servers (dual xeon to quad opterons) using completely new software - FreeBSD, Lighttpd instead of Apache. Lighttpd is really amazing, and I recommend that everyone switch from Apache to Lighttpd. APC works fine on the setup too. Just sharing.

[Erwin]

Originally Posted by mathias

how is converting apache over to lighhtpd

On FreeBSD, it's this: portinstall lighttpd.

[Erwin]

Originally Posted by adalren

Erwin, did you notice less load on the servers vs apache? Any optimizations? I converted to lighttpd but didn't see a noticable drop in load but the pages are generated slightly faster.

Maybe because your webserver wasn't badly overloaded? I can tell you that I was able to consolidate my multiple webservers into a single more powerful one which makes maintaining files and the datastore cache much easier.

[Zachery]

Gentoo's portage system does all of that too, and i personally would have gone with Gentoo over FreeBSD.

[Erwin]

Yeah but Gentoo is still Linux and it basically copied the BSD ports system. BSD is the oldest *nix around AFAIK. In any case, there is no one OS that suits everyone. They are all good in their own way. I just wanted to try something different.

[Zachery]

I'm glad its working for you, what is your current setup now, and would you mind sharing who you went with?

[Erwin]

For the database server, it's a dual processor/dual core Opteron 270 with 8Mb RAM, 8 x 15k SCSI PCI-X Raid 10 array, FreeBSD 6, MySQL 5 - runs like the wind. Loads never hit 0.5. The main webserver is the Quad Opteron with similar specs. We also have image server, irc, attachment, dns, and a slave search server.

We went with webnx in the end - best prices in town - look for Dan Paultz and tell him Erwin sent you - he'll look after you well.

[kmike]

Originally Posted by Erwin

Only if you compile the wrong kernel. FreeBSD 6.0 using AMD64 SMP kernel on a Quad Opteron just plain flies.

Well, but you haven't compared it to Linux, have you?
I already posted some links to FreeBSD/Linux comparisons in MySQL performance, here're some more:
FreeBSD 5.x: http://unix.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Li...5-06/0331.html
FreeBSD 6.x:
http://www.archivesat.com/FreeBSD_Pe...read412787.htm
http://www.archivesat.com/FreeBSD_Pe...read420280.htm

Ports are better than yum/rpm because ports automatically fixes all broken dependencies and installs everything automatically using 1 command: portinstall apache or portinstall mysql5

Can't get any easier than that.

I see some confusion here: yum does resolve the missing dependencies! I'm not sure what do you mean by "broken" dependencies, probably 3rd party rpm packages? But the same goes for the ports - if you install some 3rd party program manually, outside the ports system (doing usual "./configure; make; make install"), you have to resolve its dependencies manually.

There's one fundamental difference between the ports and rpm-based package managers - rpm's are all binary, and you build your ports from the source when installing them. It could be considered as an advantage as you're supposedly tuning the package for your system when building it (with the right parameters), but some time ago I saw the tests of Gentoo (which is touting the same approach as an advantage) vs some binary-based distribution didn't reveal any substantial performance advantages.

And finally, you can easily rebuild RPM package from the source rpm with options tailored for your architecture, too (that's what I did for our install, rebuilt php rpms with Opteron optimizations). It's as easy as doing "rpmbuild --target=athlon --rebuild yourpackage.src.rpm"

[Erwin]

Thanks for the links, it's very specific stuff there. Interesting.

I know about yum - I ran RHEL servers for 4 years.

I'm not here to start an OS-debate. I'm just posting my experiences which mirrors the experience of many others.

[T.S.]

Originally Posted by Erwin

For the database server, it's a dual processor/dual core Opteron 270 with 8Mb RAM, 8 x 15k SCSI PCI-X Raid 10 array, FreeBSD 6, MySQL 5 - runs like the wind. Loads never hit 0.5. The main webserver is the Quad Opteron with similar specs. We also have image server, irc, attachment, dns, and a slave search server.

We went with webnx in the end - best prices in town - look for Dan Paultz and tell him Erwin sent you - he'll look after you well.

I would have went with a little more ram.

[Erwin]

My swap is still zero. Loads are still less than 1. I think it's okay for now considering all it has is the one database as a dedicated database server, MINUS any search or IP searches - we have another dedicated slave database Dual Xeon with 4 MB or RAM to do just search or IP searches.