Monitoring server speed

[CowboySurfers.com]

For those that handle their own server operations, and use Apache, what do you monitor to make sure load is being handled properly?

Has anyone made any modifications to the
settings in the httpd.conf file?

Any advice in general on increasing server performance would help.

[Fart]

For put through, route and ping tests you could use these 2 free sites

http://www.tracert.com/
http://www.visualware.com/visualroute/livedemo.html

[CowboySurfers.com]

Hey Fart (funny to write that),

Yeah, I use Linux so I have ping and traceroute on my PC.

What I really want to know is about configuring Apache for maximum performance and how to monitor when i might need to do so.

I mean, I know how to use top, uptime, and monitor web processes. It is also standard knowledge that load processing under 3 is supposed to be good and over not. But I've noticed over the years that those load averages (around 3) don't really seem to matter too much in reality.

I'm happy with my server performance as is, But I'd like to know what warning signs I can watch for, etc.

[eXtremal]

Check out this:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/perf-tuning.html

[Due]

Cowboy> Under 3??
I always do what I can do keep it below 1.
It is usually below 0.5 also http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ubb/smile.gif but also running pure SCSI and have 1 GB RAM that helps quite a bit I think....at some point I actually belived that 1 would mean the server was maxed out http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

[CowboySurfers.com]

eXtremal,

Thanks .. I'm going to check out that link right now.

Due,

Based on what you said, I probably need to add some RAM. I have quite a bit less than you.

[CowboySurfers.com]

What do you guys have
the MinSpareServers, MaxSpareServers, and StartServers values set at?

[Due]

Minimum spare server processes is set to 5
Maximum concurrent requests is 250
Maximum spare server processes is 10
Initial server processes is 5
Not sure what that means though. Dynamichosting.com handles everything on the server http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ubb/smile.gif
Does anyone know if Maximum concurrent requests is the same as processes allowed to be running that shows when you do a "top"?

[Jonathan Craig]

If it goes above 3, it isn't necessarily bad you know. I stresstested one of our machines yesterday and got it to 34.6 before it started slowing down. I bet I could have gotten it to 40 before it would have crashed.

Acceptable levels go upto 5, but it all depends on the hardware you have and what's relative to that.

0.5 is nothing Due hehe.

[richard]

Colin, i like to work under linux, if only because i learn more and are more motivated with my programming, one thing that pisses me off is HTML work though. I know html, but dreamweaver makes it soooo easy.

What do you use as your html editor under linux, or do you hand-code all html?

Rich.

[CowboySurfers.com]

Richard,

I hand code ..

I have a windows machine also .. that has Dreamweaver on it. Dreamweaver is a great program. My layouts tend to be pretty simple though. Rows and columns all the same size.

I can hand code the simple tables I construct
faster than I can use Dreamweaver. I would guess people that do more complicated things would need an HTML editor.

Most of my pages have custom/random changes
created on the fly anyhow. And Dreamweaver switches some characters like the & symbol .. and that REALLY annoys me.

[T&T]

Actually, it's my understanding that whenever loads rise beyond 1.00 that means that the cpu actually _is_ being maxed out in that point in time (idle=0%) and there is no more room for stuff to be processed. Of course, that's only if you want maximum performance... on servers serving banners/pics I keep em at around 10... why wast hardware http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ubb/smile.gif

[Al]

Colin,

Guru of Gif's had some excellent articles on Apache tweaking...