[Xitami] Xitami2.4d9 and PHP4

[Chris Olson]

Chris Olson wrote: 
> I tested Xitami for about a year and a half, then finally gave up on it and
> went back to Apache.  I'm back testing it again, trying to run a php4 driven
> MySQL database application to see if it will reduce CPU/memory load over
> what Apache uses.  The server is running on a twin Pentium-Pro, powered by
> Debian Linux/2.2.19 kernel, and 512MB RAM.  Apache version is 1.3.24 with
> PHP4.4.1 as loadable module for Apache, and using the php4-mysql module to
> drive the database.  All applications installed with Debian debs from the
> woody distro.

I answered most of my own questions <g>.

I had to compile php4 --with-mysql to work with Xitami and this application
- the php4 module for apache wouldn't work.  The results are somewhat
disappointing.

This was a good time of the evening to test Xitami, as the server is running
under a fairly heavy load.  This is an online message board application
hosted for the GWTA.  This server is running at a constant load of about
11,500 hits per hour this time of the evening.  This would be no problem
with static pages, but this is a totally dynamic php4/mysql database
application which greatly increases CPU and memory load due to parsing
scripts and database calls - the database server is running on the same
machine.

Monitoring processes and performance, using top, shows apache using
approximately 67% of the total memory (both physical and swap) and the CPU's
running an average of 17-21% idle.  Apache isn't using all the CPU power -
quite a bit of it is being used by the mysql daemons, which fork like
apache.  Running 'ps -ef|grep apache' shows an average of 190-200 seperate
httpd processes fairly continuous.  This varies between peaks and valleys of
load, as some of the server processes die off when load goes down, and
apache spawns new ones as load increases.

Xitami is different.  It can handle this application until a peak in the
demand hits.  When load peaks, Xitami requires increasing memory to spawn
new threads, but not as much as apache.  Apache is fairly constantly
requiring 350-400 MB of memory.  The CPU power is another matter.  Xitami is
using it all, and the server slows to a dead crawl when the load peaks.  The
only explanation I can come up with is that the parsing of the php scripting
is not quite as efficient as the way apache is doing it.

Is there a way to optomize php for Xitami?  Or a loadable module similar to
apache's?  Xitami isn't listed in the documentation for the current release
of PHP4.

Regards,
--
Chris Olson
System Administrator
AST Communications  http://www.astcomm.net