[Xitami] Disuccsion: Xitami load testing

[WhiteShepherd]

I have used Xitami for 6 years now in a production environment.  
Currently I run Apache2 and Xitami 2.4d9 (the most stable version for me 
so far) on a win23k server.  There are advantages and disadvantages to 
both.  But both serve my needs.  I push in average around 800-1000gigs 
upstream a month in hits (that's a LOT).  The reason I run both servers 
is they are both efficient in their own respects.  Reasons for Apache: 
Currently I host over 1600+ websites each with their own domains.  On 
volumes such as this Apache's virtual host is MUCH more efficient than 
MIS or Xitami.  What Apache does is rather than having a hosting config 
and restart for each host.  It compares the incoming domain name to a 
directory in a specified path.  Ie www.isme.com coming in on the correct 
IP routes to c:\html\hosts\isme\  or c:\html\hosts\isme.com\   depending 
on how you check the domain.  This allows you to add hosts without a 
server restart (though it will take some study to get everything the way 
you want it) and saves on performance/memory. 

I run Xitami for performance on key applications.  Particularily Xitami 
seems to execute perl scripts faster than Apache but at a cost of heavy 
memory per call to a perl script (each perl request goes to a perl.exe 
instead of command requests being chained to 1 interpreter).  I run 
Xitami in turbo mode (for my forums).  My sites main forums (a perl 
Ikonboard) run off of Xitami.  I also have Xitami serving subdomains 
that get massive hits.   For example when Apache hosts a file it does a 
lot more file IO (checking) that can use up CPU resources.  Xitami on 
the other hand just serves the file and is much more efficient.  My main 
page rotates a art gallery so for efficiency I have Xitami host that 
subdomain that those images link too.  Hundreds of static hits flood 
into to that domain which Xitami can more efficiently serve.

When you get into volume hosting it's all about efficiency and 
everything you can do to improve it.  Myself I ran win2k for 2 years.  
It proved very stable but the performance of win2k3 is better.  Some 
tips turn on EVERY windows service you are not using (why give CPU and 
memory to something just sitting around?).  There are lots of tips on 
the web for this.  Turn off 8 character file name creation on long file 
names!  This will cut down a LOT of IO and avoid hands on dirs with 
thousands of files/directories.  From personal experience Xitami and 
Apache seem to run better as a console than a service under heavy load.  
I have batch files to loop them on restart.

If you start just running only Xitami (I started this way).  Then for 
efficiency I would just have 1 copy of Xitami running and have Xitami 
host the two domains to their respective directories.

  Gene



rpo wrote:
> Hello all -
>
> I am running standard version 2.4d9 - it seems to be very stable for me and
> I have very little to no crashes with this version over the last several
> years.  However, I will be starting up a business soon that potentially
> could have thousands of hits a day, and hundreds of Megabits, if not a few
> gigabits, of traffic per day.  There will only be two domains on the server,
> each domain will be bound to its own IP address and each IP address will
> have its own copy of Xitami running on it.  Each Xitami won't have any
> virtual domains attached to it.  I am interested in knowning others
> experiences with load issues, connection issues, etc etc. with Xitami?
>
> Where can I expect problems?  How far can Xitami be pushed before it boggles
> down, slows to a crawl or utlimately crashes?  What areas of the Xitami
> config - or even on Win2K Adv Server - can I optimize to get the most out of
> this server?  To handle the most load?
>
> I have a pretty robust physical server:
>     Pentium 4, 2.8Ghz
>     4 gig of DDR2 5300 memory (800mhz)
>     800Gig harddrive storage mirrored (so 800Gb/800Gb)
>     SCSI controller
>     Seperate OS hard drive
>     Dual Gigbit NIC cards bound together sharing same IP address
>     Win2K Advanced Server
>     Xitami v2.4d9
>
> Hopefully this starts up some good dialogue and we can all begin to get a
> perspective on Xitami's performance levels.
>
> -Russel
>
>
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