Apache Tuning Guide

Current stable released Apache version is: 2.0.49.

Apache News

OS Independent

On UNIX, the Apache model is independent process for each connection. This is true up to version 1.X for UNIX. There is a threaded port for Win32, however that is still in early beta. This guide will discuss tuning for the process model.

These tips will apply to Apache running on any OS, both UNIX and NT. You need to ask yourself these questions and have them answered before you could design a kickass web server (based on ANY server software).

• Always make sure you are running the latest stable version of Apache. As of the writing of this document, that would be version 1.3.12.



• Do a review of your intended web site usage. Some of the questions you may want to ask yourself are:



• Will the site be mostly static HTML?
• Will there be lots of CGI? What kind? Perl? PHP?
• Instead of CGI, are you going to be using an embedded server side technology? Such as ASP? Perl Module? PHP3 or PHP4? Java Servlet?
• Databases? Oracle? MSSQL? Mysql? Postgres? ODBC?

Don't forget that hardware also make a big difference. It is not so much money you spent, as to how well you spent it. That is, the components you purchased make a much bigger impact than how much each cost.

Buying the right piece of hardware can make or break the performance of your web server. I will talk a little more about it later.

OS Dependent

This section pertain to tuning tips that are OS dependent.

Solaris - both Sparc and x86

This guide is geared toward v2.6 and later. Some tips may apply to v2.5.1, but I strongly recommend upgrading to at least v2.6 as the network code has vastly improved.

Linux - All architectures

This guide is geared toward Linux 2.2 and later. Some tips may apply to pre-2.0 Linux, but I strongly recommend that you run at least the stable Linux 2.2.x series.

Useful Links

Some useful links

• General Performance hints
• OS Specific Tuning Tips from Apache.org Web site