Apache Performance Tuning

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Apache Performance Tuning

• Part 1 Scaling Up

Sander Temme ltsander_at_temme.netgt
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http//httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/misc/perf-tuning.
html says
Apache is a general webserver, which is designed
to be correct first, and fast second. Even so,
its performance is quite satisfactory. Most sites
have less than 10Mbits of outgoing bandwidth,
which Apache can fill using only a low end
Pentium-based webserver.
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Performance Tuning Goals

• Serve as Many Requests as Possible
• Graceful Degradation
• (Dont crash the box)

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Assumptions

• Limited Resources
• Work With What You Have
• Youre probably running Linux
• No Compiling or Recompiling!
• You can find httpd.conf

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Monitoring Your Server
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Purposes of Monitoring

• Observation
• Extrapolation
• Signals/Alerts
• Testing

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Monitoring Apache
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Monitoring Solaris SE Toolkit

• Lightweight
• Programmable
• Alive

http//www.sunfreeware.com/setoolkit.html
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Other Monitoring Tools

• vmstat
• iostat
• top
• free

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Web Server Logs

• ErrorLog
• LogLevel debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit
• Access Log TransferLog or CustomLog
• Common Log Format

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Common Log Format
172.16.2.91 - - 16/Nov/2003152327 -0800 "GET
/sctemme/ HTTP/1.1" 200 1446 172.16.2.91 - -
16/Nov/2003152328 -0800 "GET
/sctemme/css/doc.css HTTP/1.1" 200
167 172.16.2.91 - - 16/Nov/2003152328 -0800
"GET /sctemme/css/menu.css HTTP/1.1" 200
623 172.16.2.91 - - 16/Nov/2003152329 -0800
"GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 283 172.16.2.91 -
- 16/Nov/2003152334 -0800 "GET
/sctemme/index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 1446
Client IP 172.16.2.91
RFC 1413 ident -
username -
timestamp 16/Nov/2003152329 -0800
Request "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1"
Status Code 404
Content Bytes 283
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Configuring for Performance

• Configuring Apache
• Tuning the Operating System

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Apache Configuration

• Process/Thread Management
• DNS Lookups
• Avoid .htaccess Files
• Disable unused modules
• Tune your App Tier

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DNS Lookups

• HostnameLookups
• Access Control
• Bad Deny from example.com
• Good Deny from 172.160.234.5

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.htaccess Files

• Per-directory configuration files
• Accessed for every request
• Best performance AllowOverride none

GET /dir1/dir2/restricted.html HTTP/1.0
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MaxClients

• Configuration file directive
• Maximum number of workers
• Apache 1.3, 2.0 Prefork processes
• Apache 2.0 Worker threads processes
• Limit according to resources (memory)

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Server-side Includes

• We Love Them!
• Easy to implement
• Easy to manage
• We Hate Them!
• They break sendfile()
• They break cacheability

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SSI on www.apache.org
SSI Enabled
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Sizing MaxClients

• Take total RAM
• Subtract OS allowance
• look at free value without Apache, etc.
• Subtract external program allowance
• JVM, cgi programs, MySQL?
• Divide by httpd process size
• Read process size from top

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Top
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Selecting Your MPM

• Apache 2.0 only!
• Processes and Threads
• Differences between platforms
• Thread-safety issues

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Processes and Threads

• Process
• Own copy of data structures
• Shares program code, shared memory
• Context switches expensive
• Thread
• Runs within process
• Shares process environment
• No context switch

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Platforms and Threading

• Context switches expensive on Solaris, AIX
• Context switches cheaper on Linux
• Solaris uses MN threading
• Linux uses 1 process per thread
• LinuxThreads implementation is old
• Replaced by Native Posix Thread Library (NPTL) in
  2.6
• NTPL already in RH 9, RHAS 3

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Thread-safety

• Third-party modules and libraries
• mod_perl experimental threading in Perl 5.6
  more mature in Perl 5.8
• PHP uses many third-party libraries
• FreeBSD threading not reliable until 5.x
• Apache 2.2 Worker MPM runs on FreeBSD

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Tune your App Tier

• Tomcat
• Edit server.xml, tune minProcessors,
  maxProcessors
• Use APR -gt Persistent connections
• Tune JVM (Heap, Garbage Collection)
• MySQL
• Ships with various scenarios in support-files
• my-small,medium,large,huge.conf
• PHP prefork every child makes a connection
• Tune max_connections variable in my.cnf

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System Tuning Tips

• RAM and swap space
• ulimit files and processes
• Turn off unused services and modules

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RAM and Swap

• Swap is disk-based Extension of RAM
• Excessive swapping kills performance
• Tune MaxClients
• Never have more memory than swap
• Upgrade RAM -gt add more swap space

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ulimit

• Per-process resource limits
• Built-in command of sh, bash
• Important limits
• processes (-u)
• open files (-n)
• Set in invoking shell
• Code in Apache 2.0 startup script
• ulimit -S -n ulimit -H -n
• Linux /etc/security/limits.conf

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Caching Content

• Dynamic Content is Expensive
• Static Content Relatively Cheap
• Several Approaches
• Dynamic caching
• Pre-rendering popular pages (index.rss)

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mod_cache Configuration
ltIfModule mod_cache.cgt ltIfModule
mod_disk_cache.cgt CacheRoot
/raid1/cacheroot CacheEnable disk /
A page modified 100 min. ago will expire in 10
min. CacheLastModifiedFactor .1
Always check again after 6 hours
CacheMaxExpire 21600 lt/IfModulegt
lt/IfModulegt
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Make Popular Pages Static

• RSS Feeds
• Popular catalog queries
• (Check your access log)

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Static Page Substitution
ltDirectory "/home/sctemme/inst/blog/httpd/htdocs"
gt Options Indexes Order allow,deny
Allow from all RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond REQUEST_FILENAME !-f
RewriteCond REQUEST_FILENAME !-d
RewriteRule (.) /cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/1
L,QSA lt/Directorygt
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Tips

• Observe Before You Act
• Act on Monitoring Results
• Dont Overload Your System

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QA
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Conference Roadmap

• TH9 Building a Fast and Rich Web App with PHP 5
• TH10 Troubleshooting Apache configurations
• TH19 mod_perl for Speed Freaks!
• TH22 Garbage collection tuning for java server
  processes
• FR12 Getting everything out of Apache Derby
  database
• FR1 Scaling httpd 2.x to 50,000 Concurrent
  Downloads
• FR5 Apache Performance Tuning Part 2 Scaling
  Out
• FR24 PHP and MySQL Best Practices 2.0

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Current Version

• http//people.apache.org/sctemme/ApconEU2006/FR4/

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Thank You
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Further Reading

• Ryan B. Bloom, Apache Server 2.0 The Complete
  Reference, 2002 McGraw Hill Osborne ISBN
  0-07-222344-8
• Ben Laurie and Peter Laurie, Apache The
  Definitive Guide (3rd Edition), 2002 OReilly
  Associates ISBN 0596002033
• Patrick Killelea, Web Performance Tuning, 2nd
  Edition, 2002 OReilly Associates ISBN
  0-596-00172-X
• http//httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/misc/perf-tuning.
  html
• http//httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/perf-tuning.html
  
• Adrian Cockcroft, Richard Pettit and Sun
  Microsystems Press, Sun Performance and Tuning
  Java and the Internet (2nd Edition), 1998
  Prentice Hall PTR ISBN 0130952494
• Ken Coar and Rich Bowen, Apache Cookbook, 2003
  OReilly Associates ISBN 0596001916