Even so, its performance is quite satisfactory. ..

1
Apache Performance Tuning

• Part 1 Scaling Up

Sander Temme ltsander_at_temme.netgt
2
Who am I?

• Member, Apache Software Foundation
• Lurker on dev_at_httpd
• Infrastructure Team Member
• Contractor
• Walt Disney Imagineering
• ADP
• University of California
• Currently unemployed

3
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.
4
(No Transcript)
5
Goals of Performance Tuning

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

6
Assumptions

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

7
Monitoring Your Server
8
Purposes of Monitoring

• Observation
• Extrapolation
• Signals/Alerts
• Testing

9
Monitoring Apache
10
Monitoring Solaris SE Toolkit

• Lightweight
• Programmable
• Alive

http//www.sunfreeware.com/setoolkit.html
11
Other Monitoring Tools

• vmstat
• iostat
• top
• free

12
Web Server Logs

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

13
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
14
Log File Analysis

• Analog
• Fast
• Cryptic output
• Webalizer
• Not as fast
• Nicer output
• Patched version available w/ GeoIP, DNS, 404
  support (Google for it)

http//www.mrunix.net/webalizer/http//www.analog
.cx/
15
Webalizer Output
16
Webalizer Output Detail
17
Configuring for Performance

• Configuring Apache
• Tuning the Operating System

18
Apache Configuration

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

19
Selecting Your MPM

• Apache 2.x only!
• Processes and Threads
• Differences between platforms
• Thread-safety issues

20
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

21
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

22
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

23
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)

24
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

25
Top
26
DNS Lookups

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

27
.htaccess Files

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

GET /dir1/dir2/restricted.html HTTP/1.0
28
Server-side Includes

• We Love Them!
• Easy to implement
• Easy to manage
• We Hate Them!
• They break sendfile()
• They break cacheability
• Use XBitHack Directive
• Only parse executable text/html type files
• Special treatment of Last-modified date

29
SSI on www.apache.org
SSI Enabled
30
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

31
System Tuning Tips

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

32
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

33
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 startup script
• ulimit -S -n ulimit -H -n
• Linux /etc/security/limits.conf

34
Caching Content

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

35
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
36
Make Popular Pages Static

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

37
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
38
Tips

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

39
QA
40
Conference Roadmap

• TU1 30 Top PHP Scalability Mistakes
• WE3 CNN.com Performance and Lessons Learned
• WE8 Hacking the Apache HTTP Server at Yahoo!
• WE24 Essentials on Performant JavaServer Faces
  Apps Client Versus Server Side
• TH1 Httpd Power Tools
• TH4 mod_perl for Speed Freaks!
• TH7 2.2 Rocks! Quit using 1.3 already!
• TH9 mod_perl-2.0 Advanced Profiling
  Instrumenting Techniques

41
Current Version

• http//people.apache.org/sctemme/ApconUS2006/WE18
  /

42
Thank You
43
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