May 20th, 2010
Revisiting some apache basics
New articles on installing and configuring apache are up. They should be less version-bound than the older articles on the subject. Which were pretty good, mind you. The new ones are just, um, gooder.
There are eight articles in the series, with versions for Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, Debian, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. A convenient portal to the first article of each is nestled in this article:
The subjects covered in each article are, in order:
• Installing apache
• Installing PHP
• Apache configuration files
• Configuring the Apache MPM
• Apache configuration part 1
• Apache configuration part 2
• Apache Virtual Hosts part 1
• Apache Virtual Hosts part 2
I did want to highlight the articles on "Configuring the apache MPM". The MPM is apache's engine for handling connections, and if it's misconfigured it can lead to apache trying to use more system resources than are actually available. Indeed, the default settings for the MPM tend to favor servers with 1 GB of memory available, which means a smaller slice with less memory runs the risk of becoming unstable when it's getting heavy traffic.
With that in mind, some direct links to the MPM article for each distribution, for people who already have apache running but have never tinkered with the MaxClients setting: Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, Debian, and Red Hat.
If you run into any trouble with those articles, or just with stuff in general, our friendly and knowledgeable support staff are waiting in SliceChat for your questions, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Thanks for reading!
July 10th, 2010 at 07:19 PM Don Hammond
Just wanted to compliment and thank Jered and everyone at slicehost. I set up my slice a couple of years ago using the old articles. They were good, and this isn’t to take anything away from them. I used the new articles as an opportunity to review everything and found them very readable. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so I thought it appropriate to leave a note of thanks. You surely know, but it’s nice for it to be acknowledged, that for every question/problem there are scores of people who are quietly served. Thanks.