Very Computer

by **Matthew Feinber** » Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:00:00

Hi,

I know this must have been kicked around once or twice but I am looking for
fresh opinions.

Currently I run separate daemons for each virtual domain. It works out well
for us and it is very stable. If one daemon goes down it does not take the
anything else with it, however it does waste memory. Using one Daemon with
<virtual host> directive seems bad to me because if the daemon goes down all
the domains go down.

Should I or Not change over to the <virtual hosts> directives using Apache
1.2.5? What are the pro's and cons?

Any opinion is welcome.

by **Marc Slemk** » Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:00:00

Quote:>Hi,
>I know this must have been kicked around once or twice but I am looking for
>fresh opinions.
>Currently I run separate daemons for each virtual domain. It works out well
>for us and it is very stable. If one daemon goes down it does not take the
>anything else with it, however it does waste memory. Using one Daemon with
><virtual host> directive seems bad to me because if the daemon goes down all
>the domains go down.

If your daemons are "going down" that often then I really think you
have some other issue you should be looking at.

Unless you have specific reasons (eg. running them as different users,
restricting traffic to one server, etc.) it is a huge waste to run
a seperate copy for each virtualhost, especially if some of your vhosts
are like many with little traffic.

by **Matthew Feinber** » Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:00:00

writes:

>If your daemons are "going down" that often then I really think you
>have some other issue you should be looking at.

My daemons are not failing, however it is a possibility and some daemons
over time have locked up or a rare occasion.

Quote:>Unless you have specific reasons (eg. running them as different users,
>restricting traffic to one server, etc.) it is a huge waste to run
>a seperate copy for each virtualhost, especially if some of your vhosts
>are like many with little traffic.

Many virtual hosts do have very little traffic. It is my impression that the
main apache daemon will only start enough child process that are needed to
handle the load. Thus saving considerable on memory.

by **twis..** » Thu, 22 Jan 1998 04:00:00

> writes:

> >If your daemons are "going down" that often then I really think you
> >have some other issue you should be looking at.

> My daemons are not failing, however it is a possibility and some daemons
> over time have locked up or a rare occasion.

I run close to 80 virtual domains/hosts with a fair load (approx 3 to 10
connections at any time). My web server has not gone down once in
almost 60 days (Jan 25 will be 60 days). Every morning at 9:30am, I
send a "killall -HUP httpd" to the server. It pages me with "gonzo:
httpd 9:30 restart OK -- accepting connections on port 80". Meaning
gonzo (the server) restarted successfully. Every 10 minutes it checks
the server to make sure it's up. If it does not get a proper responce
back from the server, it pages me "gozno: httpd <time> DOWN --
attempting restart". If it restarts the server successfully, it pages
me "gonzo: httpd <time> up -- accepting connections on port 80". If it
fails to restart, it pages me "gonzo: httpd <time> ALERT: httpd restart
FAILED! server needs remote attention!" (in cases where the whole
server is down and telnet/ssh access isn't available, it pages me
"gonzo: SERVER <time> ALERT: server needs personal attention! (message
from bosco)" This message is coming from my remote logger on bosco
(another server) telling me that gonzo needs personal attention.
Anyway, the point is I have a nice logging program that tells me stats
about the server. If you don't have an alpha-numeric pager, you can
still make nice little scripts that can watch/monitor/maintain the
server.

Quote:
> >Unless you have specific reasons (eg. running them as different users,
> >restricting traffic to one server, etc.) it is a huge waste to run
> >a seperate copy for each virtualhost, especially if some of your vhosts
> >are like many with little traffic.

> Many virtual hosts do have very little traffic. It is my impression that the
> main apache daemon will only start enough child process that are needed to
> handle the load. Thus saving considerable on memory.

Very seldom does my server ever crash. As I said, it's almost been 60
days, and last time I was doing a kernel upgrade.

Thanks,
T.J. Weber

Side note to that "special someone" in my life:
-----------------------------------------------------------
| "You are the epitome of everything I've ever looked for |
| in another human being." --Chasing Amy, 1997 |
-----------------------------------------------------------

by **DetlefEn** » Sat, 24 Jan 1998 04:00:00

<<Should I or Not change over to the <virtual hosts> directives using Apache
1.2.5? What are the pro's and cons?>>

You should. That way you only have to check one server and if it does not
respond, all you have to do ist to restart one server.

Furthermore there are less configuration files to worry about.

But I think, the real advantage is, that you are using less memory.

One problem could arrise: If you have too many virtual servers, you may run out
of file descriptors.

I do have one Apache 1.2.5 running 10 virtual servers and so far not a single
outage. Apache is just a great web server. Forget Netscape and the rest.

Detlef

by **Jim Jagiels** » Sun, 25 Jan 1998 04:00:00

> Hi,

> I know this must have been kicked around once or twice but I am looking for
> fresh opinions.

> Currently I run separate daemons for each virtual domain. It works out well
> for us and it is very stable. If one daemon goes down it does not take the
> anything else with it, however it does waste memory. Using one Daemon with
> <virtual host> directive seems bad to me because if the daemon goes down all
> the domains go down.

> Should I or Not change over to the <virtual hosts> directives using Apache
> 1.2.5? What are the pro's and cons?

Using a single server for all domains is much easier as far as the
upkeep of the server. It's also easier on memory and resources.
However, if you have _LOTS_ of vhosts, then you could run out of
file-descriptors if each vhost has it's own error log and such.

--

jaguNET Access Services | http://www.jaguNET.com/
"Not the Craw... the CRAW!"

by **Brian Hostett** » Tue, 27 Jan 1998 04:00:00

><<Should I or Not change over to the <virtual hosts> directives using Apache
>1.2.5? What are the pro's and cons?>>

>You should. That way you only have to check one server and if it does not
>respond, all you have to do ist to restart one server.

>Furthermore there are less configuration files to worry about.

>But I think, the real advantage is, that you are using less memory.

>One problem could arrise: If you have too many virtual servers, you may run out
>of file descriptors.

>I do have one Apache 1.2.5 running 10 virtual servers and so far not a single
>outage. Apache is just a great web server. Forget Netscape and the rest.

>Detlef

Agreed, I am running apache 1.3b3 with approx 195 web servers running as
virtual. My only problem is all those users want frontpage extensions,
any of you experimented much with FP extenions on apache running virtual?

--Brian

--
Brian Hostetter
Systems Administrator
NetINS

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