Apache2 benchmarks - very poor performance

Posted by andrzejp on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by andrzejp
Published on 2010-03-11T22:22:25Z Indexed on 2010/03/12 0:38 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 684

Filed under:

Performance

|

apache2

|

linux

I have two servers on which I test the configuration of apache2.

The first server:

4GB of RAM, AMD Athlon (tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600 + 
Apache 2.2.3, mod_php, mpm prefork: 
Settings: 

Timeout 100 
KeepAlive On 
MaxKeepAliveRequests 150 
KeepAliveTimeout 4 

<IfModule Mpm_prefork_module> 
    StartServers 7 
    MinSpareServers 15 
    MaxSpareServers 30 
    MaxClients 250 
    MaxRequestsPerChild 2000 
</ IfModule> 

Compiled in modules: 
  core.c 
  mod_log_config.c 
  mod_logio.c 
  prefork.c 
  http_core.c 
  mod_so.c

Second server:

8GB of RAM, Intel (R) Core (TM) i7 CPU [email protected] 
Apache 2.2.9, **fcgid, mpm worker, suexec**

PHP scripts are running via fcgi-wrapper 

Settings: 

Timeout 100 
KeepAlive On 
MaxKeepAliveRequests 100 
KeepAliveTimeout 4 

<IfModule Mpm_worker_module> 
    StartServers 10 
    MaxClients 200 
    MinSpareThreads 25 
    MaxSpareThreads 75 
    ThreadsPerChild 25 
    MaxRequestsPerChild 1000 
</ IfModule> 

Compiled in modules: 
  core.c 
  mod_log_config.c 
  mod_logio.c 
  worker.c 
  http_core.c 
  mod_so.c

The following test results, which are very strange!

New server (dynamic content - php via fcgid+suexec):

Server Software:    Apache/2.2.9
Server Hostname:    XXXXXXXX
Server Port:    80
Document Path:  XXXXXXX
Document Length:    179512 bytes
Concurrency Level:  10
Time taken for tests:   0.26276 seconds
Complete requests:  1000
Failed requests:    0
Total transferred:  179935000 bytes
HTML transferred:   179512000 bytes
Requests per second:    38.06
Transfer rate:  6847.88 kb/s received
Connnection Times (ms)
    min avg max
Connect:    2   4   54
Processing: 161 257 449
Total:  163 261 503

Old server (dynamic content - mod_php):

Server Software:    Apache/2.2.3
Server Hostname:    XXXXXX
Server Port:    80
Document Path:  XXXXXX
Document Length:    187537 bytes
Concurrency Level:  10
Time taken for tests:   173.073 seconds
Complete requests:  1000
Failed requests:    22
(Connect: 0, Length: 22, Exceptions: 0)
Total transferred:  188003372 bytes
HTML transferred:   187546372 bytes
Requests per second:    5777.91
Transfer rate:  1086267.40 kb/s received
Connnection Times (ms)
    min avg max
Connect:    3   3   28
Processing: 298 1724    26615
Total:  301 1727    26643

Old server: Static content (jpg file)

Server Software:        Apache/2.2.3
Server Hostname:        xxxxxxxxx
Server Port:            80

Document Path:          /images/top2.gif
Document Length:        40486 bytes

Concurrency Level:      100
Time taken for tests:   3.558 seconds
Complete requests:      1000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      40864400 bytes
HTML transferred:       40557482 bytes
Requests per second:    281.09 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       355.753 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       3.558 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          11217.51 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        3   11   4.5     12      23
Processing:    40  329  61.4    339    1009
Waiting:        6  282  55.2    293     737
Total:         43  340  63.0    351    1020

New server - static content (jpg file)

Server Software:        Apache/2.2.9
Server Hostname:        XXXXX
Server Port:            80

Document Path:          /images/top2.gif
Document Length:        40486 bytes

Concurrency Level:      100
Time taken for tests:   3.571531 seconds
Complete requests:      1000
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      41282792 bytes
HTML transferred:       41030080 bytes
Requests per second:    279.99 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       357.153 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       3.572 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          11287.88 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        2   63  24.8     66     119
Processing:   124  278  31.8    282     391
Waiting:        3   70  28.5     66     164
Total:        126  341  35.9    350     443

I noticed that in the apache error.log is a lot of entries:

[notice] mod_fcgid: call /www/XXXXX/public_html/forum/index.php with wrapper /www/php-fcgi-scripts/XXXXXX/php-fcgi-starter

What I have omitted, or do not understand?

Such a difference in requests per second? Is it possible? What could be the cause?

Developer IT