rc7 is out! We’ve upgraded to Varnish 3.0.2, fixed bugs, and made improvements to make your cPanel WHM server run even more faster than litespeed! Head out to the varnish download page: http://www.unixy.net/varnish

In brief:

• Upgrade Varnish to 3.0.2
• Increase httpd hdr len for req/resp
• Increase session WS
• Add Varnish monitoring crontab job

rc8 will see two neat features. The first will is a Slashdot Survive URL opt-in list where if you were to receive enormous traffic, Varnish can shield your server by responding directly to those requests (completely bypassing Apache or any server-side processing). So serving a slashdot-like audience will require a small fixed amount of memory as opposed to an unpredictable amount of resources (and most likely a server crash). The second feature will deal with aggressive bots. This addition creates a shared memory store for bots so they sources pages from the same store and prevent server crashes due to aggressive bots.

There’s more in 1.4.5rc8 so stay tuned!

Enjoy!

Before I delve into the meat of this post, Internet access is critical to what we (UNIXy) do. We are a fully managed server and cluster provider. The quality of service we offer is critical to our success. So it’s only natural we concert a continuous effort to improve the service on all fronts. Being fully staffed and accessible to our clients 24/7 is imperative. We must be available within short notice (e.g. < 10 minutes) at all times around the clock.

So Internet at 10000 feet means we don’t have to deal with temporary staffing shortages due to unplanned trips. But most importantly it means service quality remains consistent. Internet at 10k is even more important as we expand to different parts of the country and Europe. But in such a rough, high altitude environment there are so many things that can go wrong with the Wifi service. And it has. Southwest Airlines’ Wifi service is too unreliable to consider.

I’ll ask the pilot to reboot the system to see if it helps

On the other hand, Virgin America’s Wifi system powered by Gogo  LLC is very reliable. So this is the airline we’ve been booking with lately. While domestic flights have us covered, transatlantic connectivity has yet to materialize. 30000 feet is the new frontier. I’m confident that some day we’ll be back here reporting about how good it is to support our clients at 30k feet.

Cheers

Litespeed users on cPanel WHM servers are realizing the benefits of running Varnish Cache in front of Litespeed to improve performance. While we (UNIXy) don’t officially provide support to subscribers running the cPanel Varnish Plugin with Litespeed, it does work with only a few extra manual steps. Keep in mind that we support this configuration for our fully managed VPS, dedicated server, and cluster clients. If you are a current client and need this configured, please open a ticket request.

In this post, I’m going to list the steps required to pair the cPanel Varnish Plugin with Litespeed on cPanel WHM servers. These few procedures apply to a blank cPanel installation (no Litespeed, no Varnish Plugin). The order below is important so don’t skip!

• 1. Configure your Apache / PHP with the desired options and extentions. Let EasyApache finish the build.
• 2. Install Litespeed using the command line installer with the port offset at 2000 (default).
• 3. From WHM -> Litespeed -> Build Matching PHP binaries. Let the Litespeed builder complete before proceeding.
• 4. Proceed with installing the cPanel Varnish Plugin. Let it complete.
• 5. Set the Litespeed Port offset to zero in Admin Console.
• 6. In Admin Console, Configuration -> Server -> General Settings -> Use Client IP in header -> Yes. Restart Litespeed.

About UNIXY

UNIXY is a long-time Varnish Cache user and evangelist. They have been offering Varnish acceleration to their clients for more than three years. They have released the first cPanel Varnish plugin as well as spun a new startup, Fastlayer, the on-demand HTTP accelerator for the cloud.

That’s all folks! I hope you find this useful.

We have big news about Black Friday! SO BIG, in fact that we’re not waiting until Friday to tell everyone. We have decided to make all dedicated and VPS servers available for $1 for the first month on Black Friday only! Get ready to contact sales@unixy.net to get full details on this deal.

**This deal is available for new orders only. This special cannot be applied to upgrades or used for current service.

Don’t pass on the opportunity to get awarded two owned licenses ($278 value) and a feature on our blog! Submit your artwork for either the cPanel Varnish Plugin or the DirectAdmin Varnish Plugin to isaig@unixy.net.

This release squashes some bugs affecting domain purging on servers running the plugin, licensing, and other minor issues. It’s available for download. The Varnish plugin can be obtained by visiting this page: http://www.unixy.net/varnish