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!

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.

A default installation of FastCGI on cPanel server is dangerously simple. It’s dangerous because one cPanel account (or one vhost) is capable of crashing down a whole server if, say, traffic were to spike up. It’s also simple because it won’t allow complex scripts to run cleanly. In brief, it’s absolutely not ready for production as-is. In this post, I’ll go over what it takes to configure FastCGI on a cPanel node properly.

Did you know?

UNIXy is a fully managed server and cluster provider. What this means is we don’t expect you to know anything about servers or server management. The good news is it doesn’t cost you extra to have us manage your UNIXy server! Get in touch with us here to get the ball rolling!

Before you continue reading, be sure to have FastCGI up and running as the PHP handler on your cPanel server. The installation of FastCGI is covered in the online cPanel documentation. From here on now, I’ll assume you’re ready to add the settings for FastCGI.

The following is a list of settings that you need to add to /etc/httpd/conf/php.conf upon switching to FastCGI:

MaxRequestsPerProcess 1000
FcgidMaxProcesses 200
FcgidProcessLifeTime 7200
MaxProcessCount 500
FcgidIOTimeout 400
FcgidIdleTimeout 600
FcgidIdleScanInterval 90
FcgidBusyTimeout 300
FcgidBusyScanInterval 80
ErrorScanInterval 3
ZombieScanInterval 3
DefaultMinClassProcessCount 0
DefaultMaxClassProcessCount 3
MaxRequestLen 20468982

You’re more likely to adjust the settings in bold above. DefaultMinClassProcessCount 0 instructs FastCGI to keep zero PHP processes running for user when traffic is idle (cPanel account user) . On the other hand, DefaultMaxClassProcessCount 3 tells FastCGI to never allow more than 3 PHP processes running at a time. This settings prevents one users from crashing the server were they to receive a lot of traffic.

So go ahead and copy/paste the above into your httpd.conf and restart Apache (service httpd restart). You’re good to go now! For greater performance, be sure to check out our Varnish plugin. Whether you’re running suPHP, FastCGI, or even DSO (mod_php), Varnish will make your website load much faster.

That’s all folks!

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.

It’s been over three months since our first successful Varnish plugin release. We’re riding this good vibe and are offering the Varnish plugin for DirectAdmin. Yes!  http://www.unixy.net/varnish

We’ve had very positive results accelerating XenForo with Varnish (in a cluster configuration). In terms of VCL, we’ve taken a slightly different approach but it results in better caching / acceleration. We’ve allocated a small per-user cache (logged in users), which makes XenForo pages load even faster than normal conditions. This reserved cache is rather transparent to the end user so no code changes are required. In fact, the acceleration we provide requires no modification to any XF files at all.

Static files, however, are stripped out of cookies in the Varnish VCL and served from the same cache area. The performance gains are tremendous. We’ve already published a Varnish plugin for cPanel and DirectAdmin that incorporates these tweaks. Feel free to read more about it here: http://www.unixy.net/varnish

Cheers