Well it appears that the server migration is complete, and so far I am very happy with the results. First of all, I don’t think there was much downtime, if any at all. The only oddity that I encountered was regarding DNS propogation, and there is only so much you can do about that. Here is basically what I’ve setup:
- lighttpd + fastcgi + xcache : very efficient web server + virtual hosts
- bind9 : slave server (ns3)
- postfix + postgrey : mail relay (mx3)
- mysql + tuning-primer.sh : well tuned database backend
So far I am very impressed with the setup at linode. They have a really nice web management tool and they are very responsive to questions and support. The price is affordable as well–I hope the performance I’ve been seeing keeps up. So far all four processors sit idling the majoritiy of the day, and RAM sits at about 200M/360M total. That was unheard of with my previous setup using Apache, and I wasn’t running BIND previously either. I think I’m sold on lighttpd!
Please let me know if you encounter any oddities with the site. Thank you – Christer
I use a similar setup with nginx – was there a reason why you did not use that as a lightweight server?
Also you have mentioned once I think that you were at Slicehost.. but now you mention Linode .. what is the difference between the two?
@Joey – I’ve read quite a bit about nginx but I’m more familiar with lighttpd so I think the main reason is simply familiarity.
I’ve had issues with slicehost for quite some time now and linode seemed to be a comparable replacement. So far I’m impressed.
Thanks for sharing Christer. It’d be helpful if you’d share some of the issues you had with slicehost. Personally, I’ve heard nothing but good things about them.
I’m now off to learn more about lighttpd
@Max – Slicehost was really pretty good, for the most part. I did have somewhat regular issues with my host however, and despite my best efforts I could not solve them. I can’t say that it was/wasn’t my config, or that it was/wasn’t their config but for the last year I’ve had to reboot my slice about once a week after it hard-locked.
Based on that long-running issue plus the fact that linode staff seems much more responsive in IRC (and the plans are cheaper!) I decided to try and solve my problem by switching providers. Again, it could have been my configuration (although I have no idea what it is).
I would love to see a more substantial post about the decisions you made in this upgrade. A sort of pros and cons approach would help me understand the technical reasons behind those decisions. A little nod toward security for your setup would be helpful as well.