your help and advice is greatly appreciated, i'm a complete newbie.


question / worry #1.
i run a midsized website, completely dynamic driven(php4 / mysql), getting around 3.2 million page hits monthly, peaking
average about 106,000 a day. we're pumping around 21gb of bandwidth monthly at the moment. we've had a steady increase of average 250,000 page hits a month since march(300 new users signup a month). and this is all on a virtual host with 124 other domains on the box with me.

i am about to get a RaQ3i W/ 128mb ram + 20.4gb storage as a dedicated box for this one website starting november. will this be sufficient? if not, my options for upgrade are either (A) RaQ3i W/256mb ram or (B)Raq4 with 128mb ram. thoughts? i have been told by many people that the 3i with 128mb ram will be sufficient for just my one site. however, i've read a few posts here that say otherwise(and some that say it would be sufficient, hence my confusion!=) )




problem #2!
a friend has a new RaQ2+ W/ 128mb ram & 6.4gb hdd. i'm welcome to it, sans charge.

my questions are, for the above described website, would the RaQ2 be sufficient? does the RaQ2 handle php4 well? thoughts??





and finally.
question #3.
what are some books one would recommend for getting started with the RaQ? i have some redhat experience. i'm ready at powell's books to order me some literature!


thank you greatly to anyone for their advice!

There are no books out on a Raq as of yet. I would recommend Using Red Hat Linux by Simpson and Ray. However, 128 or 256 mb's of ram is not sufficient for a database site, I would go to 512, especially for 3.2million page views. I also would not use a Raq for this site. I would get a P3 750 with 512 mb ram and a small hard drive and host it on that. That would be the most cost effective while still being extremely proficient in hosting this site. Just my 2 cents.

whoops. i'm sorry. lemme clarify.

3.2 million page HITS. we're only looking at around 720,000 page views and 44,000 unique visits a month.....

according to my stats.


does this make a difference?


thanks for your response!

No, i would still go with a powerful dedicated server for this. It isn't a small site.

It is certainly possible to host something like that on a RaQ3 - no problem.

I think that a RaQ3 with 256 mb ram should fit the job okay. But please remember to look a year or two into the future and find out how many hits you expect to have (if you want to double the amount of hits every month - then the RaQ3 probably won't cut it).

To some it may sound insane to host a site like that on a RaQ3 - but the important thing is to tune (optimize) the server for that situation. For example by:

* Installing APC
* Set the Apache settings correctly (slaves, spares, keepalives, etc.)
* Setup MySQL correctly (max connections, buffers, delayed inserts, etc.)
* Setup the kernel correctly (file descriptors, caching, etc.)
* Program with speed in mind (persistent connections, better queries, do indexing of tables, etc.)

It's also a good thing to:

* Get an extra drive in the server, and use that for the database only

* Run mail / dns on external servers (could easily be on a shared server)

thank you for your response.

at the moment, we're looking at upgrading with our current host to a RaQ4 with 256mb ram, at least for 6 months. then upgrading to a higher package.

You can download the User Manual for the Raq2 off Cobalt's website, not that it is a book but is rather extensive.

thanks for the reply.

i have all the raq (and even the qubes) manuals on pdf. i've been reading through them for the last few days.


does anyone know if there is a "get started" website or manual out somewhere on the web. kind of like, "I Just Got My RaQ.........Now What?!"


that would be a good name for a RaQ book..

Well, just about every problem I've encountered has either been covered here or the mailing-list. There are a few people here who run resource type sites, though they are somewhat specific to certain tips or problems, but it is about what you'd expect eh?

Search this forum for URLs, as we ask people not to post their own URLs.