I have 2 servers that are both running very slow. That is, the server load is light (around 0.01-0.3), but files load very sloowwww. It takes about a minute to start a file download. The server I have is 2.4Ghz w/ 1GB ECC SDRAM (http://www.unitedcolo.com/servers/extreme.htm). When I first got them and nobody was downloading, speeds were lightning fast.

The servers' jobs are very simple. Users are sent to php page that forwards them automatically (without displaying any HTML) to the URL of the file to start downloading by getting the location from MySQL. Files are mostly about ~1MB large, but some can be as big as ~100MB. The bandwidth monitor says I am using an average 9.40Mb/s of bandwidth, but I am not positive this is correct.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the optimized settings I should configure Apache with or any other ideas how to speed things up?

Thanks,
Matt

you can turn on ExtendedStatus (http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_status.html#extendedstatus) for apache and then see if you are getting more hits than your server is configured to serve at a time

thanks for the tip aragon. it seems that Apache is not my problem. What else can I do to speed things up? My results are below:

Current Time: Tuesday, 10-Aug-2004 16:50:05 EDT
Restart Time: Tuesday, 10-Aug-2004 16:39:11 EDT
Parent Server Generation: 0
Server uptime: 10 minutes 53 seconds
150 requests currently being processed, 0 idle workers
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWKWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWKWWWWRWKWWCWWWWWWWWWKWWW
WWWWWWWWKWWKKWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWRWWWWWWWWWWWKWWWWWWWWKWWKWWWWWWWWW
WWWWWKWWWWWWWWWWWWWWKW..........................................
................................................................

Scoreboard Key:
"_" Waiting for Connection, "S" Starting up, "R" Reading Request,
"W" Sending Reply, "K" Keepalive (read), "D" DNS Lookup,
"C" Closing connection, "L" Logging, "G" Gracefully finishing,
"I" Idle cleanup of worker, "." Open slot with no current process

PID Key:


30027 in state: W , 30028 in state: W , 30029 in state: W
30030 in state: W , 30031 in state: W , 30033 in state: W
30034 in state: W , 30035 in state: W , 30038 in state: W
30040 in state: W , 30041 in state: W , 30043 in state: W
30044 in state: W , 30045 in state: W , 30046 in state: W
30047 in state: W , 30048 in state: W , 30049 in state: W
30050 in state: K , 30051 in state: W , 30052 in state: W
30053 in state: W , 30054 in state: W , 30055 in state: W
30056 in state: W , 30057 in state: W , 30059 in state: W
30060 in state: W , 30061 in state: W , 30062 in state: W
30063 in state: W , 30064 in state: W , 30065 in state: W
30066 in state: W , 30067 in state: W , 30068 in state: W
30069 in state: W , 30070 in state: W , 30071 in state: W
30120 in state: W , 30076 in state: K , 30121 in state: W
30078 in state: W , 30079 in state: W , 30080 in state: W
30122 in state: R , 30082 in state: W , 30083 in state: K
30124 in state: W , 30085 in state: W , 30086 in state: C
30087 in state: W , 30088 in state: W , 30089 in state: W
30090 in state: W , 30091 in state: W , 30092 in state: W
30093 in state: W , 30094 in state: W , 30095 in state: W
30096 in state: K , 30097 in state: W , 30098 in state: W
30099 in state: W , 30100 in state: W , 30101 in state: W
30102 in state: W , 30103 in state: W , 30104 in state: W
30105 in state: W , 30106 in state: W , 30125 in state: W
30126 in state: K , 30127 in state: W , 30129 in state: W
30130 in state: K , 30131 in state: K , 30132 in state: W
30133 in state: W , 30134 in state: W , 30135 in state: W
30136 in state: W , 30138 in state: W , 30139 in state: W
30140 in state: W , 30141 in state: W , 30142 in state: W
30143 in state: W , 30144 in state: W , 30145 in state: W
30146 in state: W , 30147 in state: W , 30148 in state: W
30149 in state: W , 30150 in state: R , 30151 in state: W
30152 in state: W , 30153 in state: W , 30165 in state: W
30170 in state: W , 30171 in state: W , 30172 in state: W
30173 in state: W , 30174 in state: W , 30175 in state: W
30183 in state: W , 30185 in state: K , 30186 in state: W
30196 in state: W , 30197 in state: W , 30198 in state: W
30204 in state: W , 30207 in state: W , 30208 in state: W
30209 in state: W , 30210 in state: K , 30211 in state: W
30212 in state: W , 30213 in state: K , 30214 in state: W
30215 in state: W , 30219 in state: W , 30220 in state: W
30221 in state: W , 30222 in state: W , 30226 in state: W
30227 in state: W , 30228 in state: W , 30229 in state: W
30230 in state: W , 30231 in state: W , 30232 in state: W
30233 in state: W , 30250 in state: K , 30251 in state: W
30252 in state: W , 30261 in state: W , 30263 in state: W
30264 in state: W , 30265 in state: W , 30266 in state: W
30267 in state: W , 30268 in state: W , 30273 in state: W
30274 in state: W , 30275 in state: W , 30278 in state: W
30279 in state: W , 30280 in state: K , 30281 in state: W

150 requests currently being processed, 0 idle workers

First, 0 idle workers means that there are no workers that are ready for another connection. So that might add a few seconds to load time.

Second, if you are donig 9.4mb/s and are having problems, it is very possible that either your network card, router, or the network itself is limited to 10mb/s. In that case you are just overloading your line causing lag.

Also, check your HD.. if its an IDE you might be maxing out the HD as well.

I'd say you are hitting your cap at 10 mbps - 3000GB is included with your plan that you linked to - 10 mbps.

Looks like you need a bigger pipe to meet increased demand.
Ask for an upgrade to a 100 mbps connection or a higher cap to allow for spikes, that should resolve this.