Servers running Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP - generally abbreviated as LAMP - are very popular nowadays. Such servers are increasingly easy to set up and keep running. Additionally the LAMP plattform has proben to be a stable platform available at low costs.

Web servers running a LAMP package can perform very well out of the box. But there are many ways to improve performance both through server configuration and application changes. This document gives you a good starting point for where to start and what to look at. It will also equip you with tools and processes to monitor the server’s performance.

This document is for you, if you are in charge of a web server running Linux and you want to improve the performance without just throwing more hardware at the problem.

When running a server it’s very important to be able to quickly check the current health and compare it with the past. This allows you to detect current anomalies and to see the system development over time. That part is covered in Section 1.1 and Section 1.2. Benchmarking becomes important when tuning your system. You really want to be able to say if a change improves the system performance and by how much. So keep a box of benchmarking applications ready when applying changes intended to improve the system performance.

Download pdf Web Server Performance HOWTO