Testing a server - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

TheProf · 02-03-2009, 03:36 PM

Hello,

Hope everyone is doing well.

I recently built a CentOS 5.2 webserver on a Dell Poweredge machine -- Pentium III with 512 MB ram. It's going to be serving pages through a 1 MB uplink on a static IP from a business ISP connection. My question is -- what sort of load can I expect this server to handle? Right now the load is predicted to be very light -- maybe 4 or 5 users accessing 2 web applications that talk to mysql. Very basic stuff. But now I've got a need for a more dynamic website (Drupal-based) that I'm debating: Do I throw it up on that same webserver or do I get an online hosting solution? Seems a shame since we're already paying so much for the business connection but I'm worried about it being able to serve. This new site would have maybe 100 or so people intermittently visiting it, and it would serve mostly dynamically generated pages and photos.

What do you think? Is there a way to determine this or to test the server to see its load?

Thank you.

ratbastid · 02-03-2009, 06:19 PM

Are you sure the 1mb is the actual uplink speed? A lot of times they sell you a connection based on its speed DOWN, and the upstream is MUCH less.

That said, if it really is 1mb/s, your server ought to do fine for 100 visitors. Drupal isn't a lightweight, but I think the network throughput will be your bottleneck, and it'll depend a lot on the composition of your payload. Three people simultaneously downloading scanned architectural blueprints will squash it real fast. But a few people round-robbining smallish dynamic web pages at once shouldn't be a problem.

TheProf · 02-03-2009, 06:24 PM

Hello,

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Are you sure the 1mb is the actual uplink speed? A lot of times they sell you a connection based on its speed DOWN, and the upstream is MUCH less.

Since this is a business connection, its speeds are higher. It's actually suppose to be 8 mb down, 1 mb up. I know the reality will be much less but still...

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

That said, if it really is 1mb/s, your server ought to do fine for 100 visitors. Drupal isn't a lightweight, but I think the network throughput will be your bottleneck, and it'll depend a lot on the composition of your payload. Three people simultaneously downloading scanned architectural blueprints will squash it real fast. But a few people round-robbining smallish dynamic web pages at once shouldn't be a problem.

This is very good news! Drupal specifically can be fine-tuned to make it faster with caching, and optimization to some degree, but I was worried that the server / pipe was going to be the limiting factor. I was going to also use it as a mail server, but I realized I had another P3/4 machine lying around that I could use for that to help alleviate some of the load from the webserver. Does that make sense?

ratbastid · 02-03-2009, 06:51 PM

If that Poweredge is reasonably well spec'ed, I wouldn't worry about running web and email off it at the same time. The metal's not going to be the limiting factor.

Bear in mind, one great big email attachment will gum up your pipe for as long as it takes to get through. Of course, that'll mostly be coming the 8mb/s direction, which helps. I predict that with more than 10 or so simultaneous users, this thing will get noticeably slow. But that's still PLENTY of accessibility for a total web audience of 100. Probably no more than a couple will hit it at a time, right?

TheProf · 02-04-2009, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

If that Poweredge is reasonably well spec'ed, I wouldn't worry about running web and email off it at the same time. The metal's not going to be the limiting factor.

Well this is good news. I was doing some research and found there is a program with Apache called ab for benchmarking that returned some (I think) good results. It was able to handle 972 requests per second (static pages I know) and served 98% of those requests within 8 ms. The command was 'ab -kc 5 -t 30 http://localhost/'

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Bear in mind, one great big email attachment will gum up your pipe for as long as it takes to get through. Of course, that'll mostly be coming the 8mb/s direction, which helps. I predict that with more than 10 or so simultaneous users, this thing will get noticeably slow. But that's still PLENTY of accessibility for a total web audience of 100. Probably no more than a couple will hit it at a time, right?

I don't think we're going to get more than 30 people INTENSIVELY using the site at any one time, and intermittently.

I wanted to ask another question please -- I set up that second P4 to be the email server, with spamassassin, clamav, postfix, mailman and dovecot to handle all the email. The major load will be outgoing with a mailing list of about 2000 people. In terms of email incoming, only maybe 15 email addresses will exist for the domain. I wanted to use a webmail system (like squirrelmail) for the email. The question becomes -- can I use the webserver to serve the actual webmail application, but it pulls the email users and messages from that second p4 email server? Or do I have to run the email web application on the same server that has the MTA? Sorry if this is a basic question -- I'm aiming for what I think is a best setup (webserving on one machine, email handling on another) but I don't know if that's too weird.

Thank you

ratbastid · 02-04-2009, 08:50 PM

I'm not familiar wtih squirrelmail, but I know there are webmail applications that are web-facing POP or IMAP clients that can hit remote mail servers. Should be very possible to serve the webmail on the non-mailserver.

Anexkahn · 02-04-2009, 10:57 PM

squirrel mail can be setup to run on another machine and serve mail off of another box. SM calls through imap.

02-03-2009, 03:36 PM	#1 (permalink)
TheProf Crazy	Testing a server Hello, Hope everyone is doing well. I recently built a CentOS 5.2 webserver on a Dell Poweredge machine -- Pentium III with 512 MB ram. It's going to be serving pages through a 1 MB uplink on a static IP from a business ISP connection. My question is -- what sort of load can I expect this server to handle? Right now the load is predicted to be very light -- maybe 4 or 5 users accessing 2 web applications that talk to mysql. Very basic stuff. But now I've got a need for a more dynamic website (Drupal-based) that I'm debating: Do I throw it up on that same webserver or do I get an online hosting solution? Seems a shame since we're already paying so much for the business connection but I'm worried about it being able to serve. This new site would have maybe 100 or so people intermittently visiting it, and it would serve mostly dynamically generated pages and photos. What do you think? Is there a way to determine this or to test the server to see its load? Thank you.

02-03-2009, 06:19 PM	#2 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Are you sure the 1mb is the actual uplink speed? A lot of times they sell you a connection based on its speed DOWN, and the upstream is MUCH less. That said, if it really is 1mb/s, your server ought to do fine for 100 visitors. Drupal isn't a lightweight, but I think the network throughput will be your bottleneck, and it'll depend a lot on the composition of your payload. Three people simultaneously downloading scanned architectural blueprints will squash it real fast. But a few people round-robbining smallish dynamic web pages at once shouldn't be a problem.

02-03-2009, 06:51 PM	#4 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	If that Poweredge is reasonably well spec'ed, I wouldn't worry about running web and email off it at the same time. The metal's not going to be the limiting factor. Bear in mind, one great big email attachment will gum up your pipe for as long as it takes to get through. Of course, that'll mostly be coming the 8mb/s direction, which helps. I predict that with more than 10 or so simultaneous users, this thing will get noticeably slow. But that's still PLENTY of accessibility for a total web audience of 100. Probably no more than a couple will hit it at a time, right?

02-04-2009, 08:50 PM	#6 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	I'm not familiar wtih squirrelmail, but I know there are webmail applications that are web-facing POP or IMAP clients that can hit remote mail servers. Should be very possible to serve the webmail on the non-mailserver.

02-04-2009, 10:57 PM	#7 (permalink)
Anexkahn Crazy Location: whOregon	squirrel mail can be setup to run on another machine and serve mail off of another box. SM calls through imap.