Re: Linux and Squid :

Jan Van Ham wrote:

> Our site is a low-speed site with between 4 and 10 request / sec
> but I was wondering WICH parameters to 'tune' when compiling a
> kernel...

None.

> Since I'm actually a Linux-newbie (I know some stuff..kan compile
> kernel and understand a bit what I'm doing) I could use some tips
> so my new squid doesn't bounce into future trouble because of lousy
> configured file-system/kernel parameters ;-))

For that low speed you do not need to worry much.

> - What about the amount of file-descriptors ?? I've read the FAQ
> and they describe how to adjust certain file with Linux kernels
> 2.2.x but it this enough ? 1024 seems a reasonable amount of FD's ?!

The Linux 2.2 default of 1024 is well more than enought for your
installation.

> - What about the 'volumes' I've read something about mount a
> EXT2FS with a certain parameter 'no wait-time' of something ?
> Can someone enlighten me on this one ??

noatime

Filesystems are usually mounted thru /etc/fstab. One of the columns in
fstab is the mount options to use (usually says only default). Put
noatime there and remount your cache partition.

> - Suppose you have 256MB of physical RAM ... is it bad to make
> a statement in squid.conf like cache_mem 256 MB (def : 8 MB)

Yes, very bad. Keep the default.

> Or will the Linux OS starts swapping like hell ??
> More cache_mem is offcourse good for keeping lot's of data 'hot'
> (& ready to serve fast ;-))

Linux does this quite well in it's file systems buffers.

> I'm running Apache on the same machine (for the cachemgr.cgi) script,
> but is this wise ? It will only be accessible from 1 host within our
> network and won't do any extra "handling" of requests/data

See not major problem with that.

> Actually my 200MMX machine doesn't seem to east lot's of CPU ...
> maximum like 20% max ... so the Apach only eats some memory I guess ??

Apache won't use any noticeable amount of CPU unless it is heavily used.
It will A few MB of memory at most.

--
Henrik Nordstrom
Squid hacker