Comments on: We’re Switching to LiteSpeed http://blog.hawkhost.com/2008/12/21/were-switching-to-litespeed/ All things Hawk Host Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:58:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Tony http://blog.hawkhost.com/2008/12/21/were-switching-to-litespeed/comment-page-1/#comment-624 Tony Mon, 22 Dec 2008 04:48:59 +0000 http://www.hawkhost.com/blog/?p=243#comment-624 Well here is the thing it is suppose to be a drop in replacement and things like mod_rewrite are suppose to work 100% like they did in apache. LiteSpeed also reads the httpd.conf file of apache thus we do not even need to make any changes to cPanel. I am also not sure besides mod_rewrite that anyone would be using on our servers with apache. There is maybe the authentication portion so like .htpasswd but that works fine to (we use it on our site). We run the most basic of modules as it stands for Apache so LiteSpeed will probably add a few extra features that were not even there before. We are also not the first host jumping to LiteSpeed. There are many hosts some smaller than us and some bigger than us already running it. We've tested it and any script we've thrown at it works fine. I highly doubt they'll be any issues at all with the switch over. As far as leaving Apache around our goal would be to replace all of our servers with LiteSpeed. The fact is Apache and the suPHP setup we run is killing us but it was the only secure solution we had. With LiteSpeed it'll be just as secure and problem free with PHP but also be significantly faster. Having just one machine still with Apache would be very costly for us as we're trying to improve the density of our servers while keeping the quality. Right now with our current setup our limiting factor is the web server. We have many terabytes of extra space and we're not even using close to the amount of bandwidth we have. Other services are not holding us down so Database (MySQL, PostgreSQL) SMTP (Exim) Mail (Courier although soon Dovecot). With cPanel not having clustering of services or at least to the extent we'd like. LiteSpeed is a great way to improve our density and better utilize our servers. Well here is the thing it is suppose to be a drop in replacement and things like mod_rewrite are suppose to work 100% like they did in apache. LiteSpeed also reads the httpd.conf file of apache thus we do not even need to make any changes to cPanel. I am also not sure besides mod_rewrite that anyone would be using on our servers with apache. There is maybe the authentication portion so like .htpasswd but that works fine to (we use it on our site). We run the most basic of modules as it stands for Apache so LiteSpeed will probably add a few extra features that were not even there before.

We are also not the first host jumping to LiteSpeed. There are many hosts some smaller than us and some bigger than us already running it. We’ve tested it and any script we’ve thrown at it works fine.

I highly doubt they’ll be any issues at all with the switch over. As far as leaving Apache around our goal would be to replace all of our servers with LiteSpeed. The fact is Apache and the suPHP setup we run is killing us but it was the only secure solution we had. With LiteSpeed it’ll be just as secure and problem free with PHP but also be significantly faster. Having just one machine still with Apache would be very costly for us as we’re trying to improve the density of our servers while keeping the quality.

Right now with our current setup our limiting factor is the web server. We have many terabytes of extra space and we’re not even using close to the amount of bandwidth we have. Other services are not holding us down so Database (MySQL, PostgreSQL) SMTP (Exim) Mail (Courier although soon Dovecot). With cPanel not having clustering of services or at least to the extent we’d like. LiteSpeed is a great way to improve our density and better utilize our servers.

]]> By: Luke http://blog.hawkhost.com/2008/12/21/were-switching-to-litespeed/comment-page-1/#comment-623 Luke Mon, 22 Dec 2008 03:52:36 +0000 http://www.hawkhost.com/blog/?p=243#comment-623 Hi Tony. That is interesting to say the least. Personally I've never heard of LiteSpeed so I can't really say anything meaningful about. However, from reading a bit on the LiteSpeed Technologies website I understand that LiteSpeed is a replacement for Apache. The thing that concerns me a bit is "How" compatible is LiteSpeed with Apache? I'm sure they claim 100% or something and probably most of the common operations are pretty fool prove but once we get into the more obscure Apache areas like mod_rewrite etc., how will LiteSpeed hold up? I can understand that a business running their own servers to power their applications (like e.g. wordpress.com), a product like LiteSpeed can be very valuable. However, for a shared hosting environment like HawkHost where you need to deal with a lot of different types of scripts from all corners of the earth, the LiteSpeed option might turn out to be broken or buggy in some cases. In it's self this is probably not much of a issue because someone might be able to create a workaround, some might not. The problem is in these cases that the amount of information on problems with LiteSpeed will be minimal. Troubleshooting will not be painless. Maybe you could consider to keep an Apache box around and give your customers the choice to stay on an Apache server instead of an forced switch over? Hi Tony. That is interesting to say the least. Personally I’ve never heard of LiteSpeed so I can’t really say anything meaningful about. However, from reading a bit on the LiteSpeed Technologies website I understand that LiteSpeed is a replacement for Apache.

The thing that concerns me a bit is “How” compatible is LiteSpeed with Apache? I’m sure they claim 100% or something and probably most of the common operations are pretty fool prove but once we get into the more obscure Apache areas like mod_rewrite etc., how will LiteSpeed hold up?

I can understand that a business running their own servers to power their applications (like e.g. wordpress.com), a product like LiteSpeed can be very valuable. However, for a shared hosting environment like HawkHost where you need to deal with a lot of different types of scripts from all corners of the earth, the LiteSpeed option might turn out to be broken or buggy in some cases.

In it’s self this is probably not much of a issue because someone might be able to create a workaround, some might not. The problem is in these cases that the amount of information on problems with LiteSpeed will be minimal. Troubleshooting will not be painless.

Maybe you could consider to keep an Apache box around and give your customers the choice to stay on an Apache server instead of an forced switch over?

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