Sean A. Walberg have written an interesting articles serie over the IBM developerWorks on Tuning LAMP systems in three parts. In the second part, Sean explores Apache tuning by configuring the Multi-Processing Modules (MPM), then Using options and overrides efficiently. For PHP he explores Opcode caching, different tuning options within php.ini. The next and final article in the series will look at tuning the MySQL database.
This article focused on tuning the Web server, both Apache and PHP. With Apache, the general idea is to eliminate extra checks the Web server must do, such as processing the .htaccess file. You must also tune the Multi-Processing Module you’re using to balance the system resources used with the availability of idle workers for incoming requests. The best thing you can do for PHP is to install an opcode cache. Keeping your eye on a few resource settings also ensures that scripts don’t hog resources and make the system slow for everyone else.
