mod_proxy performance issues - Was: Re: [Cialug] Apache - SSL Proxy - Name Based VirtualHost Problem

[Matthew Nuzum]

On 10/19/07, chris <chris at ia.gov> wrote:
> If you have the time, I'd be very interested in what kind of performance
> issues you are having with mod_proxy.  What version are you running, are
> you doing any rewriting at the reverse proxy?  What kind of traffic,
> lots of little, lots of big, or a mix?

Well, regarding the amount of traffic we get, the short answer is
"insane." We've been saturating 7Gb/s for 36 hours now.

We don't even notice when we get slashdotted or dugg anymore.
Sometimes people tell me, "hey, we're on slashdot today" and I go, "oh
really? server load looks fine."

Anyway, a lot of traffic. Mostly small bits like web pages, css and
images. Some larger PDFs but not video or downloadable files.

The first problem we had with mod_proxy was in March and it had
something to do with 404's. The sysadmins were recompiling it with
print statements to figure out what was happening. I'm pretty sure
they've submitted a patch to upstream. I don't have documentation on
it. There have been other problems with scalability in the months
since. I can get you in touch with them if you like.

I readily admit that apache's configurability is a major benefit.

We do do rewriting but it's on the application server, not the proxy server.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode