Re: [cobalt-users] OT: Apache Limitations

[Cody Watkins <codyw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:04 AM 8/25/00 -0700, you wrote:

>You are *definately* going to want to read up on the mass hosting options of
>Apache.  Check out http://www.apache.org/docs/vhosts/mass.html, as it is
>essentially a white paper/documentation on what you are trying to do.

-Thanks!

>Very cool stuff and will probably help you out quite a bit.
>
>I would say your biggest barrier is going to be if you are going to
>potentially have 8000 users that are going to be FTPing, sshing, etc. into
>that machine.  I would *not* suggest it as you are very likely to have some
>serious problems.  If you build a content management system to let you
>clients (if applicable) manage their content you and them will have an
>easier time.

-Only one user will be editing the sites.  So we will only probably have 2
or 3 users on the system.

>> Also, can BIND (DNS) handle around 8000 domains?
>
>According to my documentation I don't see a real hard limit.  However, you
>are going to want to have a decent amount of memory, fast disk, etc. as
>loading that many db files, etc. will tax the system somewhat.

>Obviously you'll want to create your own tools (I would actually put in a
>MySQL or other database and manage the records like that and run a PERL
>script to snag and output the config files properly formatted) to manage
>this stuff.

-Yes, we plan on creating our own tools.

>On you machine, I realize that you are not expecting a lot of traffic on
>them, but I would highly suggest getting a real decent machine to handle the
>load.  If you have 8000 domains, assuming that you used a bulk registration
>service, that represents a minimum of $120,000 on registration fees.  I
>don't think it would be out of line to spend $10,000 on a server.  Get RAID
>with fast disks, fast processors, and >768M of RAM.

-Our client already owns the domains. And they just want to put up a max.
of 3 pages per domain.  Some domains may never even be visited. 

>I would have a hard time hosting that much stuff on a single server,
>honestly and would probably build a cluster (not knowing what you
>application is exactly this may or may not be an option).

-The machine would host the 8000 domains, and I would probably be right by
saying that all the domains will get less than 1 to 2 hits per day.

>If you are planning on having that many users having direct access to the
>server, I would suggest the acquisition of several machines and have ~3000
>on each (which isn't really too much).  The thing is about shared servers is
>that it only takes one idiot to potentially take the whole thing down.  Its
>like what I call the Titanic principle... instead of having 8000 pissed off
>customers, you only have 3000.

-No customers will be accessing the machine.  The administrator will
maintain all the sites. Each domain will just host informative pages, etc.

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