Re: [squid-users] Squid Performance

For only 30 clients, you really don't need to spend that much cash on such a
high specced server! A simple Duron/Celeron based system with 256 or maybe
512MB RAM would more than suffice! Our ISP provided cache/firewall servers
at least 100 simultaneous client machines and is nothing more than a Celeron
1200 with 512MB RAM and a IDE 40GB HD and it has no problems keeping up with
demand on a 2Mbit line.

Really, on that few client machines, I really doubt you'll notice any
performance degredation running on a much lower spec machine!

The slowest link in the cog is the Internet connection, and personally I'd
save my money on the server and upgrade the net connection instead and run
Squid on a much lower spec machine...still, reading your post again it
appears you may have most of the hardware? If so it's a bit different.

Dual-processor wise, I think I'm right in saying that Squid can't take
advantage of this so it wouldn't be worth the extra cash, plus running with
dual-CPU's you're usually better off buying matched pairs otherwise you can
often run into problems.

As for Squid, I'd be very surprised if the standard install of Squid that
comes with RH9 couldn't easily handle the load of 30 client machines.

My tuppence worth anyhow!

Regards,

nry

>
>I'm complete newbie in the Squid and Linux worlds (I've lived in a
>different
>world for far too long). I just joined the wagon about a month ago. I need
>your inputs on how to set up a high performance Squid box:
>
>
>My hardware details:
>Machine: Dell PowerEdge 1600SC
>CPU: Intel Xeon 2.0GHz, 533Mz FSB
>Mem: 640MB PC2100 DDR, ECC.
>HD: Two 36GB, 10K RPM, Ultra320 SCSI Drives
>HD Ctler: Single Channel Ultra320 controller
>OS: Red Hat Linux 9.0
>Squid ver: 2.5.STABLE3
>Comm Interface: 1000Mbps Ethernet uplink to Squid box.
>Clients: Thirty Pentium 4, Windows XP machines.
>
>This setup will be for clients with the sole aim of browsing the internet.
>I
>have a relatively slow connection (128Kbps, may increase to 256kbps).
>
>This Linux box will be dedicated to running Squid.
>It also runs Apache just so I can use cachemgr. I don't serve pages to any
>one.
>It also runs BIND caching-only DNS. I read this will improve response time?
>
>I have successfully set up squid and running nicely (thanks to the
>tremendous amount of resource available on Squid, including this mailing
>list archive). What I'm looking for is how to optimize Squid for my
>situation.
>
>I'm willing to do the following hardware enhancements if it will
>significantly boost Squid's performance. Please rank the options if
>possible.
>
>1.) Add another Xeon processor (I have a dual processor server board)
>2.) Add another 512MB of memory
>3.) Add another hard drive (or more if necessary).
>
>If you feel my hardware is enough and all that I need is some software
>tweaking please tell me before I pump more doe into Squid.
>
>My OS shares one HD with a 5.9GB partition for one cache directory. The
>other cache dir is on a 5.9GB partition on the second drive. I'm thinking
>about adding a 7200RPM IDE drive for the OS and cache log and dedicating
>the
>tow SCSI's for Squid cache. My cache_mem = 128, and total cache size is set
>to 2GB for now. Any recommendations?
>
>I'm used a Squid RPM with 1024 file descriptors. What are my chances of
>running out of file descriptors given the number of clients? My file-max in
>Linux is 65529, but I read that Squid can't use more than the 1024 until I
>recompile with some options. The problem is I'm quite green with Linux and
>Squid environments so I don't feel comfortable compiling either (for fear
>of
>leaving out something and taking a performance hit). In other words I
>prefer
>not to fix anything that aint gonna break. If there are any simple tasks
>that I can do in Linux/Squid to improve performance please help.
>
>I appreciate your contribution. Thanks.
>

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Received on Sun Aug 24 2003 - 13:17:38 MDT