Small slices of computing (Slicehost) require small MySQL and Apache

{Geeks off the starboard bow, matey, arrrrrr!}

I’ve mentioned before that I’m bringing up web sites on Slicehost. It’s a cloud computing environment and that means I don’t know and don’t care exactly what or where the server is, and I only buy as much as I need.

It’s an interesting experience because in the rest of my life I’m constantly expanding my (personal) computers by adding storage and processor power so they can run faster and faster, but in the case of cloud computing, instead, I’m scaling down the pieces of software so they can run more efficiently in a small “computer” instead.I was wondering a few days ago why one of my slices was running so “hot” – it was using up all of its memory and it was swapping to disk like crazy. I thought that Apache (web server) and MySQL (database) would be smart enough to make good use of whatever memory was available, whether it be large or small.

So in the interest of geekiness I took a look at what I could do to save the situation.

Turns out that my reducing the number of processes that Apache is allowed to run, and my using an example configuration file that MySQL provides for small installations, I was able to tune my slice so that it hardly ever swaps (which reduces disk utilization to minimum) and just barely fills up the available RAM in the virtual computer.

Here are the references that were most useful to me in this process. It probably took me 30 minutes to get it all tuned up. And wow it runs great now!

• Lowering Apache memory usage (just read the Apache part, not the MySQL part)
• Finding and using the my-small.cfg MySQL configuration file (this is specifically designed for Slicehost, which I use)