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Apache Tuning Part 1

This article applies to apache version 2.2.3 also it will work for other versions.

Apache needs a lot of memory, this will decrease performance on a machine with e.g. 1 GByte memory and about 60 users accessing the server simultaneously a lot. There is a simply method to save memory: disable all unused modules. Yes, it really helps!

Why does it help? Because every apache process started – and a lot will be started when several users are accessing the server – will load all enabled modules.

To get an overview how much memory is consumed by the modules use the command

lsof | grep apache | grep modules

Using this command you will also see which modules consumes much memory.

In my case only the following modules are used:

• actions.load
• authz_default.load
• authn_file.load
• auth_basic.load
• authz_user.load
• env.load
• mime.load
• rewrite.load
• userdir.load
• alias.load
• authz_host.load
• deflate.load
• expires.load
• negotiation.load
• setenvif.load
• headers.load
• speling.load
• cgi.load
• dir.load
• include.load
• php5.load

Modules which are not needed are disabled using the command

a2dismod <module_name>