handler question

[imadsani]

We're thinking of moving a server under heavy load from fastcgi to mod_php. The debate in-house is that we should move to mod_suphp, is that wise? I mean with ASL running would'nt it be alright to just use mod_php and let ASL handle the security part?

[faris]

Does the server handle more than one website or only one?

[imadsani]

Does the server handle more than one website or only one?

This one only handles one, but I run another server which hosts two websites but those don't bring in the kind of traffic this does

[faris]

In that case (and I'm open to corrections) I don't think it matters if you run as mod_php, security wise. Yes, that's the "old" way, but using fastcgi mostly really brings security and configuration benefits when you have multiple sites rather than just one (or two, I guess).

[imadsani]

The real reason I'm considering moving to mod_php is because of performance. The site brings the server to its knees with 400 pageviews/minute. From what I hear about fastcgi I'm guessing I should be able to squeeze a little bit more out of this before I need a load balancing setup.

[prupert]

Although Apache/mod_php is the easiest to set up, perhaps PHP FPM is something that might interest you. It really has best of all worlds in terms of performance, security and flexibility.

[scott]

and suphp is definitely not the way to go, this would be using cgi to execute requests. It would be the slowest configuration

[mikeshinn]

suphp is really slow.

[faris]

Although Apache/mod_php is the easiest to set up, perhaps PHP FPM is something that might interest you. It really has best of all worlds in terms of performance, security and flexibility.

I know PHP FPM this has been mentioned before, and it is supported by Plesk is it not? But I just don't "get" it and if I remember correctly, reading about it didn't help me.

I mean is it something that everybody should enable in Plesk (or manually as in the OPs case)? Are there disadvantages?