As I looked at the Virtualmin site it looks like it uses Joomla. Is this correct? If so, what is the optimal setup that you use in regard to the use of suphp, mod_fgid, and Virtualmin professional?
As I understand it, the installation of mod_fgid with Virtualmin is used to retain the speed of the server. Some posts talk about a hit to the server speed when suphp is installed. Is there a significant decrease in speed, or is this simply a matter of installing it properly? [ul] http://blog.stuartherbert.com/php/2008/01/18/using-suphp-to-secure-a-sha... http://litespeedtech.com/support/forum/showthread.php?t=1306[/ul] The module mod_fgid was recently setup on my server account with Virtualmin but there were some critical problems with installing Joomla itself (session.save_path) and Joomla components (memory exhausted). This seems to add significant problems and complexity. One post notes: "The problem I perceive with FastCGI is that itâ
actually most of the domains on my server are Joomla installs. There are no issues at all and I do not have the latest high power server. I do have 4GB of ram and virtualmin Pro though. And there is no real need to have many FCGId PHP sub-processes running. I switched this from 5 to 2, but can be set to None as well to spare RAM.
You can configure GPL version to run with mod_fcgid but you'll have to do it manually. There are instruction here in this forum written up by Joe (search is friend)
any problems you would have with joomla can be easily overcome by tuning configuration of a php.ini and the config file of joomla itself.
I have run numerous joomla sites on the virtualmin GPL version as well before switching to Pro. Also without any isues after tuning a bit.
There is no need for suphp, mod_fcgid is perfect. I do advice to have sufficient ram though even if you don't have joomla on the server. Ram is key.
the session.save_path is/was a common joomla error often occured in shared hosting environments. to fix this joomla introduced its own tmp folder.
if joomla can't use /tmp or or /home/*/tmp due to open_basedir restrictions or file permissions then these errors can occur.
mail sent.
Thanks for all the help! It is greatly appreciated.
Thanks for the reply. I am trying to decide whether to keep mod_fcgid or go with suphp. I am not a linux server expert, just a designer. After my hosting service installed mod_fcgid I could not install Joomla--at second screen received error of session.save_path. After that was fixed I could not install components due to memory error. It seemed to make things more complex. Maybe it was not installed correctly or I am missing something. I really need to resolve this global problem soon. So what do you should I do? Install more ram? Purchase pro version? My goal is to have a painless way to install Joomla sites, period.
<div class='quote'>I am trying to decide whether to keep mod_fcgid or go with suphp.</div>
mod_fcgid+mod_suexec
Leave out the suphp hack. Happiness, performance, and security all around.
The accusations against mod_fcgid you've found on these here Internets are...unfounded. mod_fcgid is actually <i>more</i> memory and resource efficient than mod_php in several recent benchmarks (though this also depends on load, environment, configuration, etc.).
Joomla can definitely run fine under mod_fcgid+mod_suexec. Virtualmin.com, as you've noted, is currently running Joomla in this very configuration. And we get a pretty healthy amount of traffic on a pretty wimpy box (it's nearly four years old, and has only 2GB of RAM). We're doing about 50k visitors a day these days to Virtualmin.com, and at least that much to the remaining sites on the server (which run a variety of apps, including WordPress and TWiki). We also work our server <i>really</i> hard on the email front, sending out 5k-10k notification emails per day, and receiving even more than that in spam and legitimate mail.
Our forums front page is stupidly slow, but that's just because our forum software is stupid...everything else is pretty fast, given the size of the server and load it sees.
As ronald mentioned, the setup for Virtualmin GPL is documented here in the forums. It's the sticky thread at the top of the Virtualmin forum.
Feel free to ask questions (start a new thread, though, please, whenever talking about new questions) if you get confused.
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