Comparison and Analysis of three major WEB servers (apache, lighttpd, and nginx)

Comparison and Analysis of three major WEB servers (apache, lighttpd, and nginx)

I. Software introduction (apacheLighttpdNginx)

1. lighttpd

Lighttpd features low memory overhead, low cpu usage, good performance, and rich modules. Lighttpd is one of the many OpenSource lightweight web servers. Supports FastCGI, CGI, Auth,Output compress, URL rewriting, Alias, and other important functions.

Lighttpd uses fastcgi to run php, which uses a small number of PHP processes to respond to a large amount of concurrency.

Fastcgi has the following advantages:

·In terms of stability, fastcgi uses an independent process pool to run cgi. When a single process dies, the system can easily discard it and re-allocate a new process to run the logic.

·In terms of security, fastcgi is completely independent from the host server, and fastcgi will not crash the server even if it is down,

·In terms of performance, fastcgi separates the processing of dynamic logic from the server,Heavy IO processing is left to the host server,In this way, the host server can focus on IO. For a common dynamic web page,Logical processing may only have a small part,Large volumes of static IO processing such as images do not require the involvement of Logic Programs (Note 1)

·In terms of scalability, fastcgi is a neutral technical standard,Fully supports processing programs written in any language (php, java, python ...)

2. apache

Apache is the world's top web server,According to netcraft (www. netsraft. co. uk), more than 50% of the world's web servers are using apache.

April 1995,The earliest apache version 0.6.2 was released by apache group. apache groupIs a non-profit organization that operates completely over the internet,It determines what content should be included in the standard release of apache web server.Allow anyone to modify hidden errors,Provide new features and port them to the new platform,And other work.When the new Code is submitted to the apache group,The Group reviews its specific content,Test,If satisfied,This code will be integrated into the main apache release.

ApacheFeatures:

1)It can run on almost all computer platforms.

2)Supports the latest http/1.1 protocol

3)Simple and powerful file-based configuration (httpd. conf ).

4)Supports Common Gateway Interface (cgi)

5)Supports virtual hosts.

6)Http authentication is supported.

7)Integrate perl.

8)Integrated Proxy Server

9)You can use a web browser to monitor the server status,You can customize logs.

10)Supports server-side commands (ssi ).

11)Supports Secure socket Layer (ssl ).

12)Tracking the user session process.

13)Fastcgi support

14)Support for java servlets

3. nginx

Nginx is a lightweight HTTP server compiled by Russians. It is pronounced as "engine X" and is a high-performance HTTP and reverse proxy server, it is also an IMAP/POP3/SMTPProxy Server. Nginx is a RussianIgor Sysoev is the second highest traffic in RussiaRambler.ru site development.

Nginx is written in event-driven mode, so it has excellent performance and is also a very efficient reverse proxy and load balancing. It has matchingThe performance of Lighttpd does not cause Lighttpd Memory leakage, and the mod_proxy of Lighttpd has some problems and has not been updated for a long time. However, Nginx does not support running in cgi Mode because it can reduce some program vulnerabilities. Therefore, you must use FastCGI to execute PHP programs.

As an HTTP server, nginx has the following basic features:

Process static files, index files, and automatic indexes; enable file descriptor buffering.

Non-Cache reverse proxy acceleration, simple load balancing and fault tolerance.

FastCGI, simple load balancing and fault tolerance.

Modular structure. Including gzipping, byte ranges, chunked responses, andSSI-filter and Other filters. If FastCGI or another Proxy Server Processes multiple SSI in a single page, the processing can run in parallel without waiting for each other.

Nginx is designed for performance optimization. performance is the most important consideration, and efficiency is very important in implementation. It supports the kernel Poll model and is able to withstand the high load test. The report shows that it supports up50,000 concurrent connections.

Nginx has high stability. When other HTTP servers encounter access peaks or maliciously initiate slow connections, the server may also consume physical memory and exchange frequently. In this case, the server can only be restarted if the response is lost. For example, once apache has over 200 processes, the web response speed is obviously very slow. Nginx adopts the phased Resource Allocation technology, making it very low in CPU and memory usage. Nginx officially said that it maintains 10,000 idle connections, which only occupies MB of memory. Therefore, DOS-like attacks are basically useless for nginx. In terms of stability, nginx is better than lighthttpd.

Nginx supports hot deployment. It is particularly easy to start,In addition, it can run almost without interruption and does not need to be restarted even if it is running for several months. You can also upgrade the software version without interrupting the service.

Ii. Comparison of the three WEB servers:

Server

Apache

Nginx

Lighttpd

Proxy

Very good

Very good

Average

Rewriter

Good

Very good

Average

Fcgi

Not good

Good

Very good

Hot deployment

Not Supported

Supported

Not Supported

System pressure comparison

Very large

Very small

Relatively small

Stability

Good

Very good

Not good

Security

Good

Average

Average

Technical Support

Very good

Very few

Average

Static File Processing

Average

Very good

Good

Vhosts Virtual Host

Supported

Not Supported

Supported

Reverse Proxy

Average

Very good

Average

Session sticky

Supported

Not Supported

Not Supported

Note: in relatively large websites, the server cost saved is undoubtedly objective. Some small websites often have few servers.ApacheThis type of traditionWebThe server also seems to be supported. But it has obvious drawbacks:ApacheWhen processing traffic bursts (such as crawlers orDiggEffect)It is easy to overload.NginxMost suitable.

Recommended solution:

ApacheBackend server (mainly processing php and some functional requests such as Chinese URLs)

NginxFront-End Server (using it to handle a large number of static page requests with the advantage of using less system resources)

LighttpdImage Server

In general, the improvement of nginx functions will make it the mainstream for web servers in the future.

Iii. Performance Testing:

The response time for dynamic and static page requests and concurrency of the three software types will be tested respectively.

LStatic Page Sohu Homepage

LIGHTTPD

N/-c (AB parameter)

Cpu %

Mem

RequestsperSecond

Time taken for tests

100000/100

64

60

462.75

21.6

100000/200

67

60

312.07

32.4

100000/500

83

60

137.24

72.8

100000/1000

Error Packet Loss

94

60

126.6

78.9

NGINX

N/-c (AB parameter)

Cpu %

Mem

RequestsperSecond

Time taken for tests

100000/100

34.6

140

943.66

10.597

100000/200

35.6

110

924.32

10.818

100000/500

34.3

110

912.68

10.956

100000/1000

37

160

832.59

12.106

APACHE

N/-c (AB parameter)

Cpu %

Mem

RequestsperSecond

Time taken for tests

100000/100

40.6

170

690.72

14.47

100000/200

41.1

180

685.39

14.59

100000/500

42.3

190

633.64

15.78

100000/1000

43.1

200

547.53

18.26

LDynamic page internal Community Homepage

LIGHTTPD

N/-c (AB parameter)

Cpu %

Mem

RequestsperSecond

Time taken for tests

1000/100

50

200

33.54

29.816

1000/200

52

210

30.43

32.858

1000/500

54

230

25.79

38.76

1000/1000

62

250

24.83

40.28

NGINX

N/-c (AB parameter)

Cpu %

Mem

RequestsperSecond

Time taken for tests

1000/100

53.8

250

83.12

12.305

1000/200

55.8

250

74.05

13.504

1000/500

56

260

58.99

16.951

1000/1000

58

260

43.41

23.347

APACHE

N/-c (AB parameter)

Cpu %

Mem

RequestsperSecond

Time taken for tests

100000/100

60

200

27.37

36.541

100000/200

61

220

23.82

41.981

100000/500

73

150

20.59

48.562

100000/1000

53

200

27.18

36.796

LPHPINFO function page

LIGHTTPD

N/-c (AB parameter)

Cpu %

Mem

RequestsperSecond

Time taken for tests

100000/100

45

20

168.06

59.504

100000/200

47

22

140.64

71.103

100000/500

49

24

52.80

189.386

100000/1000

When the request reaches 4840, the test program will die.

NGINX

N/-c (AB parameter)

Cpu %

Mem

RequestsperSecond

Time taken for tests

100000/100

70

120

143.46

69.706

100000/200

72

130

140.57

71.140

100000/500

73

150

135.87

73.601

100000/1000

77

160

132.18

75.657

APACHEPacket Loss

N/-c (AB parameter)

Cpu %

Mem

RequestsperSecond

Time taken for tests

100000/100

70

180

245.73

40.694

100000/200

72

190

245.79

40.684

100000/500

75

200

241.29

41.443

100000/1000

77

220

236.74

42.239

4. List of WEB Server resources of various websites

Website nameOperating SystemWeb Server

1. portal website:

SohuLINUXApache 1.3.37

SinaLINUXApache 2.0.54

ThunderLINUXNginx 0.6.31

163LINUXApache 2.2.6

2. Search

BaiduUnknown(BWS 1.0)

GoogleLinuxGws

SougouFreeBSDApache 2.2.4

Hao123LinuxApache 2.2.4

4.Email

126LinuxApache

HotmailWin2003Microsoft-microsoft IIS 6.0

Sina mailF5 Big-IPApache 2.2.8

263LinuxApache 2.2.6

5.Blog

Sina BlogLinuxNginx 0.5.35

Sohu blogLinuxNginx

Thunder blogLinuxNginx 0.6.32

Tianya blogF5 Big-IPMicrosoft-Microsoft IIS/5.0

6. Video

YoukuLinuxApache

TudouLinuxApache

Ku6LinuxApache

Room 6LinuxNginx 0.6.14