I’ve been banging my head trying to figure out why Squirrelmail is dog-slow retrieving headers from my cyrus imap server on large mail folders. Squirrelmail 1.15 has been hard-masked for a WHILE, gentoo only likes 1.4. I un-hard-masked it (add it to package.unmask AND package.keywords), and it looks rough, but GREAT… FAST! Finally apparently using squatter indexes and/or imap SORT… javascript/ajaxy… will keep tweaking it…
I turned on mod_deflate, but I clobbered SSI, breaking boxcarkid.com.
Config files that still need tweaking:
/home/m/config/apache2/machine_globals.conf
/home/m/config/apache2/virtualhosts/boxcarkid.confAlso upgraded my StartCom certificate, pretty easy! Thanks guys!
After bumping up 60+ packages (probably about half or a third the total), apache started spawning several processes, each taking 10-15% CPU, until my poor little server box was kswapd’ing its little guts out. It was heartwrenching seeing that red drive light on constantly. Poor little thing.
I did an emerge world and rebooted, and this baby is absolutely humming now. load average 0.00 :>
UPDATE: eventually Apache is still hogging things. Looks like gentoo changed the config settings for the Apache memory manager (MPM). There are several choices, looks like I want the “worker” variant. To get it, add APACHE_MPMS=”worker” to [/etc/conf.d/apache2], and update httpd.conf settings to specify performance settings. The defaults are here: [/etc/apache2/modules.d/00_mpm.conf]. I am attempting to adjust them to optimal values in my [machine_globals.conf] file.
The gory details follow. Sure it’s a lot of change, but once again, gentoo is the ultimate power tool. (continued…)
Git caused (among other things) python 2.4-2.5 update. python-updater caused a bunch more updates (including cyrus! AAAA!! Hates it bagginses!). After the dust settled, an emerge-world still wants 60+ more packages. Not now.
Nothing can touch gentoo when it comes to keeping an up-to-date linux system. It has the tools (emerge, dispatch-conf, elogviewer, etc.) to tell you what has changed since yesterday, get the changes, and integrate them into your system. linux is a crazy-assed pile of mismanaged bits that are freshly broken in a dozen ways every single day. Anybody that runs a linux system will…
- spend a not-insignificant amount of time keeping their system running; and…
- tell you they don’t.
It’s part of the whole cocky “look what I can do” competitiveness built into every geek. Go ahead, now it’s time for you to lie to me and tell me otherwise. 
My current strategy for staying on the back of the bucking linux bronco… (continued…)
