Expert: Michael Kroher - 10/25/2009

Question
Dear Michael
Can you help me to adopt the correct optimum settings for fast cgi? Our site runs on IIS6, PHP & Mysql. Following are the current settings in my fcgiext.ini file

[Types]
php=PHP
[PHP]
ExePath=C:\PHP\php-cgi.exe
InstanceMaxRequests=10000
ActivityTimeout=300
RequestTimeout=300
EnvironmentVars=PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS:10009,PHPRC:C:\PHP\

The average number of visitors per day will not be more than 300. But at peak hours the traffic may go up to 15 to 20 visitors per minute.
Normally the site loads pretty fast. But after about an idle time of 10 or 15 minutes, it takes some time to load.
Whether I should set the –IdleTimeout- setting for a longer period like 15 or 20 minutes?
Kindly advice on correct settings for InstanceMaxRequests, RequestTimeout, php_fcgi_max_request and other settings also.

Regards
Thomas


Answer
Hello,

I'm not familiar with a Windows environment, but I will say that 15 to 20 visitors a minute is not much of a load at all.  I don't believe it's a problem that can be fixed with your config file, I think something else is going on.  Do you have access to "apache benchmark"?