Zend server installation

[Trombones13]

Is anyone here using the free Zend Server Community Edition for their XF server? If so, could you explain how to get from downloading the XF files to accessing your site? The few people I've talked to so far and I have had problems. Thanks!

 

[Blandt]

I mucked with this off and on for the past several days. Have made no progress. Hopefully MS will have a solution or XF will code it in such a way that it works regardless of platform. It's the only thing I've found so far that is keeping me from deploying my sites.

Yes hopefully by next beta release ... it works with ASAPI ... but ASAPI is not recommended so even if you were able to configure IIS with ASAPI this is not really a long term solution

 

[nestor718]

Blandt, that's 'ISAPI' lol! and ISAPI run much better than the fastCGI but what the 'experts' are worried about is thread safety. ISAPI runs as an extension of IIS in a single thread (which is why it performs better) and fastCGI run in multi thread thereby isolated and more 'safe' to the machine which in theories prevents crashes. BUT the CGI processes have to span an instance for every request and that in itself will bring down your box if not configured right.

Next version of PHP I will manually build the ISAPI cause I think fastCGI if all hype

But as we saw on my IIS box, it's running in ISAPI mode just fine. The SEO might not be working all that well but the performance is as blazing as an APACHE box IMO.

 

[Blandt]

S

Blandt, that's 'ISAPI' lol! and ISAPI run much better than the fastCGI but what the 'experts' are worried about is thread safety. .

haha see that's to verify that I am so in love with it (not!) so ASAPI for me

ISAPI will bring the whole house down ... and that's why IIS got that bad reputation running php (aside from the slow thing) and that is why FastCGI is taking over ... and remember .. when Microsoft say ISAPI is bad then I'm going to take their word for it

 

[That One Guy]

I would be fine with running in ISAPI except for the fact that every time there's an upgrade / fix / whatever I'd probably have to diddle with it again. Over the years I've found that working with the default / recommended configuration is the best way for me to go unless I intend to become a total expert in the field. And as much as I like XF I doubt I'll have time to do that.

 

[nestor718]

when Microsoft say ISAPI is bad then I'm going to take their word for it

Might be because PHP is a competing technology to ASP.NET? LOL! It was pretty crafty of M$ to 'recommend' the lower performing php-cgi.exe over the ISAPI module to the point the official releases no longer fully support it. When high yield sites go hunting for high stress interpreters the choice would be obvious to make! ASP.NET runs as an ISAPI extension so M$ does not do what they preach

Anyway, and easy test to do is look at your task manager on a busy site and see how many 'php-cgi.exe' are running and consuming CPU and memory. Then go to a properly configured ISAPI box and notice the difference.

I have a few boards running on my box and sometimes some searches take a while and therefore that process stays open. Or there's even been time when malicious users or errant bots spider through your sites leaving lots of php-cgi.exe's open and refusing to close. Also note some extra w3wp.exe sometimes have to spawn to handle the extra php-cgi.exe and if they are taking a while to close they will add up eating up your memory and CPU to the point your box may become unresponsive.

And yes, on a low volume site you might not see the difference but on a box with a lot of traffic, it's a train wreck waiting to happen

Additionally when running PHP under ISAPI, you can use the app pool for fail-over and have it recycle the pool in case of a crash. When running in fastCGI mode, the app pool is not in control. So there's really no way for your box to crash because of PHP running under ISAPI. I've never seen a box go completely out running under ISAPI but I have personally experienced near crashes when running under the fastCGI.

I guess play with either and do what works best for your instance

 

[Blandt]

I will give it a go ... I really want to run a particular xenforo site on IIS (I have a crazy idea I'll post if successful)

The runaway FastCGI is most likely due to poor configuration. It will recycle itself every so often (depends what you put in) ISAPI runs as an extension hence the risk of putting the rest of your .net apps at risk

 

[nestor718]

Yeah, try it out. Isn't that bad. And like i said, with app pool isolation you get the same results. So what you would do is create a different app pool for your heavily used site and give it rules to recycle under certain conditions. But the mere fact you're creating a separate app pool gives you a degree of safety anyway.

 

[Blandt]

I would be fine with running in ISAPI except for the fact that every time there's an upgrade / fix / whatever I'd probably have to diddle with it again. Over the years I've found that working with the default / recommended configuration is the best way for me to go unless I intend to become a total expert in the field. And as much as I like XF I doubt I'll have time to do that.

Yeah, try it out. Isn't that bad. And like i said, with app pool isolation you get the same results. So what you would do is create a different app pool for your heavily used site and give it rules to recycle under certain conditions. But the mere fact you're creating a separate app pool gives you a degree of safety anyway.

This issue is fixed with the release of Beta 4
Attachment works flawless under FastCGI

 

[That One Guy]

This issue is fixed with the release of Beta 4
Attachment works flawless under FastCGI

Working great for me as well.

Nice treat coming at the end of a rather hellish week.

 

[Blandt]

Working great for me as well.

Nice treat coming at the end of a rather hellish week.

I was also successful nesting xenforo and wordpress with the correct rewrite rules under IIS (I've been trying since Oct 5th )