Software& Hardware requirements for vBulletin?

[ubbuser]

Hello Jelsoft folks,

I plan on installing dedicated hosted Redhat Linux (6.2 or 7.1 I have yet to decide so maybe you guys can tell me which one is better) on a AMD 650 pc, with 256mb RAM, 20gig hd.

I will have Linux Apache, MySql, Php with zlib option, which is going to be more current than the requirements vBulletin lists on your website here.

My question is, is the hardware above enough to support say, 150- 200 concurrent users (at peak times only that lasts about 1-3 hours/day & average number of concurrent users is going to be 75) with about 75,000 pageviews, 400 active threads (messages) / day?

Which version of Redhat should I use as my web server's OS? 6.2 or 7.1 ?

This will help me make my decision to migrate UBB to vBulletin. Thanks in advance. Regards,

[tubedogg]

You will need more than 256MB of RAM. 512MB is probably a minimum for that many users.

As far as OS I am not familiar enough with Linux to answer that.

[ubbuser]

Hmm interesting answer. thanks.

What about say, supporting 100-150 concurrent users? Thx again.

[ubbuser]

Also, I read in the FAQ forum a message which was posted May 2001 that vBulletin works with 6.2 redhatlinux fine. Had some issues with Redhat Linux 7.0

What about RedHat Linux 7.1?

[ubbuser]

It would have been nice if Jelsoft could've posted detailed memory/hardware requirements for typical users (concurrent) etc.

[Wayne Luke]

It is fairly difficult to provide a listing of hardware requirements to run vBulletin. The amount of memory you will need depends on how PHP, MySQL and your webserver are compiled, whether you use PHP as CGI or a webserver module, what other server daemons are being used on your machine, and even how your OS is compiled.

That being said, I administrate a forum that operates on a setup similar to what you specified except with 512 megabytes of RAM. It gets between 100 and 150 concurrent users at peak traffic times and averages about 90 users concurrent throughout the day. We use Redhat Linux 6.2 with Apache, MySQL 3.23.36 (logged), and PHP 4.06. We have PHP compiled to have support for GD, GZIP, MySQL, Postgre, and several other modules. We use QMail for our mail server.

[ubbuser]

Thx for the detailed reply Wluke. What kernel version of Linux you using for Rhat Linux 6.2 ?

[Wayne Luke]

I personally don't deal with that part on our site. My specific duty is running the community forums and managing the 40 or so volunteers we have.

I would have to ask the company's Network Administrator. It will be a few hours because he doesn't get in for the morning for a bit yet.

[ubbuser]

Ok do post a reply here when u get the info? thx.

[George L]

Originally posted by ubbuser
It would have been nice if Jelsoft could've posted detailed memory/hardware requirements for typical users (concurrent) etc.

as already stated it's hard to say since servers are configured and setup differently from host to host etc

i.e. disboards.com who just moved servers from a 2 server (webserver/database server setup) to a single dual p3 933, 1gb ram, dual scsi hdd server is handling 770+ users

latest kernel installed and i personally installed PHP/MySQL (mysql installed on separate disk) configured for optimal settings - i'm quite surprised a single dual cpu server could of handled that load myself since more beefier setups have been know to handle less!

i personally recommend

red hat 7.1 or 7.2 with latest 2.4.x kernel
apache, php compiled with at least mysql, enable-memory-limit, zlib and gd support and mysql latest version compiled from source tarball

lots of ram if you can afford it.. 512mb at least

if possible install mysql on a separate disk



my own forums at Animeboards.com server' specs are in my sig - the dual p3 866 one - handles 200 - 600 users, 1400 - 2400 posts/day and has 4,900+ members and 552,000+ posts

[ubbuser]

Hi eva2000 I will lookup the web but what is php compiled with "gd and enable-memory-limit" and how is this related to vbulletin?

BTW I plan on sending my new ISP this request, is this correct?

--
Run php as an apache module, enable Apache dynamic module support, mod_zlib module support.

Php compiled with php compiled with at least Mysql, enable-memory-limit, zlib and gd support.
--

[Thunderfall]

Hi guys,

What kind of dedicated server should I get if the forum has 500 simultaneous users? Will a 1 GHZ and 512 MB RAM server be enough? It would be nice if JelSoft can make a page that list the recommended server specs for different number of simultaneous visitors. Something like:

Recommended Specs
20 sim. users:
50 sim. users:
75 sim. users:
100 sim.users:
......

Thanks and keep up the good work. vB looks like the best forum software avaialble.

[tubedogg]

For 500 concurrent users (is that peak or a running average?) you'll need at the least 1GB to 1.5GB of RAM and a 1GHz processor. At that point you probably would want to also look at getting two servers, one to run MySQL on and the other for PHP/Apache (or whatever webserver you are running).

[nuno]

there's also the speed connection factor

[Thunderfall]

Originally posted by tubedogg
For 500 concurrent users (is that peak or a running average?) you'll need at the least 1GB to 1.5GB of RAM and a 1GHz processor. At that point you probably would want to also look at getting two servers, one to run MySQL on and the other for PHP/Apache (or whatever webserver you are running).

damn, it would cost a lot to get such a powerful server. I plan to get a 1 GHZ 512 MB server and order vB in May... hopefully this server can support 300 concurrent users w/o problem.

Another question, on the purchase page, it says a lease license costs $85 a year. How do you enforce this so people don't continue to use the forum after one year? I don't think you can make the forum automatically expires on a specific date. Just asking... when I order vB I most certainly will get the full license.