[WinMac] OS-X Server: Not ready for prime time yet

Daniel L. Schwartz(expresso[at]snip.net)
Mon, 28 Jun 1999 16:07:32 -0400

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Good afternoon!

While researching NT vs linux "shootouts" by the likes of MindCraft,
Ziff-Davis, and c't (German magazine), I stumbled across, as a footnote
to the c't article, the following...

From <<http://www.heise.de/ct/english//99/13/186-1/>:

MacOS X (re)served

</bigger></bold><bigger><paraindent><param>left</param>

</paraindent></bigger><paraindent><param>left</param>With MacOS X, Apple
is targeting the server market. The Unix-based operating system with
integrated Apache is especially intended for performance web server use.
We were curious and put our test setup against a server of this kind.
However, the results can only convey a first impression since we
optimized neither MacOS X nor the integrated Apache for this task. The
entire system ran with its default settings.

In addition, although the G3 Mac with its PowerPC 750e (400 MHz) we used
does compare to a Pentium II Xeon (450 MHz), its memory of 128 MBytes RAM
is rather on the small side. This alone is enough reason to run this
server 'out of competition' here.

Installing the server is the simplest task: Insert MacOS X Server 'Core
OS', boot from CD, doubleclick on installer. This causes the computer to
re-start, boot MacOS X Server and load an assistant to help you select
the required components. Apache is selected by default. Ten or fifteen
minutes later you enter IP address and name - ready.

Despite the handicaps we mentioned earlier, MacOS X Server produced
remarkable results which were only marginally below the Linux and NT
results. Some manual adjustment should produce at least comparable
results. The drop towards the end of the graph on page 187 is probably
due to the smaller scale memory. The values for randomly selected pages
suffered even more from this handicap and were, therefore, omitted.

However, testing CGI scripts resulted in a fatal error which puts a
question mark on the suitability of MacOS X as a web server in its
present state. If 32 or more processes within a loop called a URL
pointing at a script, it took about 30 seconds until the server grinded
to a halt: 'system panic', and nothing can be done.

We assume this is due to faulty task administration within the MacOS X
kernel. Find a small script in [5] which allowed to reproduce the crash
locally.

</paraindent>

And, reference [5], which is in the middle of the page:

[5] CGI-MacPanic: <<http://www.heise.de/ct/99/13/186/CGI-MacPanic>, see
also CGI Causes MacOS X Server To Panic
<<http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/13/186/>

</paraindent>

It's worth noting that unlike MindCraft, the folks at c't can hardly be
called Microsoft sycophants.

Cheers!

Dan

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