Moodle Server Recommendation

This short tutorial will highlight reccomendations for Windows Servers running Apache, PHP and MySQL with 4 GB RAM.  When you install PHP and MySQL the default settings will need tweaking to ensure that your web applications run at their fastest.  The following settings are used as a guideline for Moodle but will also work well for any PHP apps running on your server.

PHP Settings

Edit your php.ini to reflect the settings below:

zlib.output_compression = Off (if using eAccelerator)
max_execution_time= 60
max_input_time = 120
memory_linit = 64M
post_max_size = 8M
upload_max_filesize = 16M

MySQL

Edit you my.ini to reflect the settings suggested below:

skip-lockingkey_buffer = 256M
max_allowed_packet = 1M
table_cache = 256
sort_buffer_size = 1M
read_buffer_size = 1M
read_rnd_buffer_size = 4M
myisam_sort_buffer_size = 64M
thread_cache_size = 8
query_cache_size= 16M

Query caching is a server wide variable, so we need to be generous with this.  16Mb should be adequate.  If your server purely runs MySQL then you may wish to set this higher.You should notice significant improvements by tweaking your setting for both PHP and MySQL. 

Apache can also be tweaked but that will be covered in a later tutorial.Also, installing a PHP Accelerator such as eAccelerator can also speed things up but conversly can slow a powerful server down.  Again, trial and error is the best way to ensure a good healthy system, don''t be afraid to try different settings to get it just right.