Running our own Linux server for MODx - please recommend OS / configuration

Hello,

we are running our own dedicated Linux server (currently with Debian Lenny - latest stable). The problem with Lenny is the "buggy" MySQL version 5.0.51a. To get MODx Revo installed we had to use dot deb packages - to get a supported MySQL version.

In the last weeks we had the know problem with the MODx package manager - can't download packages because of the missing cURL component.

The problem is: using the dot deb packages, we can't install cURL.

Now here is my question: which Server software & configuration would you recommend for running MODx Revo?
Which Linux distributions do you use?

Thanks in advance,
Martin

p.s. sorry for my weak English...

I've got an Ubuntu box for while I'm developing and my vps runs on centOS. Never have any problems with either.

Ubuntu is nice and tends to have up to date packages.
Centos doesn't always have the latest but certainly isn't far behind, and because its based on RHEL it is very stable (RHEL has commercial investment).

You'd be fine with either of these.


In terms of setup, I've taken cues from others and used:

NGINX (Webserver - http://nginx.org/)
PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager - http://php-fpm.org/)
APC (Caching - http://php.net/manual/en/book.apc.php)
Separate DB server that only has mysql, firewall and Munin (node monitoring).

Very impressed with this setup - NGINX has consistently fast response times, and the APC cache helps a lot.


I have a guide here for setting up an Ubuntu webstack in one hour, but I've yet to add Part3 (firewall + postfix - trivial enough to do).


http://blog.thenewmanifesto.com/2011/09/setting-up-webstack-software-on-ubuntu.html
http://blog.thenewmanifesto.com/2011/09/setting-up-web-server-on-ubuntu-11-part.html

This has been tested by myself and others on Ubuntu 10 + 11 LTS (UBU10 has slightly different paths as I remember).

Its not as complete as it should be, and I need to update some of the config examples, but if you follow along on a test box you should have a webstack that you can expand upon easily.


Important to note that you need to compile PHP yourself with this setup because the Ubuntu install (via yum) doesn't have all of the required php-fpm flags.



I'm a bit busy for a couple of days, but if you can bear with me, on Friday 19th October I'll double check and make sure it has my latest config settings and that all of the resource files are bang up to date.

If you need any pointers in the meantime, feel free to get in touch.

It's really a question of how you plan to use the server, as there are a lot of different configurations.

I know we use CentOS with cPanel (apache, php running suexec, and mysql), as this configuration is better suited to our needs/uses.

If you aren't hosting multiple websites, you can experiment with other options such as NGINX/Lightspeed as apache alternatives, running php using dso along with apc, separate database server(s) and more.

It's more a question of how much time you want to spend configuring things, how many different scripts you need to support, and then some. I would go with thenewmanifesto's configuration for high performance, if the server was limited to single site and/or all sites I manage, but not for reselling hosting personally.

Hope that helps some.

Good point,

If you're a VPS reseller you'd need to consider the other sites on the server before reinstalling the operating system completely.

If you're using Lenny (and finding ways to get recent mysql versions) it sounds like you're no beginner to sysadmin, and have a somewhat customised setup already.

There is nothing to stop you running virtual hosts with Nginx though...

On a side note, I was just reviewing Lightspeed for a site and it can be used as an apache replacement. It should be a great alternative if you need some extra horsepower.

You don't need any special configurations as with NGINX.

Thanks for all the hints! I will check out, what's best for us!