Preface

This guide discusses adjustments you can make that may improve the performance of Sun Java^TM Systems Web Server 6.1. The guide provides tuning, scaling, and sizing tips and suggestions; possible solutions to common performance problems; and data from scalability studies. It also addresses miscellaneous configuration and platform-specific issues, and describes the perfdump performance utility and tuning parameters that are built into the server.

This preface contains the following topics:

• Who Should Use This Guide

• Using the Documentation

• How This Guide Is Organized

• Documentation Conventions

• Product Support

Who Should Use This Guide

This guide is intended for advanced administrators. Be sure to read this guide and other relevant server documentation before making any changes. Be very careful when tuning your server, and always back up your configuration files before making any changes.

Using the Documentation

The Sun Java System Web Server manuals are available as online files in PDF and HTML formats from the following location:

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/1308.2

The following table lists the tasks and concepts described in the Sun Java System Web Server manuals.

How This Guide Is Organized

This guide is organized as follows:

• Chapter 1, Performance and Monitoring Overview

  This chapter discusses server performance considerations and server performance monitoring.

• Chapter 2, Tuning Sun Java System Web Server

  This chapter describes specific adjustments to improve Sun Java System Web Server performance.

• Chapter 3, Miscellaneous Performance Topics

  This chapter describes miscellaneous performance topics, including discussion of magnus.conf and obj.conf settings that can be used to improve server performance.

• Chapter 4, Common Performance Problems

  This chapter discusses common web site performance problems, and offers tips and solutions.

• Chapter 5, Platform-specific Issues and Tips

  This chapter provides platform-specific tuning tips.

• Chapter 6, Sizing and Scaling Your Server

  This chapter examines the subsystems of your server, and provides recommendations for optimal performance.

• Chapter 7, Scalability Studies

  This chapter describes the results of scalability studies. You can use these studies as examples of how you might configure your system to best take advantage of Sun Java SystemWeb Server’s strengths.

Documentation Conventions

This section describes the types of conventions used throughout this guide.

• File and directory paths

  These are given in UNIX® format (with forward slashes separating directory names). For Windows versions, the directory paths are the same, except that backslashes are used to separate directories.

• URLs are given in the format:

  http://server.domain/path/file.html

  In these URLs, server is the server name where applications are run; domain is your Internet domain name; path is the server's directory structure; and file is an individual file name. Italic items in URLs are placeholders.

• Font conventions include:

  • The monospace font is used for sample code and code listings, API and language elements (such as function names and class names), file names, path names, directory names, and HTML tags.

  • Italic monospace type is used for code variables.

  • Italic type is also used for book titles, emphasis, variables and placeholders, and words used in the literal sense.

  • Bold type is used as either a paragraph lead-in or to indicate words used in the literal sense.

  Installation root directories are indicated by install_dir in this guide.

  By default, the location of install_dir is as follows:

  • On UNIX-based platforms: /opt/SUNWwbsvr/

  • On Windows: C:\Sun\WebServer6.1

Product Support

If you have problems with your system, contact customer support using one of the following mechanisms:

• The online support web site at:

  http://www.sun.com/training/

• The telephone dispatch number associated with your maintenance contract

Please have the following information available prior to contacting support. This helps to ensure that our support staff can best assist you in resolving problems:

• Description of the problem, including the situation where the problem occurs and its impact on your operation

• Machine type, operating system version, and product version, including any patches and other software that might be affecting the problem

• Detailed steps on the methods you have used to reproduce the problem

• Any error logs or core dumps