The Problem:

I am running a LAMP configuration at home for some web development. Now I am considering on taking it directly to the net and do some of my clients hosting from home. There is just one thing that is bugging me...
When I open up a page it takes about 5-10 seconds to open a page when I have a bit of embedded PHP.
Normal html files open up instantly. My CPU usage 2~3% at the most, my memory hardly goes over 150Mb.

There are no system spikes when I try to open up a page [unlike my FC5 which has been replaced now].

The Specs:

AMD2800+
1024DDR
80Gb HDD [with about 20mb transfer rate]
O/B NIC - seems ok
CentOS4.4

Hi there

Good to see another South African in here.

Are you sure you're not having some form of DNS issue? I encountered something similar once, and it had to with a DNS server not being accessible from my desktop.

For example, if my DSL router at home goes down, it takes me about 30 seconds to get into X from a text console - if the router is up, it is virtually instantaneous... ergo DNS.

What you can try (if you want to insure that it is something on your system itself that is causing this) is to put the site online at a hosting provider. Hetzner (hetzner.co.za) is a good choice and they offer LAMP hosting - put the code there, and see if it still has the delay... if it does, it is your code, if it does not, it is your system.

Other than a possible DNS problem I've got no ideas... have you tried NOT using symbolic names?

On our development setup at work I always use numeric addresses, i. e. when developing PHP pages I use

http://20.0.0.16/php/project/index.php

never

http://development/php/

etc. to make sure that no DNS resolution is done.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Good to see another South African on the site, I found the problem. It was a very painful way to find out what was wrong. Hard drive crashed a day before we had to do a site demo.

With another hard drive it seems my speed problem is now no more thankfully.

So yes faulty hardware was the root of all evil.