[mapserver-users] conf of MapServ+Apache.Lighttpd for better usability

[Sebastian E. Ovide]

Hi Guys,

I am using MapServer as a FastCgi (with lighttpd and Apache) connected to
Oracle, PG, ESRI shapes, ESRI binary grids and MapInfo TAB files.

There is a situation that makes the use of MapServer not very user friendly:

An user A opens a map, activates a slow layer and drags the map around. This
would add a lot of calls to the webserver that would launch many MapServer
processes reaching the maximum number of processes. At the same time, there
is another user B displaying another layer... this time a fast layer.... As
the maximum number of processes has been reached, the webserver cannot
create new processes until those alive finish their work, it cannot serve
the other user... that is very annoying as The other user would have to wait
a long time until the queue is processed and his map is displayed.

Another similar situation is when the user A get annoyed as the map is not
displaying and therefore decides to turn off the layer and turn on a
different layer... say a fast layer... he still need to wait that all the
MapServer processes finish the processing... That annoys the users that
doesn't understand what is going on... and thinks that the server has
crashed...

Is there anyway to configure Apache/Lighttpd to give higher priority to the
new calls ? (that means to conver the queue from FIFO to LIFO....)

I have configured Apache FastCgi to kill the old processes once a minute...
but the process wont die... actually they would not die with a simple
kill... they would die with only kill -9 !!!

Any other solutions ?

Thanks
-- 
Sebastian E. Ovide
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