Running Drupal on a 256MB VPS?

Question

Can I run Drupal on 256MB VPS hosting ?

I know it depends on many factors, but I mean... can I run few Drupal websites on such VPS.. ?

What are important configuration settings to optimize performances ?

thanks

Answer 1

I had Drupal running with MySQL on a VPS with only 64MB of RAM for about 2 years. So, 256MB will definitely work. Things that I did to get it work with 64MB of RAM:

1. Configure MySQL to the minimum. On Debian based distributions, the example my-small.cnf provided would be a good sample to use.
2. Use a light-weight web server like lighttpd/nginx.
3. Limit the number of php instances running. In lighttpd/nginx, this would involve limiting the number of spawned instances. I could get 2 php-cgi instances running in 64MB.
4. Use a light-weight MTA like minimal Exim4.
5. Turn off everything else.

Good Luck.

Edit:

1. Set vm.swappiness to 1 in /etc/sysctl.conf
2. Hit the server with a simulated run (use something like siege would do).
3. Watch the resource usage and ensure that the swap is not used.

The key is to avoid swap usage. So, tune/reduce resources to keep the server from swapping. The easiest thing to do is to reduce the number of PHP instances running.

Answer 2

Assuming they're light duty websites and your OS has minimal requirements, I don't see why not.

Answer 3

For my heavy Drupal sites everything is ok with approx. 200 MB of RAM for one instance.