21 June 2022 Reading time: 3 minutes

Mary Nifontova

Editor

ispmanager now supports the fast OpenLiteSpeed web server

Ispmanager

Ispmanager support for OpenLiteSpeed has been released. It is a fast and undemanding to hardware web server, similar to Apache and nginx. You can try it from the beta update 6.52.0 of June 21 in Lite, Pro, Host versions. Here is how to do it.

What is OpenLiteSpeed

OpenLiteSpeed is a high performance web server from LiteSpeed Technologie. Here are just a few of the technologies it uses to accelerate: event-driven architecture, high-performance page caching, its own API module to accelerate external PHP applications, and others The developers claim that thanks to these, OpenLiteSpeed can handle a huge number of requests simultaneously. By the way, we decided to check this statement and did our own comparative testing of OpenLiteSpeed, Apache and nginx. We will publish the results soon - stay tuned to the blog for updates. OpenLiteSpeed exists in a paid and a free version (the latter is available in ispmanager).

How to try OpenLiteSpeed in ispmanager

OpenLiteSpeed in ispmanager replaces Apache and nginx and does not work in parallel with them. To try this web server, you need to make a new installation of ispmanager from scratch or move existing projects with Apache and nginx. The first option is safer and easier, while the second requires preparation. We will tell you about both.

Installing OpenLiteSpeed together with ispmanager

If you are setting up your ispmanager panel from scratch, you can select OpenLiteSpeed right during the installation. Read more in the documentation: how to install ispmanager.

Moving from Apache and nginx to OpenLiteSpeed

Note:

Before moving to OpenLiteSpeed, we recommend backing up your Apache and nginx configurations. This way you can reset the websites if something goes wrong: some Apache and nginx settings may be incompatible with OpenLiteSpeed. You should be especially careful if the website has the following settings:

  • The .htaccess file is used. OpenLiteSpeed will ignore all directives except those described in the documentation to the Apache mod_rewrite module.
  • Custom configuration file templates are used. For OpenLiteSpeed, they will need to be written separately.
  • There are changes to the configuration files made manually. They need to be adapted to OpenLiteSpeed and reinserted.

To reinstall, go to the "Web server settings" menu and select "OpenLiteSpeed". This will start deleting Apache/nginx, installing OpenLiteSpeed, and converting websites. It may take a few minutes, depending on the performance of the server and the number of projects on it. The websites will be unavailable during this time. When the conversion is complete, the websites will resume their work.

Conversion feature - installing LSAPI and reconfiguring PHP modes

OpenLiteSpeed only uses the LSAPI mode of PHP operation. Ispmanager downloads it and turns it on automatically. The native modes previously used on the OS are reinstalled as alternatives. This allows OpenLiteSpeed to work immediately after installation, without any further adjustments.

After conversion, ispmanager will enable LSAPI control for those users who previously had access to at least one PHP mode.

OpenLiteSpeed restrictions in ispmanager

For OpenLiteSpeed, some settings that are available in Apache and nginx have been disabled in ispmanager:

  • Migration to CloudLinux from CentOS 7/Almalinux 8 is not available.
  • It is not possible to change the mode of PHP: OpenLiteSpeed only supports LSAPI.
  • In the Optimization and DDoS Protection settings there is no choice of compression level - it is set globally for the entire server. But you can enable or disable compression for the virtual host.
  • There is no support of the webDAV web disk – it is only provided for Apache.
  • OpenLiteSpeed uses the fast HTTP/2 network protocol by default. We have disabled the option to change it to HTTP because it is usually not required.
  • PageSpeed and Node.js support is not available in the first release of June 21. We will add these features later if they are of interest to users.

Try ispmanager with OpenLiteSpeed support

Ispmanager configures the web environment and helps manage websites, mail services and databases through an easy-to-use graphical interface. You can try the panel for free – we provide a trial version for 14 days.

read more in documentation"Install a web-server".

How to move from OpenLiteSpeed to Apache/nginx in ispmanager

Before moving from OpenLiteSpeed to Apache and nginx, we recommend creating a backup of the server and configuration files. To change the web server, enter "Web server settings" and select Apache or nginx.

Try ispmanager with OpenLiteSpeed support

Ispmanager configures the web environment and helps manage websites, mail services and databases through an easy-to-use graphical interface. You can try the panel for free – we provide a trial version for 14 days.

Try ispmanager