LSWS 5.0 Is Out – Support for HTTP/2, ESI, LiteMage Cache

Welcome to the beginning of a new era in web server technology. LiteSpeed Web Server 5.0 introduces two important new features — HTTP/2 support and LiteMage Cache (Magento full page caching with ESI-powered hole punching) — as well as a host of smaller upgrades.

HTTP/2

LSWS 5.0 supports HTTP/2 draft 17. (We will publish an update to support the final release of HTTP/2 soon after the official release of HTTP/2.) We are proud to be the first widely-used web server to support this important upgrade to the Internet’s fundamental protocol. HTTP/2 will improve performance (and security). We have prioritized developing support for HTTP/2 to make sure that hosts get access to this advance as soon as possible.

For more information on HTTP/2 see our previous blog posts on the subject.

LiteMage Cache and Magento Hole Punching

With LSWS 5.0, we are releasing a new product — LiteMage Cache. LiteMage Cache uses hole punching (enabled by LSWS 5.0’s ESI support) to allow for easy partial page caching with Magento, greatly increasing the amount of content that can be cached for Magento installations.

LiteMage’s ESI implementation contains a number of advances that deliver greater performance than other Magento page cache solutions. Preliminary tests have shown LiteMage Cache 15-20x faster than competitors Varnish-based solutions.

More information can be found on our LiteMage Cache page.

Virtual Host-Level Bandwidth Throttling

Introduced in LiteSpeed Web Server 5.0 RC2, vhost-level bandwidth throttling allows hosts to customize bandwidth limitations for specific virtual hosts. These limits are configured using directives in Apache configuration files.

WebSocket Proxying

WebSockets is an advanced technology that enables interactive, real-time communication between the client and the server (as opposed to requiring the client to call the web server intermittently to receive new information). WebSockets have allowed for a number of interesting and new applications and offer promising potential for the future. LSWS’s WebSocket proxy support makes hosting WebSocket applications easier — it allows hosts to control incoming WebSocket connections through LSWS and serve pages through LSWS with content that includes WebSockets. For more information on WebSockets, see our previous blog posts.

Specific Build Numbers

At LiteSpeed, we update our code incredibly often. We pride ourselves on the speed with which we respond to bug and issue reports. We realize, though, that it is sometimes important to our users to know exactly which build of LSWS they are using. That is why we have added an extra build number to keep track of this.

To view the build number, simply access the /usr/local/lsws/autoupdate/build file.

You can control which build you upgrade/downgrade to using the lsup command’s -b option. An example command would be:

/usr/local/lsws/admin/misc/lsup.sh -f -v 5.0 -b 0

The above command would upgrade your LSWS installation to the first build of LSWS 5.0. (Build numbers start at 0.) If you do not use the -b option, you will be automatically upgraded to the latest build.

Welcome to the next era of LiteSpeed. 

Try it out for yourself now. (Or use the lsup command above.)

For a full list of all the new features in LSWS 5.0, consult our release log.