LiteSpeed web server, the favorite alternative to the 'old' Apache, is the leading software for high performance, maximum speed and best scalability. In this note we present your new version 6, a tremendous update that provides our sites with a even higher speed, better security and 100% compatibility with Apache.
Among the great general improvements of the software, a profound optimization of the caching engine, ModSecurity working asynchronously, and updated support for the new HTTP/3 v1.
Next we will see each section in detail.
Cache engine improvements
LiteSpeed version 6 brings several improvements to the LSCache Engine including response caching POST and the improvement of PURGE/REFRESH via URL.
LiteSpeed developers were particularly concerned with these innovations in order to provide greater flexibility in managing custom web application caches.
Asynchronous ModSecurity
The new version 6 has introduced a separate worker thread pool to improve ModSecurity processing. Hereinafter, when a request needs to be scanned, LiteSpeed Web Server offloads it into the dedicated thread pool.
The benefits of this innovation are enormous. For example, in addition to increasing the speed of this process, a neat feature is added: the ability to scan the response body without obstructing the main event loop thread. Yes, it is very technical. Therefore, we recommend complementing this with reading the official report.
HTTP/3 v1 support
After a good deal of research and development, HTTP/3 is about to become the new standard. That's why, LiteSpeed 6 has already been prepared to support HTTP/3 version 1 and QUIC. Honestly, for each new HTTP/3 update LiteSpeed made the necessary adjustments for compatibility, and LiteSpeed 6 and HTTP/3 v1 is no exception.
Apache compatibility improvements
ProxyPass
ProxyPass is a handy feature often used to facilitate the function live transfer from cPanel.
Live Transfer requires a domain name in the destination URL, but LiteSpeed Web Server was previously unable to meet this requirement. Previous versions required external manual configuration to be able to work around a domain name address, but with LiteSpeed 6 this scenario is deprecated.
LiteSpeed Web Server now supports configuration of external applications using a domain name for the destination address.
It is already possible to use Live Transfer to migrate LiteSpeed sites between servers with near zero downtime.
Also, the new version brings better support for websocket backends. LiteSpeed 6 supports secure wss:// connections
Conditioning configuration
Another big change in the Apache 2.4 configuration is the adding the context to enable configurations based on the runtime evaluation of an expression.
For this to be possible, LiteSpeed required the development and adoption of significant changes. This is because when a configuration is saved, LiteSpeed combines all the various configuration levels together once in order to improve runtime performance.
This method does not yield to changes at run time. Therefore, LiteSpeed 6 includes all the necessary changes to be able to support the conditioning configuration.
Bubble wrap support
Bubblewrap is the tool created to organize the work of isolated environments in Linux. It works at the application level of non-privileged users.
Bubblewrap support gives LiteSpeed Web Server a full sandbox, including isolated operating system mounts, user/group IDs, inter-process communications, users, c-groups, hostnames, and more.
This advanced feature is explained very well in the litespeed's blog.
Cgroup resource limitation
In order to maintain compatibility with the new feature of resource limitation per user DirectAdmin, LiteSpeed has added a simple resource limitation based on C groups via lscgid. In its version 6, LiteSpeed Web Server allows to control PHP processes, but also to limit CGI scripts.
Conclusions
LiteSpeed 6 represents a huge leap in technical prowess, but at the same time boasts a noticeable increase in site speed for any LiteSpeed-enabled site.
If you don't already have LiteSpeed technology on your website, you're missing out on a lot.
If you are an admin of your dedicated hosting and haven't done so yet, install LiteSpeed Enterprise v6.0 without delay.
If you want to know the possible speed of your site thanks to LiteSpeed technology, be sure to evaluate hosting your website with us.
We move your site no fee.
LiteSpeed 6 is included in all of our hosting plans.
Good luck, and thanks for reading.
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