Tuning windows 2003 server

[Gemeni]

Hi,

Running CSS servers on a windows 2003 server
Quad Core - Q6600 CPU + 4GB RAM
OS on one 10k rpm disk and CSS on another

I've haven't found a good guide how to actually fine-tune the OS to get the most out of CSS. Does anyone have some good experience regarding this that could give some good advice? Some links to good guides are also appreciated.

Writing things like "I tuned my OS and reduced CPU usage to half" is things people seem to like to brag about. But noone likes to share what they do...

I identified some services that probably isnt needed to have running.
- Automatic Updates
- Background Intelligent Transfer Service
- DHCP Client
- Error Reporting Service
- Network Location Awareness (NLA)
- Remote Access Connection Manager
- Telephony
- Windows Audio
- Wireless Configuration

And a few more I already have set to manual.
Attaching the services I currently have running ...

  running_services.txt (Size: 1,013 bytes / Downloads: 28)

Any advice is welcome ...

Thanks,

Gem

[Gemeni]

Seems like not to many run w2k3 servers around here

[vigor]

There is plenty you can do, most of the servers I work on only run around 10 services maximum.

Disabling services is a good area to start. Don't forget about making minor adjustments in the registry and in particular gpedit

[Gemeni]

Thanks for the reply ...
If you can provide more details concernning gpedit and changes there it would be nice.
Maybe also a list of services you have active ...

It's a jungle of information out there ... hard to filter what is really good to do and not ...

[hero33]

I'm looking for this information as well

anything that help will streamline/optimize whatever you want to call it.. specifically that list of 10 services you are running.

[Doggie52]

Take a look at this : http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm .

It should work for Win2003 as well.

[Gemeni]

Doggie52 Wrote:It should work for Win2003 as well.

I've never really liked the expression "It should work"

[jonxor]

I'm on a win2003 server also.
My advice would be try to run as much as you can as a service, and let the server run with you logged off. Ending unnecesary services will free up ram, But be careful of the notion of "The less services running, the better". If you CAN run it as a service, DO. I use Firedaemon, which allows you to run almost anything as a service. The ram you use by simply being logged in to your server far outweighs that of removing most of your services.

I have a Dual proc Xeon 2.4GHZ with hyperthreading (4 logical processors)
and 1 GB of DDR ram.
At no given time does my ram usage go above 600MB, and usually, 99% of the time (With players in each server, and someoen on the FTP downloading) it does not go above 500MB. The only time I really get a spike which uses %100 of one processor, or more than 500Mb of ram is when the server is calculating NAV points for bots, or Multitheft auto is glitching (It's still Alpha, so it does that). And these numbers are while I am logged into the server. Typically it's using even less. I dont run anything as an application, except when I actually want to do somthing, or I'm testing somthing on one of the servers. Running somthign as a service usually makes it eat up alot less resources than running it as an app. If the little amount of resources you'd gain by killing an extra 3 or 4 services is really worth the reduced functionality (not really a bad thing on most services, but some do have benefits) then you'd probobly benefit alot more by running things as a service, and logging off.

My server currently has 28 running services (most are not necesary, I plan to clean it up soon). It hosts:
SRCDS server, port 27015
SRCDS zombie mod server port 27016
FTP port 21 (through windows IIS)
MY_Sql
File services
Multitheft Auto San Andreas server port 22004
Multitheft Auto San Andreas admin HTTP port 22005
I can throw up a screenshot later if you'd like.
All of these things run as a service, and I stay logged out of the server most of the time.

sorry for the long-winded response,
To summarize, I think the direction you should head in for freeing up resources should be in moving apps to run as services, and keeping the server logged off completely, rather than killing as many services as possible.

[Gemeni]

I've already gone down the same route as you have ... purchased Firedaemon a while ago ... no need to be logged on to te server
Thanks for the advice though ...

[vigor]

After taking a quick glance at your running services attachment, you can do the following.

Change the following to.... Startup: Disabled

Application Experience Lookup Service
Application Layer Gateway Service
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinator
Error Reporting Service
HID Input Service
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Server
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Shell Hardware Detection
Windows Audio
WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service
Wireless Configuration

Change the following to.... Startup: Manual

Automatic Updates
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Cryptographic Services
Performance Logs and Alerts


There is definitely more you could be disabling or at least setting to a manual startup mode, but I'd have to know what you're doing. If you're running Windows Firewall leave Application Layer Gateway Service as is, don't disable or set to manual.

Check before and after memory utilization as well.

[Gemeni]

Thanks ... will try this out ...

What we are doing ...

- Running css servers from FireDaemon to run them as services (as a special user, not admin)
- Windows firewall
- Remote Desktop to access the server
- SNMP to monitor health of the server (polling from an external machine running cacti)
- Running CygWin to be able to access the machine from linux. External rsync scripts to update and maintain maps, config files etc.

Planning on doing windows updates manually since we don't want to reboot the server unless planned.

That's basically it ...