I've this config in my apache2.conf

<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
StartServers          5
MinSpareServers       5
MaxSpareServers      10
MaxClients          150
MaxRequestsPerChild   0
</IfModule>

# worker MPM
# StartServers: initial number of server processes to start
# MaxClients: maximum number of simultaneous client connections
# MinSpareThreads: minimum number of worker threads which are kept spare
# MaxSpareThreads: maximum number of worker threads which are kept spare
# ThreadsPerChild: constant number of worker threads in each server process
# MaxRequestsPerChild: maximum number of requests a server process serves

<IfModule mpm_worker_module>
StartServers          2
MaxClients          15
MinSpareThreads      4
MaxSpareThreads      5
ThreadsPerChild      15
MaxRequestsPerChild   50000
</IfModule>

Now I'm confused here.

• Which module gets loaded on which conditions?
• The phusion guys have suggested to use the worker module. Since both are present in apache conf file, do I have to comment the mpm_prefork_module or leave it as it is?

Following is my passenger conf file for apache:

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4
PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8
PassengerMaxPoolSize 3
PassengerPoolIdleTime 999999
RailsFrameworkSpawnerIdleTime 0
RailsAppSpawnerIdleTime 0

• I'm running just a single Rails 2.3.2 app on 256MB slice at slicehost. I'm not quite satisfied with the performance yet. Are the settings above are any good??