Info on server specs

[Jan Klerks]

Hi there,

This is what I use now:

cpu model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz
cpu MHz : 2000.067
Total RAM : 1 Gig

It runs okay up untill 350 users online, that it starts slowing down and failing at times. Is the above configuration enough to handle a vB3 with 350+ people online (would adding RAM help?). What would be the best configuration for a forum this size.

Cheers,

[eva2000]

need info asked at http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70117 :)

[Jan Klerks]

My problem is that my server runs okay as long as there is less then 400 members online, After that, it can take up to 10 seconds or more before a page starts to load. Once it's loading, the screen builds fast. Here are my specs, thanks for taking a look at it.

1. is this on dedicated or shared virual server
Dedicated

2. your server specs
cpu speed/type single or dual cpus): Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz
how much memory installed: 1 gig
hard drive type/configuration: 40 gigs, don't know if it's scsi or not
linux distributor or windows version: linux, don't know the version
apache/IIS version: Apache version 1.3.29 (Unix)
PHP version: php 4.3.5
MySQL version: mysql 4.0.18-standard

3. if you use mysql 4.x instead of mysql 3.23.x, do you have any innodb type databases/tables on your server ?
Don't know

4. if possible how mysql was compiled/installed
Don't know this one either, sorry

5. your top stats
This is what it looks like with 500 people online

9:56am up 1 day, 7:46, 1 user, load average: 46.99, 38.83, 34.56
403 processes: 327 sleeping, 73 running, 2 zombie, 1 stopped
CPU states: 73.1% user, 26.8% system, 0.0% nice, 0.0% idle
Mem: 1027856K av, 1022780K used, 5076K free, 364K shrd, 24772K buff
Swap: 1020116K av, 384764K used, 635352K free 408056K cached

PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND
13 root 14 0 0 0 0 SW 1.6 0.0 16:13 kjournald
3525 root 15 0 1280 1280 832 R 1.2 0.1 0:01 top
3832 jklerks 17 0 7504 7504 2204 R 1.2 0.7 0:00 php
3842 jklerks 16 0 7552 7552 2208 R 1.2 0.7 0:00 php
3852 jklerks 16 0 7428 7428 2208 R 1.2 0.7 0:00 php
3854 jklerks 16 0 7816 7816 2212 R 1.2 0.7 0:00 php

6. your mysql configuration variables located at /etc/my.cnf
[mysqld]
set-variable = max_connections=600
set-variable = key_buffer=16M
set-variable = myisam_sort_buffer_size=64M
set-variable = join_buffer=1M
set-variable = record_buffer=1M
set-variable = sort_buffer=1M
set-variable = read_buffer=1M
set-variable = table_cache=1024
set-variable = thread_cache_size=64
set-variable = wait_timeout=1800
set-variable = connect_timeout=10
set-variable = max_allowed_packet=16M
set-variable = max_connect_errors=10

[safe_mysqld]
open_files_limit=8192

[mysqldump]
quick
set-variable = max_allowed_packet=16M

[myisamchk]
set-variable = key_buffer=64M
set-variable = sort_buffer=64M
set-variable = read_buffer=16M
set-variable = write_buffer=16M

7. [/i]your mysql extended-status output[/i]
The root command doesn't seem to work for me even when I am logged in as a root user and I can't find any mysqlinfo.php file in the vB3.0.1 folder. I tried an old vB version that had it but running that file gives me errors.

8. is your vB the only thing on the server? or other scripts & sites which utilise php and mysql?
Only a PhotoPost which is only being used by mods and admins

9. how many average and max concurrent users on your vB forum ? and what your cookie timeout is ?
Usually around 200-300 during easy hours, 400-500 during crowded hours

10. create a file named phpinfo.php and place this code in it and post the url/link to it from your web site
Click here (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/phpinfo.php)

11. if you run Apache and you have your own dedicated server or access to your httpd.conf (apache configuration file) can you post the values you have set for the following :

KeepAlive: on
MaxKeepAliveRequests: 100
KeepAliveTimeout: 15
MinSpareServers: 15
MaxSpareServers: 25
StartServers: 15
MaxClients: 250

12. what version of vB are you running ?
vB 3.0.0, go check it out at http://www.skyscrapercity.com

[Jan Klerks]

On the side, how inportant is extra ram? Is ram the main bottleneck for these?

Cheers,
- Jan

[eva2000]

ah ha 15 days later :D :)

Jan, your problem is three fold
1. for 300+ users close to default 900s cookie timeout, you need at least a dual cpu server + photopost is meant to be a bit of a hog.. maybe improved not sure?
2. along with more concurrent user activity you'd need more ram to service mysql and other shared services
3. 40GB hdd are IDE and not SCSI, so IDE also consumes more cpu resources to add further burden to the above 2 points

you forgot to mention the cookie timeout value set for that 500+ vB users .. but if it's default 900s cookie timeout than your server cpu and ram is severely underpowered.... I think i already mentioned this to you via email, tickets etc ??

For 500+ vB users on 900s cookie time out you're looking at splitting into 2 dedicated servers each with dual cpus. Of course if the cookie timeout is alot higher than the real number of concurrent users is less than 500 and the server requirements change

But you are looking at least for Dual P4 2.66ghz to 2.8ghz Xeon with 2GB ram and 2x scsi 10k hdds

for mysqlinfo try this script http://vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=3477 and post the url to the installed version on your server in this thread

[Jan Klerks]

That sounds about right. Thanks for giving me an advice on the specs. :)

[eva2000]

no probs :D

[Jan Klerks]

I told my host to get me one of these Dual Xeon things. Bring 'm on!

[Jan Klerks]

Alright, I got one. Up to 400 users online it's very fast, above that, it's still slows down. Thanks again for looking into this.

1. is this on dedicated or shared virual server
Dedicated, here is my host (http://www.blacksun.net).

2. your server specs
Dual Xeon P4 2.66ghz with 2GB ram
linux distributor or windows version: Linux Kernel version 2.4.7-10
apache/IIS version: 1.3.29 (Unix)
PHP version: php 4.3.5
MySQL version: mysql 4.0.18-standard

3. if you use mysql 4.x instead of mysql 3.23.x, do you have any innodb type databases/tables on your server ?
Don't know

4. if possible how mysql was compiled/installed
Don't know this one either, sorry

5. your top stats
8:07am up 1 day, 16:33, 1 user, load average: 29.92, 32.06, 24.56
315 processes: 284 sleeping, 26 running, 5 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 28.7% user, 17.7% system, 0.0% nice, 24.0% idle
Mem: 1027856K av, 884324K used, 143532K free, 364K shrd, 21716K buff
Swap: 1020116K av, 158888K used, 861228K free 333852K cached

PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND
9434 mysql 16 0 80124 54M 19272 R 3.7 5.4 0:20 mysqld
21404 jklerks 17 0 7784 7784 2212 R 3.6 0.7 0:00 php
21415 jklerks 17 0 7752 7752 2204 R 3.4 0.7 0:00 php
21397 root 16 0 1204 1200 828 R 3.3 0.1 0:00 top
21306 root 9 0 1708 1672 1340 S 2.8 0.1 0:00 sshd
21408 jklerks 20 0 6796 6796 2184 R 2.8 0.6 0:00 php

6. your mysql configuration variables located at /etc/my.cnf
[mysqld]
set-variable = max_connections=600
set-variable = key_buffer=16M
set-variable = myisam_sort_buffer_size=64M
set-variable = join_buffer=1M
set-variable = record_buffer=1M
set-variable = sort_buffer=1M
set-variable = read_buffer=1M
set-variable = table_cache=1024
set-variable = thread_cache_size=64
set-variable = wait_timeout=1800
set-variable = connect_timeout=10
set-variable = max_allowed_packet=16M
set-variable = max_connect_errors=10

[safe_mysqld]
open_files_limit=8192

[mysqldump]
quick
set-variable = max_allowed_packet=16M

[myisamchk]
set-variable = key_buffer=64M
set-variable = sort_buffer=64M
set-variable = read_buffer=16M
set-variable = write_buffer=16M

7. [/i]your mysql extended-status output[/i]


+--------------------------+------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+------------+
| Aborted_clients | 868 |
| Aborted_connects | 144 |
| Bytes_received | 1168508110 |
| Bytes_sent | 869808551 |
| Com_admin_commands | 0 |
| Com_alter_table | 0 |
| Com_analyze | 0 |
| Com_backup_table | 0 |
| Com_begin | 0 |
| Com_change_db | 440051 |
| Com_change_master | 0 |
| Com_check | 0 |
| Com_commit | 0 |
| Com_create_db | 0 |
| Com_create_function | 0 |
| Com_create_index | 0 |
| Com_create_table | 0 |
| Com_delete | 11973 |
| Com_delete_multi | 0 |
| Com_drop_db | 0 |
| Com_drop_function | 0 |
| Com_drop_index | 0 |
| Com_drop_table | 0 |
| Com_flush | 0 |
| Com_grant | 0 |
| Com_ha_close | 0 |
| Com_ha_open | 0 |
| Com_ha_read | 0 |
| Com_insert | 224269 |
| Com_insert_select | 3266 |
| Com_kill | 0 |
| Com_load | 0 |
| Com_load_master_data | 0 |
| Com_load_master_table | 0 |
| Com_lock_tables | 1383 |
| Com_optimize | 0 |
| Com_purge | 0 |
| Com_rename_table | 0 |
| Com_repair | 0 |
| Com_replace | 12809 |
| Com_replace_select | 0 |
| Com_reset | 0 |
| Com_restore_table | 0 |
| Com_revoke | 0 |
| Com_rollback | 0 |
| Com_savepoint | 0 |
| Com_select | 3148573 |
| Com_set_option | 0 |
| Com_show_binlog_events | 0 |
| Com_show_binlogs | 0 |
| Com_show_create | 0 |
| Com_show_databases | 1 |
| Com_show_fields | 0 |
| Com_show_grants | 0 |
| Com_show_keys | 0 |
| Com_show_logs | 0 |
| Com_show_master_status | 0 |
| Com_show_new_master | 0 |
| Com_show_open_tables | 0 |
| Com_show_processlist | 487 |
| Com_show_slave_hosts | 0 |
| Com_show_slave_status | 0 |
| Com_show_status | 1 |
| Com_show_innodb_status | 0 |
| Com_show_tables | 9 |
| Com_show_variables | 10 |
| Com_slave_start | 0 |
| Com_slave_stop | 0 |
| Com_truncate | 0 |
| Com_unlock_tables | 931 |
| Com_update | 451009 |
| Connections | 440878 |
| Created_tmp_disk_tables | 376 |
| Created_tmp_tables | 43687 |
| Created_tmp_files | 0 |
| Delayed_insert_threads | 0 |
| Delayed_writes | 0 |
| Delayed_errors | 0 |
| Flush_commands | 1 |
| Handler_commit | 0 |
| Handler_delete | 104234 |
| Handler_read_first | 378302 |
| Handler_read_key | 83577425 |
| Handler_read_next | 76318051 |
| Handler_read_prev | 2294526 |
| Handler_read_rnd | 36382876 |
| Handler_read_rnd_next | 199973732 |
| Handler_rollback | 0 |
| Handler_update | 1218628 |
| Handler_write | 6946923 |
| Key_blocks_used | 15586 |
| Key_read_requests | 205027592 |
| Key_reads | 484054 |
| Key_write_requests | 573153 |
| Key_writes | 505607 |
| Max_used_connections | 262 |
| Not_flushed_key_blocks | 0 |
| Not_flushed_delayed_rows | 0 |
| Open_tables | 1024 |
| Open_files | 1112 |
| Open_streams | 0 |
| Opened_tables | 2488 |
| Questions | 4734687 |
| Qcache_queries_in_cache | 0 |
| Qcache_inserts | 0 |
| Qcache_hits | 0 |
| Qcache_lowmem_prunes | 0 |
| Qcache_not_cached | 0 |
| Qcache_free_memory | 0 |
| Qcache_free_blocks | 0 |
| Qcache_total_blocks | 0 |
| Rpl_status | NULL |
| Select_full_join | 201 |
| Select_full_range_join | 153 |
| Select_range | 1044210 |
| Select_range_check | 0 |
| Select_scan | 437233 |
| Slave_open_temp_tables | 0 |
| Slave_running | OFF |
| Slow_launch_threads | 65 |
| Slow_queries | 1978 |
| Sort_merge_passes | 0 |
| Sort_range | 431156 |
| Sort_rows | 38679542 |
| Sort_scan | 113872 |
| Table_locks_immediate | 5828310 |
| Table_locks_waited | 14392 |
| Threads_cached | 46 |
| Threads_created | 747 |
| Threads_connected | 20 |
| Threads_running | 1 |
| Uptime | 146187 |
+--------------------------+------------+
root@laxded024 [/etc]# mysqladmin extended-status
+--------------------------+------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+------------+
| Aborted_clients | 868 |
| Aborted_connects | 144 |
| Bytes_received | 1168748687 |
| Bytes_sent | 902582464 |
| Com_admin_commands | 0 |
| Com_alter_table | 0 |
| Com_analyze | 0 |
| Com_backup_table | 0 |
| Com_begin | 0 |
| Com_change_db | 440149 |
| Com_change_master | 0 |
| Com_check | 0 |
| Com_commit | 0 |
| Com_create_db | 0 |
| Com_create_function | 0 |
| Com_create_index | 0 |
| Com_create_table | 0 |
| Com_delete | 11979 |
| Com_delete_multi | 0 |
| Com_drop_db | 0 |
| Com_drop_function | 0 |
| Com_drop_index | 0 |
| Com_drop_table | 0 |
| Com_flush | 0 |
| Com_grant | 0 |
| Com_ha_close | 0 |
| Com_ha_open | 0 |
| Com_ha_read | 0 |
| Com_insert | 224296 |
| Com_insert_select | 3269 |
| Com_kill | 0 |
| Com_load | 0 |
| Com_load_master_data | 0 |
| Com_load_master_table | 0 |
| Com_lock_tables | 1383 |
| Com_optimize | 0 |
| Com_purge | 0 |
| Com_rename_table | 0 |
| Com_repair | 0 |
| Com_replace | 12815 |
| Com_replace_select | 0 |
| Com_reset | 0 |
| Com_restore_table | 0 |
| Com_revoke | 0 |
| Com_rollback | 0 |
| Com_savepoint | 0 |
| Com_select | 3149197 |
| Com_set_option | 0 |
| Com_show_binlog_events | 0 |
| Com_show_binlogs | 0 |
| Com_show_create | 0 |
| Com_show_databases | 1 |
| Com_show_fields | 0 |
| Com_show_grants | 0 |
| Com_show_keys | 0 |
| Com_show_logs | 0 |
| Com_show_master_status | 0 |
| Com_show_new_master | 0 |
| Com_show_open_tables | 0 |
| Com_show_processlist | 487 |
| Com_show_slave_hosts | 0 |
| Com_show_slave_status | 0 |
| Com_show_status | 2 |
| Com_show_innodb_status | 0 |
| Com_show_tables | 9 |
| Com_show_variables | 10 |
| Com_slave_start | 0 |
| Com_slave_stop | 0 |
| Com_truncate | 0 |
| Com_unlock_tables | 931 |
| Com_update | 451077 |
| Connections | 440977 |
| Created_tmp_disk_tables | 376 |
| Created_tmp_tables | 43694 |
| Created_tmp_files | 0 |
| Delayed_insert_threads | 0 |
| Delayed_writes | 0 |
| Delayed_errors | 0 |
| Flush_commands | 1 |
| Handler_commit | 0 |
| Handler_delete | 104324 |
| Handler_read_first | 378375 |
| Handler_read_key | 83589710 |
| Handler_read_next | 76324834 |
| Handler_read_prev | 2294962 |
| Handler_read_rnd | 36386941 |
| Handler_read_rnd_next | 199993812 |
| Handler_rollback | 0 |
| Handler_update | 1218696 |
| Handler_write | 6947651 |
| Key_blocks_used | 15586 |
| Key_read_requests | 205059387 |
| Key_reads | 484262 |
| Key_write_requests | 573589 |
| Key_writes | 505957 |
| Max_used_connections | 262 |
| Not_flushed_key_blocks | 0 |
| Not_flushed_delayed_rows | 0 |
| Open_tables | 1024 |
| Open_files | 1112 |
| Open_streams | 0 |
| Opened_tables | 2488 |
| Questions | 4735600 |
| Qcache_queries_in_cache | 0 |
| Qcache_inserts | 0 |
| Qcache_hits | 0 |
| Qcache_lowmem_prunes | 0 |
| Qcache_not_cached | 0 |
| Qcache_free_memory | 0 |
| Qcache_free_blocks | 0 |
| Qcache_total_blocks | 0 |
| Rpl_status | NULL |
| Select_full_join | 201 |
| Select_full_range_join | 153 |
| Select_range | 1044434 |
| Select_range_check | 0 |
| Select_scan | 437311 |
| Slave_open_temp_tables | 0 |
| Slave_running | OFF |
| Slow_launch_threads | 65 |
| Slow_queries | 1978 |
| Sort_merge_passes | 0 |
| Sort_range | 431223 |
| Sort_rows | 38683831 |
| Sort_scan | 113888 |
| Table_locks_immediate | 5829416 |
| Table_locks_waited | 14395 |
| Threads_cached | 27 |
| Threads_created | 747 |
| Threads_connected | 39 |
| Threads_running | 2 |
| Uptime | 146205 |
+--------------------------+------------+


8. is your vB the only thing on the server? or other scripts & sites which utilise php and mysql?
Only a PhotoPost which is only being used by mods and admins

9. how many average and max concurrent users on your vB forum ? and what your cookie timeout is ?
Usually around 200-300 during easy hours, 400-500 during crowded hours. Cookie timeout is 15 minutes.

10. create a file named phpinfo.php and place this code in it and post the url/link to it from your web site
Click here (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/phpinfo.php)

11. if you run Apache and you have your own dedicated server or access to your httpd.conf (apache configuration file) can you post the values you have set for the following :

KeepAlive: on
MaxKeepAliveRequests: 100
KeepAliveTimeout: 15
MinSpareServers: 15
MaxSpareServers: 25
StartServers: 15
MaxClients: 250

12. what version of vB are you running ?
vB 3.0.0, go check it out at http://www.skyscrapercity.com

[Scott MacVicar]

Your top stats dont match the system you say you have.

There is 1cpu and 1GB of RAM. Are you sure you fetched this from the correct server?

[Jan Klerks]

Yep, you're right. Looks like something didn't go as ordered. I'll be back, cheers.