Server stats

[J.R. Rogers]

Attached are the stats for my server for the last 24 hours, and I'm having a bit of trouble understanding them. First of all, my forum runs on a dedicated server with the following specs:Celeron 2.0GHz 128MB RAM
40GB 7200RPM hard drive
CPU usage looks relatively low... I think. What does user, system, niced, and idle mean?


How should the 'load' section be read? is 0.40 low? If max is 1.02... I'm confused. What would be the highest number my system could hit?

Used memory looks high. Is this normal utilization? As I only have 128MB RAM and used max is going up to 152, does that mean my system is spending a lot of time swapping to the disk? Which numbers are important here? used, buffered, cached, or free?

Is my swap file size a concern? What about disk I/O? How should that chart be read?

Thanks in advance for any input you can provide.
JR

[Zachery]

You NEED more ram, No webserver should have less than 512, and 256 BARE mininum for a very unactive site.
You are swapping by quite abit, you should get more ram, and see if your host can upgrade to 2.6 kernel to fix IO Wait issues with the 2.4.2 kernels

[eva2000]

can you also provide info asked at http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70117

[J.R. Rogers]

No, I have a managed dedicated server so I can't really modify (or even look at) much of the configuration. I was really just wondering if someone could help me understand the stats provided. :confused:

JR

[Zachery]

If you are paying for a dedicated server you should have control over it.

[eva2000]

who's the web host ?

[J.R. Rogers]

who's the web host ?

Zachary, I pay more money for someone else to manage the server because I don't have the time.

JR

[J.R. Rogers]

Are these stats really proprietary? Can someone possibly direct me to a good resource so that I can better understand what I'm looking at? My hosting provider is hopeless when it comes to this stuff (but the server has been very reliable, at least).

BTW: I was able to make some server config changes. When I posted the first stats, I was trying out a new config using PHP as an Apache module instead of through CGI. This caused my board to run faster and CPU utilization to go down, but caused my RAM usage to skyrocket, as well as my swap space. It also caused MySQL or Apache (never sure which) to crash every 24 hours. So I disabled the PHP module and instead, enabled FastCGI. This seemed to give me improved performance (over CGI-only), though not quite as snappy as using PHP as an Apache module. CPU utilization went up, but RAM and swap space remains under control. See attached stats.

JR

[Zachery]

Yes these stats are nessary for us to help in tuning the server, also 1 and 1's dedicated line is horrid, the hardware you payfor is so outdated for any sort of webserver, worst of all they are using the low end of the hardware that they are using. Celerons and Septerons are lower prices processors that contain less cchae and do not work nearly as hard as their full prices counterparts.

I would very highly consider switching from 1 and 1 to almost ANY other company.

[eva2000]

1and1.com

Zachary, I pay more money for someone else to manage the server because I don't have the time.

JR
I'd tell your web host your server's mysql and apache configuration settings aren't optimally configured and it's causing your forums and sites to under perform. And that you need info asked at http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70117 even if they (web host) are the ones to do the info retrieval and alterations, in order for your server to be optimally configured.

If they can't come to a compromise, then I'd start looking for a new web host who offers managed services but still allows you to tweak such settings, or will do that on your behalf.

[J.R. Rogers]

If they can't come to a compromise, then I'd start looking for a new web host who offers managed services but still allows you to tweak such settings, or will do that on your behalf.

I asked them about it, but they said that they absolutely would NOT tweak any settings for me, other than the few that I am able to tweak for myself. Apparently, their managed servers all run a 'fixed build'. I completely understand what you're saying.... but even at peak load, my site performs relatively fast. Being the only site on the box really makes a difference, I guess. I don't get any complaints from my users. I need a managed server because I have zero time to administer my own box. If I went somewhere else and bought a managed server, I'd probably pay a lot more money for only marginally better performance. If traffic ever gets to a point on my server where it's getting bogged down, then I'll have to look into alternatives. That being said... do you know of any decent managed server offerings from other providers that I could look at to compare? Thanks.

Oh yeah... and if anyone wants to give me some pointers on understanding these stats instead of picking on my hosting provider, I'm still interested. :D ;)

JR