My recent experience with server load

[Zzed]

First of all I would like to thank eva2000 for all the wonderful write ups and the Mysql extended status script. :) I also would like to thank the numerous people who contributed to all the discussions. :)

We have about 28000 members on our site (http://www.ls1.com). During peak hours we have about 500+ users and guests online. We are running Redhat on a dual CPU PC with 512 megs of RAM. Recently we were experiencing a lot of load problems where our server load would shoot up to 18. :eek:

After a few days of struggling we managend to reduce the load down to 4-8 during peak hours. :cool:

Here are some of the things we have done:

- Incorporated FireFly's hack to disable search engine if the load goes past 10.
- Used eva2000's recommended MySql settings, but using only 200 for max connections.
- Disabled posting and downloading attachments.
- Turned off the users currently online in the admin control panel.
- Set the max server load to 15 in the admin control panel.
- Disabled the UBB IMG tag.

I know this may sound trivial. But we have a lot more idle CPU cycles and a lot more free memory.

[Zzed]

I would appreciate a feedback on this. :(

[masalaman]

Zzed, what do you have your "Simultaneous sessions limit" set to?. I have it set to 300. I think having zero will allow unlimited sessions increasing the server load further.

I disabled "Who's Online" for every one other than admin and moderators. It looks like this option adds to the server load but I don't have any benchmark results. Can anybody throw some light?.

[Zzed]

My simultaneous sessions are set to 0.

[nuno]

installing php accelerator would also help ;)

[Zzed]

Originally posted by nuno
installing php accelerator would also help ;) Where can I download that from?

[Freddie Bingham]

Upgrade that 512 megs of ram.

[eva2000]

Originally posted by Zzed
Where can I download that from?

download from: http://www.php-accelerator.co.uk/
guide to installing: http://i4net.tv/marticle/get.php?action=getarticle&articleid=26

[Hooper]

I second the Ram update. It wouldn't hurt to go 1.5 to 2 gigs of ram at their current prices. 512M is not enough.

[eva2000]

Originally posted by Hooper
I second the Ram update. It wouldn't hurt to go 1.5 to 2 gigs of ram at their current prices. 512M is not enough. in Australia ram prices have increased 100 - 150% :(

[ubbuser]

Why is this affecting load?

Disabled the UBB IMG tag.


:confused:

[Zzed]

This is not as much affecting the server load as it is for the pages to load, especially for the dialup users.

We are being affected by the server load and the speed at which out forum display pages are loading. :(