Server optimization required? VB killing server?

[Areku]

HI there,

I'm getting mad...

Vbulletin seems to be working fine. Right now I'm running 2.3.0 and its a bit hacked but they're quite "standard" hacks, like quick reply, pm popup box, vbarcade and member photo.

Server is a dedicated dual Xeon with 1Gb Ram. Im running MySQL v3.23.58
& PHP v4.3.3

I can't upgrade to Mysql 4.x as I work with Ensim cpanel...

I've seen traffic of an average of 500 simultanous users and microstats keep displaying a server load average of 0.85...

However, sometimes, all of a sudden, something makes it go mad and server reaches loads of 170.x and up, bringing apache and mysql down...

HOW can I identify the problem? First I thought it was vbportal, but i replaced it with vbhome lite and problem persists...

I've seen VB working with PRO ARCADE enabled with 500 users online and server load be 0.85, so I DON'T THINK it's VB itself, but some sort of loop (as adviced by the server administration dept.) that it's causing the server overload (once it starts going up, load won't stop until apache and mysql go down).

Problem is mainly identifying the source of the loop...

Help PLEASE!

Update 1: I've removed the download.php script (antileech protecion, outside vb) from the two sites that were using it. Problem persists.

Update 2: I've disabled the VBPRO ARCADE hack. Problem persists.

Update 3: I've disabled the other site sharing the server... load is still high...

Update 4: whatever it is, it has to do with heavy traffic...

[Scott MacVicar]

Can you try the slow query log in mysql to see if its caused by locked tables.

[Areku]

Pardon?

[eva2000]

Areku, problems

1. maxclients in httpd.conf for apache is set too high at 500 reduce it to 180 and restart apache - this setting isn't directly related to how many vb users you can serve so shouldn't need to be that high as you are letting too many visitors onto your server simultaneously and mysql is on default values which can't cope with all those users and is also causing server to swap to disk as well as higher cpu loads

2. create or edit your /etc/my.cnf and place in it the following and then save the my.cnf file and restart mysql


[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=2M
set-variable = sort_buffer=2M
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

[Areku]

Thanks 4 ur help...