Server Loads with 2.0 Beta 1

[WreckRman2]

On my server I am experiencing very high server loads which is beileved to be caused by vB 2.0. If I disable the site with vB. My stats look like:

  7:13pm  up 20 min,  1 user,  load average: 1.39, 1.23, 1.03
92 processes: 88 sleeping, 4 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 28.7% user, 13.5% system,  0.5% nice, 57.0% idle
Mem:  128040K av,  97240K used,  30800K free, 101364K shrd,   3812K buff
Swap: 131536K av,   7108K used, 124428K free                 56872K cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT  LIB %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
 6002 root       0   0  5044 3700  2296 S       0  6.4  2.8   0:00 httpd
 6428 SITE1      2   0  1056 1056   812 S       0  2.5  0.8   0:00 in.proftpd
 6432 httpd      0   0  6132 4044  3388 S       0  1.5  3.1   0:00 httpd
 3022 root       1   0  1056 1056   836 R       0  1.3  0.8   0:12 top
 6400 SITE1      0   0  1032 1032   792 S       0  0.9  0.8   0:00 in.proftpd
 6427 SITE1      0   0  1036 1036   796 S       0  0.9  0.8   0:00 in.proftpd
 6430 httpd      0   0  5812 3724  3276 S       0  0.7  2.9   0:00 httpd
 6419 SITE1      0   0  1052 1052   812 S       0  0.5  0.8   0:00 in.proftpd
 6425 httpd      0   0  5784 3696  3268 S       0  0.5  2.8   0:00 httpd
 6459 httpd     13   0  5824 3736  3280 S       0  0.5  2.9   0:00 httpd
 6390 httpd      1   0  5968 3880  3312 R       0  0.3  3.0   0:00 httpd
 6456 httpd      7   0  5544 3456  3124 S       0  0.3  2.6   0:00 httpd
  936 root       0   0   860  860   684 R       0  0.1  0.6   0:00 in.telnetd
 2845 SITE1      1   0  1036 1036   796 S       0  0.1  0.8   0:00 in.proftpd
 4962 SITE1      1   0  1048 1048   800 S       0  0.1  0.8   0:00 in.proftpd
 6307 SITE1      0   0  1036 1036   796 S       0  0.1  0.8   0:00 in.proftpd
 6389 httpd      0   0  5540 3452  3132 S       0  0.1  2.6   0:00 httpd

When I enable the site the stats get worse in only a few minutes:

  7:24pm  up 31 min,  1 user,  load average: 6.26, 3.84, 2.44
150 processes: 138 sleeping, 11 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 72.9% user, 18.7% system,  8.3% nice,  0.0% idle
Mem:  128040K av, 125372K used,   2668K free, 230020K shrd,   3132K buff
Swap: 131536K av,   7148K used, 124388K free                 32928K cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT  LIB %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
 8814 httpd      6   0  6840 4760  3400 R       0 12.7  3.7   0:00 httpd
 9033 httpd     11   0  6820 4732  3324 R       0 10.0  3.6   0:00 httpd
 8938 httpd     10   0  7924 5836  3340 S       0  7.9  4.5   0:03 httpd
 9392 httpd      1   0  6760 4672  3328 S       0  6.9  3.6   0:00 httpd
 9028 mysql     12   5  3748 3616   748 R N     0  5.0  2.8   0:00 mysqld
 9449 admin     12   0  1800 1800   960 R       0  4.6  1.4   0:00 ads1.pl
 3022 root       1   0  1084 1084   836 R       0  2.9  0.8   0:29 top
 8166 httpd      0   0  7136 5048  3396 S       0  2.9  3.9   0:01 httpd
 9443 mysql     10   5  3748 3616   748 R N     0  2.3  2.8   0:00 mysqld
 9372 httpd      0   0  6004 3916  3392 S       0  1.9  3.0   0:00 httpd
 8949 httpd      0   0  7156 5076  3384 S       0  1.7  3.9   0:01 httpd
 9338 SITE1      1   0  1036 1036   796 S       0  1.7  0.8   0:00 in.proftpd
 9391 httpd      1   0  6088 4000  3400 S       0  1.7  3.1   0:00 httpd
 8256 httpd      0   0  6944 4884  3388 S       0  1.1  3.8   0:01 httpd
 9358 httpd      0   0  6060 3972  3388 S       0  1.1  3.1   0:00 httpd
 9393 httpd      0   0  6096 4016  3384 S       0  1.1  3.1   0:00 httpd
 9199 httpd      1   0  6840 4752  3396 S       0  0.9  3.7   0:00 httpd

The server shouldn't be this loaded because the average users online is about 15-20 at a time. Any help would be great...

[Flare945]

wow, thats real odd

my site has 40-60 people online all the time, and look at this:

  4:53pm  up 18 days,  3:01, 15 users,  load average: 0.18, 0.27, 0.37
252 processes: 251 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  0.3% user,  5.5% system,  0.0% nice, 94.1% idle
Mem:   256480K av,  198584K used,   57896K free,  231204K shrd,   23348K buff
Swap:  749944K av,   12388K used,  737556K free                   57360K cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT  LIB %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
13914 theisola  12   0   996  996   668 R       0  5.3  0.3   0:01 top
  487 root       3   0   320  304   220 S       0  0.5  0.1 365:51 syslogd
13238 apache     1   0  4760 4736  3160 S       0  0.1  1.8   0:01 httpsd
    1 root       0   0   120   68    48 S       0  0.0  0.0   2:33 init
    2 root       0   0     0    0     0 SW      0  0.0  0.0  73:58 kflushd
    3 root       0   0     0    0     0 SW      0  0.0  0.0  24:52 kupdate
    4 root       0   0     0    0     0 SW      0  0.0  0.0   0:00 kpiod
    5 root       0   0     0    0     0 SW      0  0.0  0.0  81:26 kswapd
    6 root     -20 -20     0    0     0 SW<     0  0.0  0.0   0:00 mdrecoveryd
  163 root       0   0   124   96    52 S       0  0.0  0.0   3:53 svscan
  175 root       0   0   100   60    52 S       0  0.0  0.0   0:02 supervise
  176 root       0   0   100   60    52 S       0  0.0  0.0   0:02 supervise
  177 root       0   0   100   60    52 S       0  0.0  0.0   0:03 supervise
  178 root       0   0   100   60    52 S       0  0.0  0.0   0:02 supervise
  179 root       0   0   100   60    52 S       0  0.0  0.0   0:02 supervise
  180 root       0   0   100   60    52 S       0  0.0  0.0   0:02 supervise
  181 root       0   0   100   60    52 S       0  0.0  0.0   0:01 supervise
  182 root       0   0   100   60    52 S       0  0.0  0.0   0:01 supervise

we are on beta2, maybe you should upgrade?

[George L]

both of you should post your server specs, cpu, ram etc as it all depends on what kind server you're on and what other sites you have on it besides vB

i.e. my load is below 0.18 at times and i have up to 100 - 140 users on - but i am on a dual p3 866, 512mb

[klisis]

And age of the server affects a little also.

[WreckRman2]

RaQ3 with 128 meg ram, 6 other sites but all very small... Going to do beta 2 upgrade now and see if that helps...

[JamesUS]

The load seems a little high even without vB - it shouldn't really ever get above 1 (unless it is dual-CPU). What other stuff do you have running?

[mel]

Sorry these are newbie questions, but how do you invoke that stat? what do all those parameters mean? where can I learn more about these?

Thanks.

[Dave#]

Originally posted by mel
Sorry these are newbie questions, but how do you invoke that stat? what do all those parameters mean? where can I learn more about these?

Thanks.

Shell Monitoring commands (some require additional packages)

top Load average monitoring
uptime Uptime and load averages
free free memory
ps -elf|more show all processes pass to more
ps -el|grep httpd show all apache processes
ps -el|grep mysqld show all mysql processes
mysqladmin -u user -p status mysql status
/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd status apache status

[Flare945]

load average: 0.26, 0.45, 0.51


do u add those numbers together? what do they mean

[WreckRman2]

Well even after the upgrade to beta 2 my server emailed me the following later that day...

Over the past fifteen minutes, the CPU has been heavily loaded.

1 minute load average: 86.18
5 minute load average: 85.47
15 minute load average: 56.19

With the testing I have done, if I shut down the site running vb the load times drop almost instantly. I don't recall this problem with version 1.15. Is there a way to go back?

[Wayne Luke]

If you are running Beta 1, upgrade to Beta 2 immediately.

To get loads that high there has to be a configuration problem. Ours typically run less than .5 with more numbers on them.

On that RAQ3 machine with 128 megs of Ram. You need to add more RAM. 384 Megs at least. I don't know much about RAQs but if they use standard DIMM's you can probably fron 384 Megs of PC-133 RAM for around $100 US. You can get PC-150 RAM for about $150 US.

What do your MySQL processes look like? Check to see if you have any locked queries as these will hold things up and cause the load to increase. Go into PHPMyAdmin if you have it installed and click on "Show Processes" on the home page. Show the screenshots here.

[Swamper]

I have the same problem...

I also have a Raq3 with 128 megs ram and since upgrading to 2.0 beta 2 I get sporadic load spikes a couple of times a day...

I've tried tinkering with my mysql settings but I dunno what else to do... I'd get more ram but my ISP likes to rip you off on memory upgrades so I'm holding back on that...

Let me know if you find a way to eliminate those spikes...

[Sharg]

128 megs of ram is really little.
I guess your server is over swapping, and thus, slowdown your entire machine.

[Swamper]

Originally posted by Sharg
128 megs of ram is really little.
I guess your server is over swapping, and thus, slowdown your entire machine.

Well my site has a lot of virtual includes of the output of certain cgis... At any one time there are 80-100 people on the page with no problem -- it's only been since the upgrade from vb 1.1.4 to vb 2.0 beta 2 that I've had these issues...

As soon as the 128 ram is used up the swap partition gets used quickly and my error log is filled with entries of not being able to process the cgis and of course this just gets worse and worse unless I take down http for a minute and restart it....

[Sharg]

I'm sorry, but 80-100 people with 128 megs of ram is insane .

Apache process + mysql process will take way more than 128 megs of ram with 100 people online.