DreamHost has been a good host for faithfreedom.org for three months already, and I was under the impression that even their shared hosting could accommodate large websites like faithfreedom.org (FFI).

Now DreamHosts complains about FFI's CPU usage and has moved the website to an evaluation server.

I wonder if there has been a change in DH's policy. When we signed up with them, they thought they could allow us to consume around 60 GB of bandwidth generated by a CMS and phpBB forums. Now only 20 GB's of phpBB traffic and 25 GB of static files seem to have DH in pains.

Or maybe I'm missing something.

Our forums seem to take 60-120 CPU minutes per day. According to DH's CPU usage analysis, we use about 16 percent of the server's total capacity. The DH policy states customers on shared hosting shouldn't use more than 30-40 CPU mins per day.

The averages for forum page views and transfered MB's per day are maybe around 35,000 and 600. There are generally 25-30 users online at the same time.

Is there a shared hosting provider that could accommodate the forums plus the HTML site? How much should I expect to pay per month? The overall bandwidth is 40-50 GB.

Im not understanding what you are missing? Even though you are not maxing out your data transfer, you are using lots of CPU. Its not the 20+25 gigs you are pushing, its the 15-20% cpu usage. your site alone is using ~1/5 of the servers CPU. Usually shared hosts can host a couple hundred sites on a single machine, at the rate you are going they could host about 5 sites as resource intensive as yours. See the problem now? What you probably want to do is start looking a notch up, VPS kind of thing or something if you dont want to do dedicated.

nadtz is correct.

I hold web servers to at the max 200 sites, and that's with mostly dual Xeons.

a LOT of companies don't use that much of a server for general hosting. it's not uncommon to see a host use a 2.8 or 3 ghz single CPU server. i mean they're HT anyway, and do great for hosting websites.

using 20% of that would be a pretty big problem to me. especially based on what my average sites use.

However. I don't think it sounds like DH was lying or not coming through with their promise. They thought they could take it based on an estimation. Lots of times that just doesn't work out that way.

You say phpbb. but that could vary from a page with 15 queries to a page with 120 queries. Depending on hacks. So even that isn't a set number that can be calculated.

Its perfectly reasonable for a host not to allow you to use up more than 15 - 20% of the server's CPU. The more CPU you use (even if its only for 1 hour a day), the less other customers they can fit on that server.

--Tina

Originally posted by Jaska
Is there a shared hosting provider that could accommodate the forums plus the HTML site? How much should I expect to pay per month? The overall bandwidth is 40-50 GB.

You should consider getting a VPS account.
ServInt is a good choice. It is fully managed so it's like a big shared account. You will be paying around $50/month.

Thank you for your replies, nadtz and e-places! Your thoughts on this were very sound.

nadtz,


Im not understanding what you are missing? Even though you are not maxing out your data transfer, you are using lots of CPU.
True. What I meant was that I wonder why we burden the poor CPU so much. Is it normal for a phpBB board with 20 GB's of monthly traffic (GZIP'ed) to consume so much processing power? If it is, why didn't DreamHost's sales person realize this? And why could our previous shared hosting environment handle the site three months ago? Granted, the forums are somewhat busier now but not a great deal.

I have to wonder if there are inefficiencies in the half a dozen mods the main forum uses or the myriad of mods installed in the Indonesian forum. I think that's unlikely. I have authored some of the mods myself ;) The main forum is now running on a fresh installation of the original phpBB. GZIP has been disabled on the forums in which it matters. And still I see nine percent of the whole CPU having being used yesterday. That's down from the previous figures, though. It'll be interesting to see today's CPU stats.

e-places,

However. I don't think it sounds like DH was lying or not coming through with their promise. They thought they could take it based on an estimation. Lots of times that just doesn't work out that way.
I guess so. DreamHost actually promises 120 gigs for about 8 dollars per month. I wish hosting companies would be clearer as to what the transfer limits mean in practice.

Suppose I had two sites, one comprised of static files and one of a standard, GZIP-enabled, conversation-oriented phpBB forum. Let's say the former site transfered 120 gigs per month. How much could the dynamic site push through if its CPU usage had to be on par with the static site? Twenty gigs?

By far, the biggest reason for accounts on our servers being moved for taking up too much CPU is modified or compromised versions of phpBB. Our admin actually wants to ban phpBB completely - but because its so popular, I tell him he just has to deal with it. ;)

--Tina

Originally posted by AH-Tina
[B]By far, the biggest reason for accounts on our servers being moved for taking up too much CPU is modified or compromised versions of phpBB.
That's interesting, Tina. Thanks for sharing.

I have been careful to not use many additional queries. I guess there could be programming errors, but I doubt it.

blue27,

I think you're right in that we would need a VPS, especially in the long run.

Jaska, you should probably have a phpBB guru have a look at your configuration as well.
It sounds like it is using a lot of resources for the size of your forum. Even if it is phpBB.

Why not try some other forum scripts like vBulletin or Invision?

They should work better than phpBB.

I do agree that the programming of vBulletin is much better than other boards. But, this will only increase the cost for Jaska. I would recommend a VPS solution such as www.powervps.com or www.servint.net. You can install your own modules and tweaks to get the best performance out of your VPS. You can also disable things such as mailman and spamd to free up some ram on the VPS. A well optimized VPS will work great for your site.

Cheers

Originally posted by blue27
It sounds like it is using a lot of resources for the size of your forum. Even if it is phpBB.

Most phpBB problems stem from the use of MODs. We've got a few very heavy forums and those that use MODs have almost always created CPU issues, once those MODs have been removed, CPU usage drops back to normal.

best to run a vanilla phpBB board if it's large.

Let me echo the fact that the host is not being unreasonable in requiring that sites on their shared servers not have excessive CPU usage. You ask how they can offer so much transfer and not let you use it. Well, a busy static site could easily use the allotted transfer but not be excessive in its use of CPU.

If we had a client using as much CPU as you are, we would point them towards a VPS solution or discontinue the account if they were unwilling to do that.

I do agree that the programming of vBulletin is much better than other boards. But, this will only increase the cost for Jaska. I would recommend a VPS solution such as www.powervps.com or www.servint.net. The OP apparently pays some $8 per month now. A VPS would still be a relatively huge increase in price.

Let's see if the changes he made to his site bring him the results he was after. Like Blue said, the forum seemed to be using a bit of a disproportioned amount of resources.

Originally posted by ldcdc
The OP apparently pays some $8 per month now. A VPS would still be a relatively huge increase in price.

Let's see if the changes he made to his site bring him the results he was after. Like Blue said, the forum seemed to be using a bit of a disproportioned amount of resources.
If costs are an issue why not try adding some advertisements to your site such as www.google.com's Ad Sense. It works great for my personal sites.

Cheers

I have the same gzip problem with Dreamhost.com

Gzip uses 99.9% of CPU, which I'm sure is frowned upon. I keep getting kicked off their dang server.

Any ideas around this?

I think DH frowns upon compression. gzip or bzip2 eat up 99.9% of CPU. and then i get kicked.

... Or maybe I'm missing something.

With assertions like this one on your website ((faithfreedom.org/testimonials.htm)): «Leaving the Quran for the Moron.»... I can understand the «heat» that your website generates and the CPU's overheating and overloading... Pathetic!

don't use GZIP. ;)

I have to wonder if there are inefficiencies in the half a dozen mods the main forum uses or the myriad of mods installed in the Indonesian forum. I think that's unlikely.I think that's not only likely, but probable. phpBB is an inefficient, insecure piece of crap in its unmodified state. I can only imagine what its like after you bog it down with modifications.

try turning all of the compression off, you may use more bandwidth but less CPU cycles

Many companies dangle hundreds of gigs of bandwidth and space knowing that the average webmaster hardly uses any space and bandwidth.

If the op can afford it, I would personally recomment vBulletin. Its been around forever and is currently used on healthboards.com which hosts 120 some boards. I don't know how many members or hits it gets, but I know its a very high number, and it runs smoothly. Of coarse, they are running dedicated hardware I'm sure, but nonetheless, vBulletin is always preferred imho to any of the free ones if you need security and speed, not to mention ease of use.

If the op can't afford it, put Google adSense on your site... I'm sure you will earn enough to buy vB in short order with the kind of traffic you get... prbably enough to pay for hosting and some extra too.

Just my 2c.

Well if you are using that much CPU resources then you can expect that to happen, maybe you should consider moving to a VPS.

It's been 10 months, I'm sure he figured something out.

It's been 10 months, I'm sure he figured something out.That's a good point! Closing thread.