Hello,

I would like to know, what is a good server load to start thinking of an extra server? How do I know which processes are killing most of my system?

I can see a lot of processes floating by when using "top" , but generally I only see a lot httpd processes of about 1.00% CPU usage and below and mysqld processes of about 5% - 10% CPU usage...

My current server load is an average of about 0.75, with peaks to 1.50 ... should I be thinking of an extra server? Maybe an extra database server is an idea?

Please give me suggestions...

Thanks in advance,

Leon Mergen

That depends. We are running double P3 servers (loads of RAM :) ) with a load of 3-4 at peak times and you won't notice a slowdown :D :cool:

RAM is a deciding factor. Pump the machine full of RAM and the loads can get up high without any slowdowns.

How many CPUs and RAM do you have?

1 AMD Duron(tm) Processor 1GHz with 512MB Ram...

But how is the uptime calculated is what I'm wondering, and what does it say?

uptime is just how long your machine has been up without rebooting.

D'oh, I mean load average ;)

adding a separate server strictly for db may not be the best idea.

I was working on a PHP+mysql web application, and found that it was actually quicker to put the web server and mysql on the same machine instead of 2. The machines were pentium II class. It was drastically faster on the same machine than on two, simply because php applications make many quick connections to mysql and for that it is quicker to use unix domain sockets instead of the TCP/IP stack.

something to consider

last pid: 15159; load averages: 40.96, 47.95, 55.97 up 1+07:57:50 23:56:14
1806 processes:5 running, 1801 sleeping
CPU states: 3.1% user, 0.0% nice, 26.1% system, 4.4% interrupt, 66.5% idle
Mem: 1375M Active, 179M Inact, 384M Wired, 70M Cache, 214M Buf, 3008K Free
Swap: 2048M Total, 96M Used, 1952M Free, 4% Inuse, 28K In

My loads pretty high but things load pretty fast. Only limit is plesk with only 2022 maxclients =/

Yes, but looking at your load, I see your CPU is pretty inactive...

Therefor, I would like to know, what does the load average tell you? Does it tell you how much ram is in use? Or how many CPU usage?

Hi!
I do not think you have to worry about the load right now. It is perfectly normal.. :)
You may consider running only the required processes. This would make it slightly better than the present state. A simple example I see many internet servers with lpd running...
All unwanted daemons must be stopped...

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

Heh, yeah, I've closed all processes I don't use...

Bind for example, and indeed, lpd is closed...

But now I still don't really have an answer... what does server load *REALLY* tell you? Is there any source of how the server load is calculated? If the server load is on, say, 10.00 on a 1GHz AMD with 512MB ram, is that a bad thing?

Problem is, I currently see an increase of about 25% / month on my website, and I want to have a server BEFORE it actually gets a too high load.

What load do you guys recommend to start worrying at for a server with the above specified specs?

Thanks in advance...

Originally posted by sloop
I was working on a PHP+mysql web application, and found that it was actually quicker to put the web server and mysql on the same machine instead of 2.

I know, because of unix sockets... however, how much were they able to HANDLE?

The connections don't matter that much I think, when you use persistent connections... however, it *DOES* matter if you are having 2 servers, and really need both servers to use the same database...

I think you would just need to have a central database server for that.

Originally posted by bobcares
Hi!
I do not think you have to worry about the load right now. It is perfectly normal.. :)
You may consider running only the required processes. This would make it slightly better than the present state. A simple example I see many internet servers with lpd running...
All unwanted daemons must be stopped...

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

Nice to see you pop in here one in a while =) Do you think you can break the maxclients of 2022 in plesk without messing it up?

My current server load is an average of about 0.75, with peaks to 1.50 ... should I be thinking of an extra server?


Wait until it gets arround 5-10% to get worried. Just add more ram and you should be good without having to get a new box.

Originally posted by phpjames



Wait until it gets arround 5-10% to get worried. Just add more ram and you should be good without having to get a new box.

With 5 - 10% , you mean a server load of 5.00 - 10.00 ?

Ah, I just figured out, a server load actually means the amount of time slices (identified by a processor) a process takes to be proceeded...

So if your server load is below 1.00 , a process always generally gets executed immediately, while a high server load is bad (especially since a lot of Linux' background processes have a low priority and never get a chance of being processed) ...

My understanding is that load average is a measure of how many processes are waiting for resources. Resources include RAM, CPU cycles, and disk I/O. Bottlenecks in any of the above will cause load to rise.

Example, our Apache boxes read PHP/HTML files over NFS to our fileserver. If our fileserver hiccups, the dozens of HTTP requests we receive per second all have to wait for resources, and load quickly skyrockets (though the command line is still snappy).

Our sysadmin says that the state of perfection would be to have all your boxes running at 0.99 load -- nothing ever has to wait for resources, and you're using all available horsepower without any performance hit.

(Of course this is unrealistic, since activity changes throughout the day, etc)

hehe, well, that *CAN* be done with load balancers ;)

Anyway, what we were saying was about the same...