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  1. #1

    Question Server is struggling; please advise!

    Hi everyone ... here is my situation:

    My server (a RAQ4 upgraded to 512MB ram hosted with 4webspace) has been struggling the last couple days. Sometimes it's fine, other times the cpu usage and memory usage are in the "Severe Problem" area on my control panel, and the CPU load is over 10. Here is what 4webspace tech support said about the problem:

    "You server does seem to be extremely busy. Just today, your dosgames site alone has receieved over 250000 hits. So far this month you have used 45.881 gigs of transfer. You may wish to upgrade the memory in the system if you want to continue with this volume."

    The site referenced there (dosgames.com) uses php but no mysql database. The only real change in volume lately is a new php/mysql based site I started about a week ago, it uses a database to store site content. This new site gets 3-5k page impressions per day. It's causing real problems because the sites often go down. Eventually the server corrects itself ... if I reboot, there is lots of memory free for the first while ... then it gradually reduces down to nothing. Right now:

    Code:
                 total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
    Mem:           504        297        207        196         17         94
    -/+ buffers/cache:        185        319
    Swap:          133          0        133
    Code:
      PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT  LIB %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
     1901 mysql     11   0  6708 6708  1472 S       0  7.8  1.2   0:11 mysqld
      477 httpd      5   0 14732  14M  6752 S       0  6.9  2.8   3:55 httpd
      461 httpd      5   0 12688  12M  6748 S       0  6.7  2.4   3:11 httpd
      475 httpd      4   0 14340  14M  6752 S       0  6.5  2.7   3:52 httpd
      487 httpd      2   0 13180  12M  6736 S       0  6.1  2.5   3:23 httpd
      417 httpd      9   0 12564  12M  6748 S       0  6.0  2.4   3:18 httpd
      415 httpd     16   0 14536  14M  6744 S       0  5.8  2.8   3:54 httpd
      416 httpd      9   0 10980  10M  7240 S       0  5.8  2.1   3:29 httpd
      458 httpd      4   0 12944  12M  6752 S       0  5.6  2.5   3:22 httpd
    18974 admin     10   0   924  924   676 R       0  3.5  0.1   0:01 top
     3804 mysql      2   0  6708 6708  1472 S       0  3.1  1.2   0:08 mysqld
      413 httpd      1   0 13548  13M  6752 S       0  0.7  2.6   3:34 httpd
     1247 mysql      1   0  6708 6708  1472 S       0  0.7  1.2   0:00 mysqld
      452 httpd      1   0 13844  13M  6768 S       0  0.3  2.6   3:24 httpd
      476 httpd      1   0 13356  13M  6756 S       0  0.3  2.5   3:33 httpd
      478 httpd      2   0 13596  13M  6760 S       0  0.3  2.6   3:33 httpd
      418 root       3   0  1304 1304   912 S       0  0.1  0.2   0:01 sendmail
      443 httpd      2   0 14240  13M  6760 S       0  0.1  2.7   3:36 httpd
    My questions are:

    - With this amount of traffic, does it seem reasonable that the server is just overworked and I need to buy something faster & with more RAM?

    - If not, are there settings I can change that could improve/fix these performance issues?

    Thank you so much for any replies ... I'm trying to decide what to do, I don't mind getting a new server (I'm thinking from servermatrix.com) but I don't want this same thing to start happening once I get the new server ... thanks again all!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    852
    You need to buy something faster, a raq4 isn't gonna handle anything near a quarter million hits a day

  3. #3
    Really? Damn ... any other opinions? Guess I'll have to bite the bullet and upgrade ... Think the SuperCeleron 1.7 w. 1gig RAM from servermatrix can handle it?

    Just for clarification ... 250,000 hits, afaik, must include every file loaded, imgs, etc. The site gets 40-50k pageviews per day.

  4. #4
    If possible, opt for at least a P4 2.4 or else you might be looking for a new server when traffic goes up again.

    The RaQ 4i is only equipped with an AMD 450Mhz CPU only.
    http://www.batchimage.com - Offering Batch Image Processing and TIFF/PDF Software Solutions

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    Kingston, Ontario
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    1,588
    Never get a Celeron CPU - get a P4 or Xeon based server if you're having lots of resource usage. With that many visitors you should be able to break even and make a profit for a dedicated box so no worries

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Lynnwood, WA
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    438
    And even with a much-upgraded processor, they're dead on about the RAM, too - 512MB with those numbers I wouldn't personally like even if every site was flat file HTML only, but you've already said some are PHP, and now a new one has a database. Get more RAM in the new system, as well.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
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    celeron with 1 gig of ram would work possibly
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  8. #8
    Wow thanks for the fast replies everyone! Okay one more question ... I'm now looking at the P4 2.4 ... since it doesn't cost that much more than the Celeron 1.7 ... and I notice there is an option to increase "Uplink Port Speed" to 100mbps for $10/month. I'm guessing its worth it, but thought I'd check first. Thanks all!

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Lynnwood, WA
    Posts
    438
    Sounds like you have some busy sites going on this box; and it is only $120/year.

    There's really only one reason I can think of to not upgrade, aside from the small savings, and that's the risk of going over your server's monthly bandwidth limit muuuuch faster should something weird happen than you would at 10mbps. A fully saturated 10mbps connection would still take like, what, 10+ days(?) to hit a 1000 GB/month cap. Giving you ample time to track down the reason why your site was saturating a connection it shouldn't be (this is of course assuming that your site doesn't usually use up a 10mbit line - if that's common, well, you should be getting 100). Whereas with 100mbps, it would take more like a day to hit 1000 GB -- go to a party, come home, find out some busy site was hitting you up for images or something and completely used up your monthly limit.

    So yes, there *are* somewhat legitamite reasons to not upgrade.. but they're not good enough to NOT upgrade if your site(s) DOES ever legitamitely need more throughput than a 10mbit line can provide. So do they?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
    Posts
    13,681
    Well if hes not hosting downloads then he should be alright
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  11. #11
    Being a common user of emmzee's, I can tell you that he hosts a few downloads, as well as a forum will ~700 members.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    Ann Arbor, MI
    Posts
    2,979
    Originally posted by emmzee
    ... and I notice there is an option to increase "Uplink Port Speed" to 100mbps for $10/month. I'm guessing its worth it, but thought I'd check first. Thanks all!
    If your current stats allow you to see the peak bandwidth you've used, I'd see if you were hitting 10mbps. Only upgrade if you were.
    -Mark Adams
    www.bitserve.com - Secure Michigan web hosting for your business.
    Only host still offering a full money back uptime guarantee and prorated refunds.
    Offering advanced server management and security incident response!

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
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    723
    You might need to upgrade to Celeron to handle that load or may try to optimize the current box (if it hasn't been yet) software to try decrease the load.

  14. #14
    Just thought I'd post to let everyone know what happened:

    The night before last I went poking around in my Cobalt Control Panel (just before I was going to order a new server!), and turned off the "ASP Administrative Server" and "Access By Domain Web Reports" in the Control Panel ...

    The server seems to be doing much, much better. I haven't seen any problems since then ... I haven't seen the load average get above 1 since I disabled those processes. It may be coincidence, I don't know, but it certainly seems like that ASP admin server was the one putting most/all of the weight on the RAQ. I rebooted after turning them off, but it wasn't just the reboot that helped, since I tried rebooting a few times before that and it didn't help.

    Thanks for all the suggestions everyone; I am going to hold off on getting a new server for now but at least I am prepared if I need one in the future!

  15. #15
    Glad to hear.
    http://www.batchimage.com - Offering Batch Image Processing and TIFF/PDF Software Solutions

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
    Location
    Ohio
    Posts
    3,155
    I believe that disabling Access By Domain Web Reports, will help with both load and network traffic. According to the RaQ Manual, it states that having Access By Domain Web Reports enabled could affect server performance.

    Anyways, glad you got it working, I'm still getting mine back together.
    Don't like what I say? Ignore me.

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