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  1. #1

    Rackspace issues. Me or Them?

    Hello all, I hope this is in the right forum. If not, please move it to the correct one.

    First, let me say that I used to really like the support that Rackspace gave. I have been with them for almost 4 years. It seems in the last 1 1/2 years, their support has just gone downhill.

    Here is my story. I run a pretty popular forum for my website niche. Almost 1 year ago today, we hit an all-time high of users online. Well, as the 1 year anniversary closed on that date, some members wanted to see if we could blow that number away. I said, why not. We had just upgraded the server OS to RH Ent 3.0 and put in a better HD. Sad to say, the server/forum could not handle more than 88 users. Yup. That is 88. I had load avgs of over 100 several times.

    Last year, we hit 99 users on the forum. The reason only 99 users was because we had a max connections of 100 for the server. We changed that a few weeks ago to handle over 200 connections.

    Since my server was crashing pretty hard today, I called RS support and got ahold of a tech. He looked at the server and the problems he detected ranged from the hard drives not being configured correctly(said my IDE backup only drive was thrashing like crazy while the main SCSI drive was not doing anything. Only prob is the IDE drive was empty. I mean, nothing on it.), to sendmail causing the server to crash to finally the forum software. I use VBulletin 3.0 RC4 on my forum. I basically told him thanks. Later on, I decided to just reboot my server and try to get the load down. The box came back and then crashed shortly thereafter. I called support back and spoke with another tech. This one was more knowledgable. We looked at various things. He blamed it on both the forum software and spamassasin. We killed spamassasin and the load was still very high. Finally, he said was that it was the forum software and the server did not have enough ram. Basically I was told to look at upgrading the ram from 512 to more and to hire someone to "optimize" the forum software.

    I guess my question for everyone is this, has anyone else noticed the support levels declining and the support people passing the blame where they can instead of looking for a solution? I just don't understand how they can blame the forum software when it is the widest used software on the net and is known for being optimized. Am I just over reacting or should I be concerned?

    Thoughts?
    Chris

    ps...the server is a 800mhz with 512ram and 20 gig scsi HD with 74% free.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Posts
    269
    Upgrade your server...look around for a more cost effective managed server provider. There are companies who are much better in terms of support etc than those "huge" companies who claim fully managed but have users left wanting for more.
    Maker of World's BEST Browser & Web site development software.
    Shared / Reseller / Dedicated *Managed* Web hosting on Linux / Windows with 99.5% Uptime Guarantee with SLA & 90 days moneyback guarantee.
    Contact -> AIM: str1997 | ICQ: 303026849

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Goleta, CA
    Posts
    5,566
    probly needed more ram and was digging into swap memory.
    Patron: I'd like my free lunch please.
    Cafe Manager: Free lunch? Did you read the fine print stating it was an April Fool's joke.
    Patron: I read the same way I listen, I ignore the parts I don't agree with. I'm suing you for false advertising.
    Cafe Owner: Is our lawyer still working pro bono?

  4. #4
    I thought about the ram issue, but why would the server crash under so few people? One would think it would have been able to handle 60+ people. Heck, before the upgrade, I had the same amount of ram and it handled up to the 99 users before the mysql limitation kicked in.

    Chris

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Goleta, CA
    Posts
    5,566
    hmm don't know what to tell you then.
    Patron: I'd like my free lunch please.
    Cafe Manager: Free lunch? Did you read the fine print stating it was an April Fool's joke.
    Patron: I read the same way I listen, I ignore the parts I don't agree with. I'm suing you for false advertising.
    Cafe Owner: Is our lawyer still working pro bono?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    n-Dimension
    Posts
    144
    Your server specs are enough to handle such user base. Seems like a problem somewhere else not related to vbulletin. The techs should have given more clues on the issue however.
    http://www.nirmani.net
    [Managed Linux servers, reseller plans & shared web hosting]

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Kuwait
    Posts
    10,620
    seems to be bad swap partition, whenever it hit the swap box crashes.

    the specs fine to handle 150 users, maybe you need /etc/my.cnf optimizaion, try searching here and vbulletin forums for mysql optimizaion and see.

    other advice get a better box which handle 100s online with no probs
    Bashar Al-Abdulhadi - KuwaitNET Internet Services Serving customers since 1997
    Kuwait's First Webhosting and Domain Registration provider - an ICANN Accredited Registrar

    Twitter: Bashar Al-Abdulhadi

  8. #8
    With that processor speed, 512 RAM and a SCSI drive there isn't anyone that could convince me a VB forum with 90 people online would kill your server. Unless you have some pretty awful hacks on the forum....

  9. #9
    Well, the only hack that I had time to put on is moderator related and doesn't affect the performance. I installed the thread bump and nothing else. I imagine once they learn it was RC4 and not the final that they will dig in and stick to that.

    Basher, I don't understand how it could be a database issue. The database was responsive. The mysql issue that I mentioned above was from before I upgraded.

    Chris

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Birmingham, UK
    Posts
    168

    Re: Rackspace issues. Me or Them?

    Originally posted by cditty
    Hello all, I hope this is in the right forum. If not, please move it to the correct one.

    First, let me say that I used to really like the support that Rackspace gave. I have been with them for almost 4 years. It seems in the last 1 1/2 years, their support has just gone downhill.

    Here is my story. I run a pretty popular forum for my website niche. Almost 1 year ago today, we hit an all-time high of users online. Well, as the 1 year anniversary closed on that date, some members wanted to see if we could blow that number away. I said, why not. We had just upgraded the server OS to RH Ent 3.0 and put in a better HD. Sad to say, the server/forum could not handle more than 88 users. Yup. That is 88. I had load avgs of over 100 several times.

    Last year, we hit 99 users on the forum. The reason only 99 users was because we had a max connections of 100 for the server. We changed that a few weeks ago to handle over 200 connections.

    Since my server was crashing pretty hard today, I called RS support and got ahold of a tech. He looked at the server and the problems he detected ranged from the hard drives not being configured correctly(said my IDE backup only drive was thrashing like crazy while the main SCSI drive was not doing anything. Only prob is the IDE drive was empty. I mean, nothing on it.), to sendmail causing the server to crash to finally the forum software. I use VBulletin 3.0 RC4 on my forum. I basically told him thanks. Later on, I decided to just reboot my server and try to get the load down. The box came back and then crashed shortly thereafter. I called support back and spoke with another tech. This one was more knowledgable. We looked at various things. He blamed it on both the forum software and spamassasin. We killed spamassasin and the load was still very high. Finally, he said was that it was the forum software and the server did not have enough ram. Basically I was told to look at upgrading the ram from 512 to more and to hire someone to "optimize" the forum software.

    I guess my question for everyone is this, has anyone else noticed the support levels declining and the support people passing the blame where they can instead of looking for a solution? I just don't understand how they can blame the forum software when it is the widest used software on the net and is known for being optimized. Am I just over reacting or should I be concerned?

    Thoughts?
    Chris

    ps...the server is a 800mhz with 512ram and 20 gig scsi HD with 74% free.
    i have P4 2.0 GHz, 1GB RAM and 80GB IDE Hard disk and it can hold up to 500 people in Chinese Discuz! board which is the graphical more than VBulletin alot plus with heavy FTP running. I would recommanded you to check your SQL/httpd configuration rather than add ram(this is my suggestion only).

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Cincinnati, OH
    Posts
    933
    WHT can handle 1000's of users with only like 4 dual xeon servers, one for sql

    My Additon: This is kinda irrelevant.
    Last edited by z280 Hosting; 03-29-2004 at 07:44 PM.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Kuwait
    Posts
    10,620
    4servers ? lol

    so far they are 8 if i'm not mistaken
    4 for httpd
    2 sql
    and couple for email!

    Bashar Al-Abdulhadi - KuwaitNET Internet Services Serving customers since 1997
    Kuwait's First Webhosting and Domain Registration provider - an ICANN Accredited Registrar

    Twitter: Bashar Al-Abdulhadi

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Location
    Seattle, WA
    Posts
    3,085
    Find a better provider for less.
    Jim Reardon - jim/amusive.com

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