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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    277

    Burst of Traffic - Site Inoperable. Need temp solution!

    My site just got a huge burst of traffic.... which increased 100 fold overnight. The server which is a 2ghz 512mb celeron obviously cannot take it. Is there any kind of temp solution I could do to decrease the lag? maybe deny clients after the capacity is reached?
    Pages take like 30 seconds to open, if they don't time out. Im showing over 1000 simultaneous connections over here.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Woking, England
    Posts
    1,401
    Put the site on another server till it dies down?
    Web Handyman - Website and Internet Marketing Service

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    277
    I don't have one.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Posts
    2,853
    Yeah, just move the site to a faster server temp.

    edit:

    Maybe put a "Site down, please come back later" index page?

    What sort of content is it, that people are downloading?

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    277
    Its just html/images. I cannot take it down, and it will only get worse when I announce the video release.

  6. #6
    From what you say it really sounds like you've outgrown your server. I would say it's time to look for something more powerful. Especially since you say the traffic is just going to increase.
    Jonathan
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  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    277
    This is just temporary. It will go back to normal after everyone sees the video. The server is more than enough for my normal usage. I just didnt expect this spike to be so huge. At 6am this morning, when the stat program gave out, it counted 46,000 uniques since 12am. SO I imagine its close to 200,000 now.

    Thats up from the average of 6,000-8000/day.

    Now the server crashed completely.

  8. #8
    Convert everything to text, remove images or remote host them. Remove any php,mysql. Just plain HTML Text.

  9. #9
    Also if you can go for thttpd. For text and images.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    262
    Assuming that it's all legit traffic, it sounds like your site got slashdotted or linked to from a very popular site. That's a logical explanation, especially if you've suddenly gained 200k unique visitors in a single day.

    If that's what's causing it, the traffic may slow down and go back to normal *if* they remove the link.

    You could try what Chaotic said and remove all of the images, or just rename your images directory temporarily if you have a lot of images. But I don't think that's the problem... it's the number of connections you have that's bringing the server down.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    California USA
    Posts
    13,681
    Setup lighttpd to serve your entire site.
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
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  12. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    277
    I wasnt linked on a single site, i was linked all over the internet.

    The server is still dead... host claims they are able to ping my site.... hmmm

    http://dnsreport.com/tools/dnsreport...netboredom.net

    I smell ********. Well, 16 hours of downtime and counting, and they still tell me there is no probleM!

    I wanted to install lighthttpd but im not a linux guru, and I doubt I can replace the http server on my own.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    Vancouver
    Posts
    161
    I would also opt for installing Lighttpd .I just put it on a clients server 10 minutes ago He servers videos and images to 80,000 people a day

    http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/wiki/TutorialInstallation

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    705
    There are many tutorials out there for installing Lighttpd or thttpd. Its worth a try since no one can even access your site now.
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  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    I am air u breathe
    Posts
    230
    If you are using a cpanel box, then can you try checking the which is the site that should be causing you with the traffic burst.

    Al
    It is reliability that counts...

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Auckland, New Zealand
    Posts
    588
    Strange! I thought I posted something lastnight, but it appears I've not ^.^

    I've had the same thing happen to me beginning of this month. A client got 60Mbps traffic on a moderately speced server with a database driven gallery system and a user online system. I set the client up on a seperate virtual host, and used Mod_Throttle ( Use Random Policy ) . This let me accept only 30% of the actual requests - which was the real capacity for the server. We've since then removed bulk of the gallery software's unoptimised coding, and have started to move a simpler gallery system. Using lighttpd is something we've done in the past for client who actually want to serve the content and don't mind getting the traffic / bandwidth being charged to them.
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  17. #17
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    277
    I moved the "problem" site to a separate machine until the traffic normalizes. Hits were/are coming from all over the internet. The video is being downloaded 10 times per second. if you are wondering what the fuss is about, its www.smashmyxbox.com

    Can anyone suggest a lighttpd or thttpd installation tutorial for complete nubs? Something that includes how to disable apache, etc.

  18. #18
    If your site is all videos/html/images then TUX may do an even better job and you will not have to remove apache.

    As previously suggested
    http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/wiki/TutorialInstallation

    I think it is easy to follow.
    Also if you dont want to uninstall apache then just stop its service before installing this server.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Posts
    277
    Ahh I see!

    I run CentOS, will setup be similar to FreeBSD? Also, will I need to configure php/mysql to run with this thing?
    Last edited by marmoset01; 11-25-2005 at 06:28 AM.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    San Diego, CA USA
    Posts
    56

    Round Robin DNS might help

    Sure, a lighter http server will help... a little. But, I would suggest getting another server and using a simple Round-Robin DNS so each new visitor goes to an alternating server address. This will scale reasonably too. If you put 2 IP addresses in for your CNAME or A record for your site, then visitors will be sent to 2 servers in an alternating fashion. If you use 3 addresses, then visitors will go to the 3 servers in round robin fashion, and so on.

    The limitations to this sceme is that if a visitor is sent to a dead server, they will not reach your site. If one of yoru servers is down, and you have 2 servers, then half your visitors will get dead air. Also, it assumes that both servers are able to handle half the traffic.... if one is slower, you can't adjust the number of visitors. Additionally, if you have scripts that rely on keeping sessions, they may not work as the server can change in mid-visit.

    If you are with a host that offers load-balancing then that could be an option if the financials can be worked out for a short term.

    BTW - your site is working fine for me right now.

    Mike

  21. #21
    that server should handle that with absolutely no problems, most likely bandwidth is your problem

    will need to add some more ram though

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    World Wide Web
    Posts
    581
    Hi, most probably hits are coming from other sites that uses your web url( getting redirected from some popular website like javadude said). You could check for any dramatic increase in the access log size for http server. If yes, keep watching the hits that are appended to that file and you could find out where it is coming from. After you find this out, you could use rewrite rules to make sure apache just remains passive to those requests instead of taking out more of processor and ram serving it. Again, you'll need to find out if the hits are legit or not. Typically, if it is dos, try tcpdump and netstat and block the ip. If it is ddos, change the ip to a new one(provided the origin of the hit is ip based). It should get updated pretty quickly due to the large number of hits. If it is domain based, there is nothing much you can do except null route that ip and bring down the domain ( you could get your dc to make adjustments in their router).
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  23. #23
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Uk
    Posts
    423
    I would also suggest going with Light Httpd.
    Then seeing if it decreases the load at all, maybe adding a bit more memory could help as well.

  24. #24
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    San Diego, CA USA
    Posts
    56
    Quote Originally Posted by yegorpb
    My site just got a huge burst of traffic.... which increased 100 fold overnight. The server which is a 2ghz 512mb celeron obviously cannot take it. Is there any kind of temp solution I could do to decrease the lag? maybe deny clients after the capacity is reached?
    Pages take like 30 seconds to open, if they don't time out. Im showing over 1000 simultaneous connections over here.
    Maybe I missed this part, but what does the server say is the problem ? What are the load averages ? What is the iowait ? What is the "actv" memory in top ? How much of your swap space are you using ?

    Depending on those numbers you can do things like turn off logging, move logging to another disk, add memory, etc. If it's a bandwidth thing, then maybe the last hop before your server on a traceroute will show big latency. If the latency is on your machine then the latency will be at your machine on the traceroute (I like using mtr (Matt's Traceroute) for this kind of thing).

    I just did a mtr to your site (www.smashmyxbox.com) and You are getting 53% packet loss at a savvis router a few hops before your server.

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Melbourne, AU
    Posts
    539
    If your videos are < 50MB, try using the Coral Cache as a cheap (free in fact) way to offload your traffic.

    http://yourdomain.com.nyud.net:8090/path/to/file.avi

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