Questions for those who run forums...

So I have been trying to help a forum I frequent out by giving them any of the technical advice that I can, mainly relating to their site. Recently they have been experiencing quite a bit of slow downs to the point that the site just stops responding. It is just a forum that is running vBulletin and nothing really fancy. The are on a shared server though and the hosting company is really pushing for them to go to a dedicated server. The only monitoring tools they provide though is the simple 3 server load average numbers. Honestly the site isn't all that huge though with maybe 25 (plus or minus a few) max users online at one given time reading and replying to threads. So my question is would that really load down a server all that much?

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gojericho0

It could be the hardware in the box as well, memory, processor, hard drive space. I'd check to make sure all those are performing properly first. It may also be something with the way their load balancing is setup.

scheistermeister

gojericho0 wrote:

It could be the hardware in the box as well, memory, processor, hard drive space. I'd check to make sure all those are performing properly first. It may also be something with the way their load balancing is setup.

Well that's the thing. I have been trying to talk to them and get techy info from them, but they seem rather reluctant to give that kind of info out and I do not even get shell access to the box.

PS If the person I am talking to from the hosting company is on the board and reading this can you give me the inside scoop?

dynamik

That box is probably over utilized. All that's happening behind the scenes is sending and receiving of small amounts of text. There's really not a whole lot of intensive calculations involved with that. 25 users really shouldn't cripple a server. There's no way I'd get a dedicated server for that level of activity. Who's the hosting provider?

If they want to stick with them, you should probably research some performance guides for that. You can probably disable some features that you don't need but generate extra overhead.

scheistermeister

dynamik wrote:

That box is probably over utilized. All that's happening behind the scenes is sending and receiving of small amounts of text. There's really not a whole lot of intensive calculations involved with that. 25 users really shouldn't cripple a server. There's no way I'd get a dedicated server for that level of activity. Who's the hosting provider?

If they want to stick with them, you should probably research some performance guides for that. You can probably disable some features that you don't need but generate extra overhead.

That's what I thought. Although, personally I would agree that it is just an over sold box. They even said there are 5 accounts on the server.

I have been trying to remove or disable anything that might cause any problems. Such as reducing session lengths and removing the ginormous blocked ip list they had. But even after we did that this is what we saw...

I don't even see numbers like that while recompiling my whole system in Gentoo.

I would rather keep the name of the company quiet for now until I see how the situation plays out.

KGhaleon

I've seen some factory machines which had a couple hundred user accounts on them because everyone had roaming profiles.

If they won't tell you anything about the box, then why are you assisting them?

scheistermeister

KGhaleon wrote:

I've seen some factory machines which had a couple hundred user accounts on them because everyone had roaming profiles.

If they won't tell you anything about the box, then why are you assisting them?

It is the hosting company that won't tell me anything. The people who pay for the forum gave me all the access they could to it. I am helping the forum people, not the hosting company. To be honest the forum is mainly made up of older non-technical (at least IT related) people. So since I see them all as friends I agreed to help them out.

tiersten

The box is being hammered for some reason. You shouldn't have load averages that high. As for whats causing it *shrug* could be a lot of things. You need better access to the box to be able to tell.

Unless your forum has a huge database behind it that people keep searching then I'd assume that you were fairly low load.

scheistermeister

tiersten wrote:

The box is being hammered for some reason. You shouldn't have load averages that high. As for whats causing it *shrug* could be a lot of things. You need better access to the box to be able to tell.

Unless your forum has a huge database behind it that people keep searching then I'd assume that you were fairly low load.

They actually just agreed to give me shell access to it. As for the database it is 105 tables, 9,458,508 records, and 567.2 MiB in size. As far as databases go that is something I know very little about. I have always hated databases. The only searching that really goes on is when people hit the "New Posts" button.

hypnotoad

Probably something funky in the database. If records are being locked it may cause issues.

scheistermeister

I guess I spoke too soon... With 19 people on it the server tanked again... Very curious as to what is doing it. Any suggestions on what to look for when I do get access?

Alright... Can someone explain how 10 people can do this by reading an replying to threads? And no one was even searching at that time...

2.15 8.07 12.50 | 10 Users Online (9 members and 1 guests)

dynamik

Does it have any logging you can turn on?

scheistermeister

dynamik wrote:

Does it have any logging you can turn on?

The only logging that is enabled through the cPanel, but it is all turned on and shows who views what (nothing that looks special), what errors are being thrown by Apache (none currently), and bandwidth usage. Still waiting on shell access.

BeaverC32

Have you checked system resource utilization? Check for any runaway processes? Also, do you know if the other accounts using this same hardware have been complaining of performance degradation?

dynamik

There's nothing inside the admin section in vBulletin? (I'm not familiar with it, just bouncing ideas around.)

scheistermeister

BeaverC32 wrote:

Have you checked system resource utilization? Check for any runaway processes? Also, do you know if the other accounts using this same hardware have been complaining of performance degradation?

Just got into it and currently it is all quiet.

As for the other accounts I have no clue. I am not in contact with anyone else that is on this server.

dynamik wrote:

There's nothing inside the admin section in vBulletin? (I'm not familiar with it, just bouncing ideas around.)

Nope, I checked around in there and there isn't anything that I saw.

BeaverC32

Well, you would need to monitor utilization when the problem happens again (the load average is significantly lower than what you previously showed us). Memory utilization looks high, you only have about 85 megs free on that box -- although depending on how the apps are set up (JVMs grabbing that memory on startup, for example) that may be OK. Just something to keep an eye on.

scheistermeister

BeaverC32 wrote:

Well, you would need to monitor utilization when the problem happens again (the load average is significantly lower than what you previously showed us). Memory utilization looks high, you only have about 85 megs free on that box -- although depending on how the apps are set up (JVMs grabbing that memory on startup, for example) that may be OK. Just something to keep an eye on.

Yeah, it is just sorta sit back wait and watch game now.

Edit: This is what it was right before it went down again a little earlier and before I had a chance to get shell access.

2.15 8.07 12.50 | 10 Users Online (9 members and 1 guests)

RussS

Whenever we experience issues with one of the sites I have assisted with it has always been one of several things.

Old kit. Sheesh, I have come across people doing hosting on kit that I would have retired 10 years ago

Badly configured server. One company did virtually zero as far as securing their servers and it was hackable in about 15 seconds by my grandmother

Over sold. Yes you can run a bunch of sites from one server, however if you have a really popular one it can slow everyone else down - especially if it is doing a lot of background stuff.

Good old basic lack of bandwidth. I have come across a couple hosting companies that had data plans that may have been good for a home user, but not good for someone running a web server. 512 up & down is not a plan I would run if I was trying to sell a service. Better to have decent speed and charge for the data usage.

scheistermeister

Well since I have had access I have seen quite a few accounts that are on the server. The only time the load has jumped I was away (screaming at the reknobs working on my house, but that's an entirely different story...) unfortunately.

Is there any way for me to specifically tell which httpd processes are generated by my site?