The Planet Forums > Load on P4 2.8 1GB of ram

jonMEGA

Jul 27 2004, 11:40 AM

Hello. I took advantage of the zero setup and upgrade my server to a P4 2.8 with 1 GB of ram. Once again I'm having a load issue. I have TurckMM installed and apache with keepalive turned off.

Here is top:

CODE

12:35:41 up 2:44, 1 user, load average: 119.89, 133.85, 138.43

389 processes: 285 sleeping, 103 running, 0 zombie, 1 stopped

CPU states: cpu user nice system irq softirq iowait idle

total 90.8% 0.0% 7.9% 0.1% 1.0% 0.0% 0.0%

cpu00 90.2% 0.0% 7.9% 0.0% 1.7% 0.0% 0.0%

cpu01 91.3% 0.0% 7.9% 0.3% 0.3% 0.0% 0.0%

Mem: 1028020k av, 936404k used, 91616k free, 0k shrd, 22844k buff

712172k actv, 80912k in_d, 11504k in_c

Swap: 2040212k av, 173988k used, 1866224k free 215420k cached

PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME CPU COMMAND

10793 nobody 17 0 14792 13M 5108 R 18.7 1.3 0:14 0 httpd

10744 nobody 17 0 9840 9276 4716 R 11.6 0.9 0:05 1 httpd

10623 nobody 17 0 10388 9844 5276 R 10.7 0.9 0:19 1 httpd

10881 nobody 16 0 9612 9048 4604 R 8.8 0.8 0:01 1 httpd

10582 nobody 16 0 10820 10M 5572 S 5.2 0.9 0:30 1 httpd

10958 nobody 15 0 9356 8788 4392 S 4.6 0.8 0:01 0 httpd

10833 nobody 17 0 10004 9444 4752 S 3.0 0.9 0:17 0 httpd

10421 nobody 16 0 10128 9572 5024 R 2.7 0.9 0:34 1 httpd

10863 nobody 17 0 9792 9228 4808 R 2.6 0.8 0:12 0 httpd

10882 nobody 15 0 10364 9812 5380 S 1.8 0.9 0:17 1 httpd

11039 nobody 16 0 8308 7740 4276 S 1.4 0.7 0:00 1 httpd

11041 nobody 15 0 7932 7364 4300 S 1.4 0.7 0:00 0 httpd

11043 nobody 19 0 9172 8604 4184 R 1.2 0.8 0:00 1 httpd

10475 nobody 19 0 13672 12M 4844 R 0.9 1.2 0:43 0 httpd

10565 nobody 19 0 16488 15M 5208 R 0.9 1.5 0:40 1 httpd

10735 nobody 19 0 13680 12M 4852 R 0.9 1.2 0:21 1 httpd

10810 nobody 19 0 13748 12M 4916 R 0.9 1.2 0:27 1 httpd

10251 nobody 16 0 11296 10M 6108 S 0.8 1.0 0:27 0 httpd

10736 nobody 16 0 9960 9392 4976 S 0.8 0.9 0:22 1 httpd

10947 nobody 16 0 8208 7640 4000 S 0.7 0.7 0:00 0 httpd

10571 nobody 16 0 10712 9.9M 5584 S 0.6 0.9 0:19 0 httpd

10713 root 15 0 1464 1436 900 R 0.6 0.1 0:00 0 top

10743 nobody 15 0 10064 9500 4936 S 0.6 0.9 0:22 0 httpd

6282 mysql 16 0 19948 7428 1324 S 0.5 0.7 0:00 1 mysqld

10726 nobody 16 0 9832 9272 4744 S 0.5 0.9 0:22 1 httpd

10811 nobody 19 0 10168 9628 5080 R 0.5 0.9 0:10 1 httpd

10893 nobody 16 0 9776 9212 4656 R 0.5 0.8 0:23 0 httpd

11044 nobody 16 0 8208 7640 3996 S 0.5 0.7 0:00 1 httpd

10528 nobody 15 0 10904 10M 5912 S 0.4 1.0 0:27 1 httpd

Can I tweak the setting anymore to make the server run better ?

Matt Brown

Jul 27 2004, 12:36 PM

what do the settings

minspareservers

and

maxspareservers

look like ?

jonMEGA

Jul 27 2004, 03:59 PM

QUOTE (Matt Brown)

what do the settings

minspareservers

and

maxspareservers

look like ?

minspareservers 5

maxspareservers 10

startservers 5

maxclients 180

max requestsperchild 500

keepalivetimeout 15

MaxKeepAliveRequests 100

KeepAlive Off

timeout 300

Doodle

Jul 28 2004, 05:50 PM

Hi jonMEGA

That's a seriously stressed box you have. I'm guessing that it's hosting the domain in your profile, Accoring to uptime.netcraft.com you appaear to have a cPanel box with mod_gzip enabled.

mod_gzip is a CPU killer in very busy boxes and totally useless in most cases. Disabling it should help in reducing CPU usage and the number of running processes.

IMHO it's not a good idea setting KeepAlive to Off. If there are more clients than Apache can handle they get queued in a backlog waiting for free child servers. With KeepAlive Off Apache needs to open a new child for every request, so each time a request is processed that user goes to the back of the queue.

Disable mod_gzip, restart Apache and run top for a few minutes and see if the load, CPU usage and runniing processes decrease.

Then use the following settings for Apache and monitor again with top for around 15 minutes and post the results.

Timeout 120
KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 50
KeepAliveTimeout 10
StartServers 20
MinSpareServers 10
MaxSpareServers 20
MaxClients 150
MaxRequestsPerChild 50

If the load has reduced to low single figures you can start increasing MaxClients in increments of 10 each time.

Then start reducing KeepAliveTimeout by 1 second at a time down to 5. Anything below 5 is not a good idea and could be much worse than using KeepAlive Off

Generally I find that KeepAliveTimeout between 5 and 6 works best for static sites with lots of images and between 8 and 10 for forums, dynamic content, lots of SSI, etc.

If the load and CPU is still in double figures mysql will also need some fine tuning.

jonMEGA

Jul 29 2004, 11:00 AM

here is top after turning of mod_gzip

CODE

11:59:37 up 1:07, 1 user, load average: 28.73, 22.25, 21.74

182 processes: 157 sleeping, 24 running, 0 zombie, 1 stopped

CPU states: cpu user nice system irq softirq iowait idle

total 89.8% 0.0% 8.5% 0.1% 1.3% 0.0% 0.0%

cpu00 91.4% 0.0% 5.5% 0.1% 2.7% 0.0% 0.0%

cpu01 88.2% 0.0% 11.5% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Mem: 1028020k av, 938280k used, 89740k free, 0k shrd, 20132k buff

764504k actv, 61848k in_d, 11056k in_c

Swap: 2040212k av, 113944k used, 1926268k free 498492k cached

PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME CPU COMMAND

31028 nobody 17 0 10964 10M 5660 R 7.3 1.0 0:07 0 httpd

31027 nobody 16 0 11460 11M 6180 R 5.4 1.1 0:08 1 httpd

30819 nobody 16 0 10392 10M 5356 R 5.3 1.0 0:00 0 httpd

30794 nobody 16 0 11948 11M 6856 R 5.2 1.1 0:07 0 httpd

30832 nobody 15 0 11680 11M 6408 S 5.0 1.1 0:06 0 httpd

30886 nobody 16 0 11744 11M 6484 R 4.7 1.1 0:07 0 httpd

30828 nobody 16 0 11312 11M 6356 R 4.5 1.1 0:09 1 httpd

30775 nobody 15 0 11272 11M 6308 S 3.7 1.0 0:10 1 httpd

30814 nobody 16 0 11928 11M 6616 R 3.1 1.1 0:08 1 httpd

30774 nobody 16 0 10836 10M 5924 S 3.0 1.0 0:08 0 httpd

30839 nobody 16 0 11432 11M 6468 R 2.6 1.1 0:09 1 httpd

30792 nobody 16 0 10644 10M 5628 R 2.5 1.0 0:05 1 httpd

30823 nobody 15 0 11548 11M 6604 S 2.5 1.1 0:08 0 httpd

30777 nobody 16 0 10944 10M 5920 S 2.3 1.0 0:04 1 httpd

30789 nobody 16 0 11268 11M 6220 S 2.3 1.0 0:02 1 httpd

30795 nobody 16 0 11344 11M 6308 S 2.3 1.1 0:07 0 httpd

30808 nobody 15 0 10860 10M 5612 S 2.2 1.0 0:12 0 httpd

30836 nobody 15 0 11244 10M 5984 S 2.2 1.0 0:09 0 httpd

30772 nobody 17 0 12260 11M 6128 R 2.0 1.1 0:08 1 httpd

30807 nobody 16 0 11804 11M 6496 R 1.8 1.1 0:04 1 httpd

31024 nobody 15 0 11456 11M 6152 S 1.8 1.1 0:03 0 httpd

31074 nobody 16 0 10476 10M 5384 R 1.8 1.0 0:04 0 httpd

30809 nobody 16 0 11668 11M 6376 R 1.7 1.1 0:09 0 httpd

31047 nobody 15 0 10668 10M 5648 S 1.7 1.0 0:01 0 httpd

30829 nobody 15 0 11268 11M 6248 S 1.4 1.0 0:05 0 httpd

31038 nobody 17 0 10312 10M 5388 R 1.4 1.0 0:02 0 httpd

30790 nobody 16 0 12084 11M 6448 R 1.3 1.1 0:06 0 httpd

30827 nobody 16 0 11868 11M 6076 R 1.3 1.1 0:08 0 httpd

30793 nobody 16 0 11640 11M 6612 R 1.2 1.1 0:09 1 httpd

30822 nobody 16 0 10136 9.9M 5120 S 1.2 0.9 0:02 0 httpd

30841 nobody 15 0 10504 10M 5484 S 0.9 1.0 0:12 0 httpd

30770 nobody 15 0 11252 10M 5936 S 0.7 1.0 0:04 0 httpd

30816 nobody 15 0 10976 10M 5956 S 0.7 1.0 0:10 1 httpd

31043 nobody 15 0 11216 10M 6176 S 0.7 1.0 0:04 1 httpd

30802 nobody 16 0 12964 12M 5744 R 0.6 1.2 0:10 0 httpd

30884 nobody 15 0 14052 13M 6832 S 0.6 1.3 0:11 1 httpd

30780 nobody 15 0 10108 9.9M 5092 S 0.5 0.9 0:00 1 httpd

30811 nobody 15 0 11356 11M 6432 S 0.5 1.1 0:14 1 httpd

31073 nobody 15 0 10976 10M 5916 S 0.3 1.0 0:02 1 httpd

2587 mysql 15 0 15316 4460 1264 S 0.2 0.4 0:00 1 mysqld

30771 nobody 16 0 11308 11M 6400 R 0.2 1.0 0:08 0 httpd

30820 nobody 15 0 10512 10M 5608 S 0.2 1.0 0:11 0 httpd

31069 root 15 0 1388 1388 904 R 0.2 0.1 0:00 1 top

30765 nobody 15 0 11392 11M 6484 S 0.1 1.1 0:04 0 httpd

30779 nobody 15 0 11076 10M 6036 S 0.1 1.0 0:07 1 httpd

30781 nobody 16 0 10980 10M 5956 R 0.1 1.0 0:08 1 httpd

djc

Jul 29 2004, 11:19 AM

mod_gzip doesn't make that big a difference in load, especially on a P4.

Do you have hostnamelookups turned on in your httpd.conf file? What kind of traffic is apache getting? Also, have you tried running without the PHP accelerator?

Dan
http://f2o.org/

QUOTE (jonMEGA)

here is top after turning of mod_gzip

CODE

11:59:37 up 1:07, 1 user, load average: 28.73, 22.25, 21.74

182 processes: 157 sleeping, 24 running, 0 zombie, 1 stopped

CPU states: cpu user nice system irq softirq iowait idle

total 89.8% 0.0% 8.5% 0.1% 1.3% 0.0% 0.0%

cpu00 91.4% 0.0% 5.5% 0.1% 2.7% 0.0% 0.0%

cpu01 88.2% 0.0% 11.5% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

jonMEGA

Jul 29 2004, 03:36 PM

hostnamelookups is turned off

jonMEGA

Jul 29 2004, 03:51 PM

here is top once again after som more tweaking:

CODE

16:49:42 up 5:57, 1 user, load average: 60.69, 51.25, 32.20

255 processes: 228 sleeping, 26 running, 0 zombie, 1 stopped

CPU states: cpu user nice system irq softirq iowait idle

total 91.6% 0.0% 7.2% 0.3% 0.7% 0.0% 0.0%

cpu00 90.4% 0.0% 7.7% 0.3% 1.3% 0.0% 0.0%

cpu01 92.7% 0.0% 6.8% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

Mem: 1028020k av, 951964k used, 76056k free, 0k shrd, 27056k buff

720960k actv, 92040k in_d, 14500k in_c

Swap: 2040212k av, 214292k used, 1825920k free 259320k cached

PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME CPU COMMAND

9538 nobody 19 0 14716 13M 5260 R 14.5 1.3 0:19 0 httpd

9350 nobody 15 0 10196 9532 5276 S 10.7 0.9 0:16 0 httpd

9549 nobody 15 0 9736 9092 4780 S 5.4 0.8 0:17 0 httpd

9630 nobody 16 0 10144 9500 5296 S 5.3 0.9 0:20 1 httpd

9527 nobody 16 0 10708 9.8M 5540 S 3.6 0.9 0:13 0 httpd

9578 nobody 16 0 9908 9264 4700 S 2.9 0.9 0:24 1 httpd

9521 nobody 15 0 9832 9188 4712 S 2.6 0.8 0:20 1 httpd

9352 nobody 15 0 9636 8984 4716 S 2.5 0.8 0:16 0 httpd

9358 nobody 15 0 10432 9808 5228 S 2.5 0.9 0:14 0 httpd

9678 nobody 19 0 14184 13M 4752 R 2.5 1.3 0:09 1 httpd

9536 nobody 16 0 10700 9.8M 5552 S 2.4 0.9 0:08 1 httpd

9340 nobody 15 0 10520 9888 5312 S 2.2 0.9 0:26 0 httpd

9681 nobody 16 0 10004 9396 5128 S 2.2 0.9 0:03 0 httpd

Timeout 120
KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 50
KeepAliveTimeout 10
StartServers 20
MinSpareServers 10
MaxSpareServers 20
MaxClients 140
MaxRequestsPerChild 50

Guspaz

Jul 29 2004, 04:10 PM

I flat out reccomend AGAINST turning off mod_gzip.

mod_gzip results in a very small increase in CPU load, but an enormous reduction in bandwidth usage. Bandwidth is more valuable than CPU power.

You're running a PHP-Nuke site, which is MySQL heavy. Try tweaking MySQL a bit on the box, give it some more memory.

Also, try disabling mmcache. It hasn't been updated in ages and may be causing problems with the new version of PHP you're running.

jonMEGA

Jul 29 2004, 04:27 PM

QUOTE (Guspaz)

I flat out reccomend AGAINST turning off mod_gzip.

mod_gzip results in a very small increase in CPU load, but an enormous reduction in bandwidth usage. Bandwidth is more valuable than CPU power.

You're running a PHP-Nuke site, which is MySQL heavy. Try tweaking MySQL a bit on the box, give it some more memory.

Also, try disabling mmcache. It hasn't been updated in ages and may be causing problems with the new version of PHP you're running.

What mysql tweaks should I try.

Thanks for all the help so far everyone !!!

alex042

Jul 30 2004, 06:35 AM

Have you had this load issue for a while? Did it start at any particular time? If it was a sudden surge, maybe it's a particular site causing the problem. There are a lot of other areas that could be tweak other than just those you've mentioned, but if it's a particular site, it would be easier to find that and resolve it.

Btw, before I leased my own server, my previous host was running at 100+ load for several days or weeks on and off and eventually, the hard drive went out and we lost everything (since he didn't have a backup) and had to reupload and rebuild. So, although a server can run at that load, it may take its toll if it can't be resolved fairly soon.

jonMEGA

Jul 30 2004, 08:35 AM

QUOTE (alex042)

Have you had this load issue for a while? Did it start at any particular time? If it was a sudden surge, maybe it's a particular site causing the problem. There are a lot of other areas that could be tweak other than just those you've mentioned, but if it's a particular site, it would be easier to find that and resolve it.

Btw, before I leased my own server, my previous host was running at 100+ load for several days or weeks on and off and eventually, the hard drive went out and we lost everything (since he didn't have a backup) and had to reupload and rebuild. So, although a server can run at that load, it may take its toll if it can't be resolved fairly soon.

No the past two weeks I more than doubled the traffic to my site.

BTW two days ago I ordered another server to replace this one. I got the Super Xeon.

I'm playing around with the settings and it seems that I'm having the same issues even with the new server.