Expert advice needed

[nikki712]

My website and forum has the following specs:

Total threads: 11,852
Total Posts: 141,545
Members: 3,870
Most users online at once: 213
Average users online concurrently: About 30-50 or so
Monthly bandwidth: 60gb
Mysql db size: 142mb
Disk space usage: 663mb

My current host offers the following w/my VPS:

2 GB Burst RAM
512 MB Guaranteed RAM
20 GB Storage
500 GB Monthly Transfer

CentOS 4 Operating System

Dual Xeon 3 GHz or Better
8 GB Registered ECC RAM
U320 SCSI HD in Hardware RAID 10
Zero Downtime During Drive Failure
Hot-Swap Drives and Fans
Replaceable on the Fly
Dual Gigabit Network Interfaces

I have 4 hacks installed, and they are as follows:

No Spam!

Thank You hack

VB Trends - enhanced forum home statistic

Mood manager

For some reason, my server load is spiking erratically. I even shut down my forum today, and it was still spiking. I am currently with Servint hosting. I had no problems for a long time, and they're really nice, but no one seems to know what is causing my load to increase. I requested server optimization info at vb.com, and did what they said (just so you know).

So do you guys think I've got "too much" server wise, or not enough to handle the website and forum stats that I posted above?

I don't understand what can cause these spikes. I've banned Yahoo slurp bots from my forum completely, so that's not the problem. I'm just at a loss.

Anyone???

[lighti]

On a VPS perhaps its another user on the machine causing the CPU to spike, A VPs is a shared system so if another account on the box is eating the CPU and it says (burst ram) im assuming its not dedicated, perhaps other users on the machine are eating your resources, they may have oversold that machine to much.

[SemperFideles]

I used to think that a VPS would get it done for me too. I even upgraded to a more powerful VPS solution. The bottom line with a VPS is that you have many accounts on the same server competing for the RAM and the CPU's. My forum is approximately the same size as yours and I simply had to go to a dedicated server about a year ago and I'm very glad that I did. Of course, I run a number of additional sites but the real resource hog is my vBulletin site. I know it seems like a lot of money to spend but your user experience will increase dramatically. Even a low end dedicated server runs circles around a VPS account. All those specs about "guaranteed" RAM and the like are bunk. What really eats you up is CPU.

For best bang for the buck, I have a dedicated server with JaguarPC (www.jaguarpc.com) and I have not been disappointed.

[edgecutioner]

well i have been looking into their forums abit and it seems they have tons of happy customers :D i just wish i can pay for it :(

[DivisionByZero]

you can get a really good deal with a dedicated server provider if you know how to bargain with them.

Can you budget out around $1,000 USD a month for hosting?

[SemperFideles]

you can get a really good deal with a dedicated server provider if you know how to bargain with them.

Can you budget out around $1,000 USD a month for hosting?

What?! $1K per month is way more than she would need to spend. More like $100/month.

[edgecutioner]

you can get a really good deal with a dedicated server provider if you know how to bargain with them.

Can you budget out around $1,000 USD a month for hosting?

hold on! i'm no expert on dedi's but i know i shouldn't spend that much...:erm:

[nexialys]

you can get a really good deal with a dedicated server provider if you know how to bargain with them.

Can you budget out around $1,000 USD a month for hosting?

seriously, you think all the guys on vb.org can afford professional hosting ?!... 99% don't...

and for a 50 avg members online, a semi-dedicated at 50$/m is way enough for that usage...

as said earlier, a VSP is a shared computer... the load of it is not always directed to you. did you ask the host to see if they can track the usage and see if it is related to you?

[Adrian Schneider]

I even shut down my forum today, and it was still spikingSounds like the problem isn't your forum then. :p

I agree with nex. 50$/month should cover that with ease.

[R1lover]

The problem is you have to get a good host for your vps, it's just like shared hosting.

Actually if you had a good host you could run that site on a shared server.

I would recommend a VPS in the 50 dollar range. If you need some advice on a few good ones send me a pm as I don't want to spam the forum.

I run two sites that size on a vps and the cpu usage is about .10-.25 at most times. It's all on the config a good host.

[induslady]

Hello,

Sorry for coming in with my issue. I too need expert advice from forum runners here on solving the issues I face running my forum site on a VPS.

I originally was on a shared server with Startlogic, received MySQL database errors like max_resources exceeded and too many connections, etc.

Then moved to a VPS server with Liquid web. This server runs only 20 instances including mine. I don't receive database errors now. But of-late my server has been spiking with load issues. I keep getting httpd service failures frequently (every hour) that causes the site to on and off displaying 'This page could not be displayed' error in the browser.

My host keeps saying that I am overloading the server.

I want to know the following:
1. What is the variable or combination of variables that they see to tell the server is loaded and it is causing the httpd to fail?
2. Is it the number of visitors peaking that causes server load?
3. Is it the number of queries or browser requests that peak causing server load?

I am not able to believe that I need a dedicated server with more RAM/CPU because I see more bigger boards (with >1 million posts and >100,000 members and > 500 simultaneous active users) being run well on VPS server with similar configurations as given below.

Please look into my site statistics, server config, system variables set-up given below and let me know what is going wrong. What is that I need to watch to understand about what is causing the server load?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are my site stats:

Threads: 10,749, Posts: 145,561, Members: 11,156
Most users ever online was 301, 14th September 2007 at 04:28 PM.
Currently Active Users range: 100 - 350
(25% would be users and 75% guests)
Guests - mostly are Google spider, Yahoo spider, MSN bot, etc.

Here are my server config:
VPS 1 server and it has 20 instances
cpu speed/type single or dual cpus): Dual CPU Dual Core
how much memory installed: 8GB of RAM.
384MB is guaranteed for me.
hard drive type/configuration: SCSI RAID 5
linux distributor version: CentOS 4.4
apache/IIS version: apache 1.3.37
PHP version: php 4.4
MySQL version: mysql 4.1

I am currently running vb 3.6.3 and vbSEO 3.0.1c (non-encrypted version of SEO)
I have less than a handful of hacks installed from here which are mostly template customizations

I also placed a server optimisation request in vbulletin.com and changed my.cnf settings accordingly. The my.cnf settings are as given in the below post:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1403878&postcount=9

I have wait_timeout - 28800

These are the settings in httpd.conf
KeepAlive: On
MaxKeepAliveRequests: 100
KeepAliveTimeout: 1
MinSpareServers: 10
MaxSpareServers: 15
StartServers: 10
MaxClients: 150
MaxRequestsPerChild: 1000

My server's recent top stats is as given in this post:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1430918&postcount=29

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please help me with troubleshooting my server load issue.

I am also keen to know if there is someone available on a hourly pay basis to take a look at my server and optimize it to run my forum board without issues. I can hire their service for once to take a look at what's happening and set things straight.

Thank you. Appreciate responses.

[DivisionByZero]

hi induslady. even though you say you're against it, i feel that you've outgrown a VPS. you definitely need more resources than your VPS allows. have you considered going dedicated?

[induslady]

Hello Misterpopularity,

Thank you for your response.

I have placed an order with my host (Liquid web) to upgrade from VPS1 to VPS2. This means a higher server config:

Disk space - 100GB RAID
Memory - 768MB dedicated RAM, 1024MB burstable (Vs. the 256MB dedicated, 512MB bustable RAM in my existing server)
Bandwidth - 700GB Monthly transfer

My host says in my existing VPS server I am hitting a memory usage of 450-480MB RAM approximately, that is causing out-of-memory errors and hence the services like MySQL, httpd, etc. failing.

Does this make sense? Do you think it is a wise decision to migrate to this config?

Thanks.

[R1lover]

Hello Misterpopularity,

Thank you for your response.

I have placed an order with my host (Liquid web) to upgrade from VPS1 to VPS2. This means a higher server config:

Disk space - 100GB RAID
Memory - 768MB dedicated RAM, 1024MB burstable (Vs. the 256MB dedicated, 512MB bustable RAM in my existing server)
Bandwidth - 700GB Monthly transfer

My host says in my existing VPS server I am hitting a memory usage of 450-480MB RAM approximately, that is causing out-of-memory errors and hence the services like MySQL, httpd, etc. failing.

Does this make sense? Do you think it is a wise decision to migrate to this config?

Thanks.

I run a few vps's as well as dedicated servers and YES this makes sense.

You can run this command from root to check your vps limits and where you are at. (this is for openvz) I'm not sure what liquid web uses for there Virtulization though.

cat /proc/user_beancounters

This will give you the current useage, max held and of course your vps limits and also tell you if you have exceeded or been limited on any of them and how many failcnts you have. Failcnts= times that processes have failed due to being over the limit on resourses.

I will also say again with your current size you are in now way in need of a dedicated server, a mid to high end vps is all you need.

Also with the right config you can run that site with as little as 150mb of ram as well.

[induslady]

Hello R1lover,

Thank you for your response and also the pointers.

I tried the command you suggested in the root of my new upgraded VPS. The output had all "failcnts" for the listed processes to be zero. (thank God).

Can you please give me a few pointers on what are the processes that we need to keep a watch in those listed for running a vB forum?

That will be of great help to monitor.

Thank you again.

[lighti]

inuslady also perhaps because it says "Max Client 150" that once you get 150 users on your site no one else can get on...

[R1lover]

Hello, with the setup you have I don't see anything that will cause an issue. If you have any more issues after moving up to the higher vps with more memory then it will most likely be caused by the host and/or other vps users.

I have a vps setup for vBulleting forums only and have about 3-4 times your usage and I am only using about 400mb max.... and that's running fastcgi with children which uses much more memory. I can scale it back to about 200 mb without fastcgi and it runs great as well.

What you will run into as you grow is needing a proper mysql setup though. This can make a big difference on how well a site functions in a vb setting.

As for specific processes to monitor there is really nothing that vb uses other then mysql and php for it's operation. :)

you should be fine.

[DivisionByZero]

i've heard bad things about liquidweb and even moved a client of mine from them over to softlayer who just happens to have a very nice scalable network. you might do well to remember that :)