inlinemod.php causing high server loads

[Panzer Max]

Our server has been running really heavy loads for weeks, and we think it is due to something that uses inlinemod.php

Does anyone recognize that file? Is it part of standard vB or a mod? If it is a mod, how do you suggest I identify which mod it is associated with?

Appreciate any feedback you can give.

[MarkFL]

That file is part of vBulletin itself, and handles the inline moderation functions. As such it likely isn't being called that often, unless a product hooked into it. I would suggest first taking a look at your plugins to see which are hooked to any locations beginning with "inline_mod_".

[Panzer Max]

Excellent, thanks Mark--how do I look at a plugin and see if any are hooked to things? Open the plugin file and examine the code? Do I just look in the Plugin Manager under Hook Location?

[Dave]

That script should only cause "some" load when hundreds of posts or threads are being moved/deleted or some other action is executed against hundreds of entries.

[MarkFL]

...Do I just look in the Plugin Manager under Hook Location?

Yes...and if none of your staff are doing any heavy duty and ongoing inline moderation (as Dave mentioned), there shouldn't be heavy loads.

[Panzer Max]

I've turned off the forum, gone in the cPanel and killed the processes that were inlinemod.php related, the server load came down.

Hopefully we can get a backup now, and I will watch this.

I checked the Plugin Manager under Hook Location but did not find any plugins that had inlinemod.php listed.

Dave, is it possible some process got stuck? What could cause hundreds of entries to be executed or acted on like this, other than something I or the Admin would be doing?

Very strange!

[Dave]

A PHP process shouldn't get stuck because it has built-in timeout settings to prevent such thing from happening.

[Panzer Max]

Well, it shouldn't get stuck, but I think that's what happened.

cpuwatch (Thu Dec 31 01:00:03 2015): System load is currently 9.17; waiting for it to go down to 7.00 to continue …
====

From the above errors, it is clear that the backup process was terminated because of high load in the server. After this, I have checked the load statistics of the server. I have found that the server load is high and it is nearly 16 and there are high accesses to the server.

===
root@server [~]# w
15:18:46 up 898 days, 22:16, 1 user, load average: 16.52, 16.25, 16.12
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
root pts/0 61.15.45.80 14:36 0.00s 0.08s 0.00s w

root@server [~]# nproc
8
root@server [~]#

root@server [~]# netstat -plane | grep :80 | wc -l
620
====

I have also analyzed the previous load statistics and could see that the load was high for the past days. The average server load is nearly 16, which is double the threshold value. We infer that the server load was always 16, after Dec 31, 2015 and this is the reason for backup failure.


And inlinemod.php was the culprit. There must be something to explain this....:confused:

Can you give me some examples of exactly what "inline moderation" is?

Edit: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/vbulletin-4/vbulletin-4-questions-problems-and-troubleshooting/3994191-inlinemod-php-taken-up-50-of-my-server-resource-during-certain-timing

I guess it's simply hitting the delete or edit key on a thread/post? Maybe selecting a group of threads to move....

[Panzer Max]

25196 (Trace) (Kill) server_alpha 0 CPU 99.75 Memory 0.13 /usr/bin/php /home/alpha/public_html/inlinemod.php

I have no idea why this is happening.... if this was happening to you guys, what would youndo? Any ideas?

I checked the moderator log, there has been some activity, a few posts merged, deleted, unstuck...

[Lynne]

I checked the Plugin Manager under Hook Location but did not find any plugins that had inlinemod.php listed.

You don't want to see if any are calling the inlinemod.php file, you want to go to the Plugin Manger and look in the Hook Location column for some hook that starts with "inlinemod_" like these:

154844

If you do, then take note of the Product and go to Manage Products and disable it.

[Panzer Max]

hi Lynne, good to see you again!

I checked again, for anything that has "inlinemod_" in it, nothing.

I checked for "inline", nothing.... :erm:

[Lynne]

Hmmmm, well it very likely could be some global hook called by a product that would affect the inlinemod.php file I suppose. Have you tried disabling ALL your products for a day and seeing if this still happens?

[Panzer Max]

Ok, I disabled all but Downloads II, Multiple Login Detector, and 2 custom mods. 4 days, no problem. If the problem recurs, I could disable the others, but that would be problematic for our site. I guess if it turns out to be a specific mod, I will have to live with it and check the load daily, and check the backups.

[webmastersun]

Our server has been running really heavy loads for weeks, and we think it is due to something that uses inlinemod.php

Does anyone recognize that file? Is it part of standard vB or a mod? If it is a mod, how do you suggest I identify which mod it is associated with?


Appreciate any feedback you can give.

It is hard to make your hosting highload with inlinemod, you should check log files on your hosting to find out the reason why.

[Panzer Max]

Well, I asked our server guy to check the logs, I'm just the forum gal.

The server log shows


PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND

19042 alpha 20 0 147m 22m 7620 R 68.9 0.1 5126060h /usr/bin/php /home/alpha/public_html/forum/inlinemod.php

[Dave]

What are your server specifications? Maybe it's time to look for a new host?

[Panzer Max]

What are your server specifications? Maybe it's time to look for a new host?

E3-1230 with 16GB Ram

[Dave]

Ok well that seems to be fine... weird.

[Panzer Max]

Yeah, it really is. I am watching this every day now, so far, it's been ok.