what's an "average" server load?
 

i have both the ajax shoutbox, and the vbpager system installed on two boards that i run, and i'm worried my host is going to have a problem with it (because some people had issues with the shoutbox for that reason).

my boards are not that busy, we get about 50-80 visitors a day, but lots of them just browse and then leave. checked server averages today on one of my boards and this is what it said:

15.67 10.24 7.57 | 1 Users Online (1 members and 0 guests)

is that bad?

Yes, that's bad.

With 50-80 visitors a day, I'd expect the server loads to remain at least below 2.00 depending on the specs of the server.

I think I read somewhere on here that those 2 hacks are notorious for slowing down a server. Try disabling them and see what you get then. I think you will be surprised. ;)

And, as Andy said, those servers loads are extremely high for the amount of visitors you get daily. ;)

gahhh.. yeah, that's what i thought :/ i mean i don't mind myself, i just don't want my host to contact me..which they probably will if this continues. i'll probably disable the shoutbox first i guess, since that's the one that's said to really cause a lot of problems.

thanks guys.

Another thing you could look into is installing any optimisation hacks that are available - They may help to decrease the server load of any other scripts that are causing it to increase :)

Chris

Thanks for this thread arcadian_girl! I was having the same problem and just uninstalled the shoutbox, but for some reason my server numbers are still high. ( I think) Server Load Averages 2.94 3.27 3.45 | 6 Users Online (4 members and 2 guests)

I guess I have to check out some of those optimisation hacks that are out there.

Are you running vbpager? That's another resource hog. ;)

Give it an hour or so for the server to stabilise.

Depending who is hosting you, you may also want to try requesting a server reboot.

This is rough, but as a general rule, (and again, this is my simplistic understanding), for every 1 CPU, server load of 1 means that CPU is used 100%, so if you have dual CPUs, server loads under 2 is good. 4 CPUs, server loads up to 4 is good. Someone can probably correct me and explain better, but that's my rule of thumb.

No, I don't have the vbpager, not ever sure what it is LOL

Thanks Oblivion Knight, I have ASO, so hopefully they can help too

I consider myself very lucky, I have a shared host and a board that ticks over nicely (around 20 to 30 online at peak times) but my server load on four CPUs rarely goes over 1. At present it's 0.44 : 0.25 : 0.21.

The only time it normally increases is when my overnight database backup downloads, then it rises to about 1.5.

Only occasionally has it gone any higher, once it hit about 9 but the hosts rebooted it and that fixed it, something had gone wrong.

So I do pretty well really.

AFAIK, the load average takes into account the number of CPU's you have - so a good value is not dependant on CPU count.

Ideally it want's to be below 1 - anything over that is a busy server.

Anything between 1 and 2 is busy, anything between 2 & 3 is very busy, anything over 3 or more means you should be looking at ways to reduce it. Anything over about 5 is an overloaded server and means response will suffer. Anything over 10 is bad - it means trouble.

on my last host i used to get around 0.50% and that was with well over 200
hacks installed, I have now moved to a new server with about 60 of the hacks
removed and its very rarely below 2.00% and that can be with only me and a
bot online.... Yes i have VBShout installed but it was installed on the old
server where i was getting 0.50%

I have spoke to my host and they say...

So whats ya thoughts on that comment then?

Sounds to me like the old "we are really incompetent" whitewash that a lot of hosts like to pass along these days. We got the same thing last night with out host and a supposed router issue that turned into a trunk issue right before our eyes. ;)

pmsl... sounds about right Boofo..

I didnt hink it was right, as soon as it goes over 2.00% i do notice a difference
in site performance, me thinks i will be looking again, although i end up having
certain issues (like stuff not working) after the move :(
Think im gonna do a new thread asking for hosts :)

What is "pmsl" or am I going to feel stupid for asking? :cross-eyed:

;)

lol no worries, it's pi$$ myself laffing :)

i looked into ways to reduce vbpager and vbshout's affect on the server load, cos i really dont want to uninstall them. it's gone down and now doesn't go over 3.00, and is usually less than that-so it's a lot better. i know from what i've read here that that's still a bit high, but hell, it's better than my original numbers :p my host hasn't contacted me *knock on wood*, and hopefully they won't. if worse comes to worse i'll get rid of vbshout first-i really like vb pager, and so do my members.

FWIW, I run the shoutbox, no pager, average around 50 online and am always around 1.0 on a VPS.

for those of you with 2 or under server loads, what kinda hosting do you guys have? virtual, dedicated, or shared?

i'm looking for a new shared host and so far i've heard some good things about site5.com but i'm still unsure. i need recommendations.

my current host is godaddy and my server load rarely drops below 3. the server actually went up as high as 60 on more than 2 occasions, i mean i had to turn the whole thing off and it's still 60.

i got quite a few hacks installed but i dont think thats what's causing it, i'm running a really small community, we have under 300 members and rarely get over 20 members online. i think it's just godaddy and their celeron processors. most likely, combination of both... but i still want a new host :]

Is the original poster on a shared server? That high server load is probably not even his fault. It's probably someone else on the server doing it.

I have a 3.2 pentium server with 2 gigs of ram, 3 thousand+ visiters to my forum daily and the server load rarely goes above 2. I also have dozens of mods installed.

The only thing that caused a problem was the new IBproarcade hack that crashes my server every five minutes. I've de-activated it until the hack author fixes the glitch.

Here is a dumb question I am sure:

But how/where do you check server loads?

No, most versions of top are not taking into account multiple processors. For every real core a load of 1+(cores) is accectable.

1 processor 1 core load of 1 is ok
2 processors 1 core each load of 2 is ok
4 processors 2 cores each load of 8 is accectable.

If you have SSH access than type ' top ' into the command prompt. On some versions of cpanel you can look on the bottom left and click the option for service status.

it aitn that bad - well it is because the load is really high - but who`s to say that her board is causing that?

She may be on a shared host and others are doing it or the host is experiecning problems with the actual server.
It can be a combination of lots of things.Best thing to do is monitor it and if u get loads at 15 all the time then you got problems but if it mellows out after a while and drops back down to say below 2 then you fine.

yeah, i'm on a shared server. i'm not getting 10's and 15's anymore, it's back down-the highest it goes now is 4 or so. i guess i'm not going to worry about it unless my host contacts me-i already tweaked the vbshout and pager settings, the only other thing i could do would be to disable them, and i don't want to do that unless i have to.

1. Server
=======
Server Load Averages 13.67 12.36 7.84 | 348 Users Online (268 members and 80 guests)

2. Server
=======
Server Load Averages 0.15 0.19 0.17 | 1 Users Online (1 members and 0 guests)
1 Member :p me

Atkan Server 1 must be slow....

Mine is [Server Loads: 5.09 4.08 : 4.28]
9 users online: 4 Guests, 1 Anonymous, 4 Visible

Anything over 1.50% makes my server slow down :(
As of late my server has been over 4's 5's and even 7's with hardly anyone online, I have been onto my host and threatened them with leaving and getting a 30 day money back....

I am on a Semi Dedicated server and i didnt expect a service like this...

Iam therefore looking for a new Virtual Dedicated Server at no more than say ?50 pm for around 20gb hdd..... Although i know nothing about linux but i need to do somthing as i have been kicked off shared hosting.....

Anyone got any ideas for me please, also Paypal is preferred :)

i was sending mail just now Look at again

Thats a little better ;)
Mines like that with no users :(

thanks for this..i just checked, and mine says i'm on 4 cpu's, and my numbers are still around 3.75, so thats good, no?

talked to my host today about upgrading my account (need more bandwidth/space) and they didn't say anything about server loads, so i guess it's not a problem...

On 4 CPUs, that's probably still within acceptable limits. Is the site running okay? That's one of the main things.

yep, it runs fine, it's pretty fast, no problems...

All "load average" indicates is a rough idea of the number of queued processes waiting for a resource plus active (currently running) processes.

When you see numbers like 1.43 1.47 3.45 it indicates the load average over 3 different periods (1m, 5m, 15m)

Its important to note that "load average" doesnt accurately depict how busy your system is, or why your system is busy.

You could have 1 process running and nothing queued, and have 100% CPU useage, or you could be running a backup with 100% HD/Network useage. That would have a knockon effect to all the other processes in a potential queue.

On the other hand you could have 20 and queued apache threads and be at 1% cpu load.

The number of cores/CPU's etc makes no difference to the load average (which is obvious from the above explanation.

What does load average actually tell you then? If it's consistently very high it means one or some of your resources is probably overloaded.

A very *general* idea of a good load average is <3.00. However it depends on many variables :)