Question about Memory/Server Load

[Kaelon]

Hi, Gang, I have a technical question and I was hoping you could help me.

I've been running vPortal (www.sforums.com), which is a PHPnuke-vBulletin integration scheme on my dedicated server, which has about 196 megs of RAM, on a P2. My system has been running out of memory at about 80 simultaneous users.

Here are some system statistics around peak time. "alleria" is the authorized account on my dedicated server to access httpd processes.

last pid: 403; load averages: 3.22, 2.80, 1.63 up 0+00:15:43 16:49:15
61 processes: 3 running, 57 sleeping, 1 zombie
CPU states: 73.2% user, 0.0% nice, 3.1% system, 2.3% interrupt, 21.4% idle
Mem: 91M Active, 5336K Inact, 17M Wired, 4220K Cache, 8344K Buf, 66M Free
Swap: 400M Total, 704K Used, 399M Free

PID USERNAME PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU CPU COMMAND
224 mysql 52 0 16308K 6980K RUN 1:31 10.74% 10.74% mysqld
301 alleria 2 0 6564K 5644K accept 0:31 5.47% 5.47% httpd
299 alleria 2 0 6292K 5396K accept 0:29 5.42% 5.42% httpd
302 alleria 2 0 10136K 8780K accept 0:29 4.93% 4.93% httpd
257 alleria 2 0 8184K 7224K accept 0:29 4.74% 4.74% httpd
250 alleria 2 0 8056K 7148K accept 0:28 4.59% 4.59% httpd
314 alleria 45 0 6708K 5660K RUN 0:31 4.39% 4.39% httpd
290 alleria 2 0 8768K 7616K sbwait 0:24 4.20% 4.20% httpd
303 alleria 2 0 6616K 5688K accept 0:27 4.15% 4.15% httpd
251 alleria 2 0 8088K 7172K sbwait 0:28 4.10% 4.10% httpd
313 alleria 2 0 8080K 7116K accept 0:26 4.00% 4.00% httpd
252 alleria 2 0 8048K 7128K accept 0:27 3.91% 3.91% httpd
300 alleria 2 0 8764K 7500K sbwait 0:32 3.71% 3.71% httpd
258 alleria 2 0 8168K 7200K sbwait 0:26 3.27% 3.27% httpd
259 root 2 0 1026M 2100K select 0:05 0.00% 0.00% rmserver
256 alleria 2 0 6152K 5168K sbwait 0:01 0.00% 0.00% httpd
215 root 2 0 1680K 740K select 0:01 0.00% 0.00% sshd
253 root 2 0 1032M 4836K select 0:01 0.00% 0.00% rmserver

bash-2.02$ vmstat 1 11
procs memory page disks faults cpu
r b w avm fre flt re pi po fr sr wd0 wd1 fd0 in sy cs us sy id
2 0 0 1155920 69132 188 0 1 0 163 134 0 0 0 1458 2274 190 61 18 21
1 0 0 1156184 68944 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 242 6664 254 91 9 0
7 0 0 1154632 70072 76 0 0 0 355 0 0 0 0 289 436 54 40 4 56
2 0 0 1155864 69124 285 0 0 0 45 0 0 0 0 240 1182 62 91 9 0
0 0 0 1156060 68980 49 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 239 5902 231 87 3 10
5 0 0 1154244 70296 3 0 0 0 329 0 0 0 0 290 2023 99 78 5 17
1 0 0 1154112 70400 39 0 0 0 62 0 0 0 0 241 1478 84 95 5 0
0 0 0 1154112 70400 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 251 3944 152 51 4 45
5 0 0 1154628 69952 149 0 0 0 36 0 0 0 0 283 500 56 69 5 26
2 0 0 1155760 68752 303 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 237 4346 186 91 9 0
6 0 0 1154600 69552 199 0 0 0 396 0 11 0 0 444 1726 80 64 6 30

One of my dedicated server technicians mentions that there might be a memory leak. Another technician is recommending a hardware upgrade.

If there is a memory leak, is this due to vBulletin itself? Or is it likely due to something else, like the PHPnuke integration done by vPortals?

And, separately, what type of server are all of you running vBulletin on? I noticed that vBulletin.org managed to hit over 400 simultaneous users - that's probably the type of activity that my web site (an RPG game) would be getting.

Thanks for your advice. I really appreciate it.

Kaelon

[TECK]

i know for a fact that vPortals load your server to the extreme with queries. that affects your server performance, in some cases it could also crash it. the regular no. of queries vBulletin loads is 17.
if you get over 40 queries, your server start to dance macarena, instead of tango. so is up to you now. i personally dont use any of the portals for that reason and i do not recommend to any of my clients to use them also.
try to reduce as much as you can the number of queries, to bring it under 40, ideal is 30.

regards,
nakkid.

[Kaelon]

Thanks, Nakkid.

I didn't realize that vPortals caused that much of a strain on the server. So, you recommend that instead I should go with a pure version of vBulletin (2.2.4), and use standard PHP pages with some basic integration hacks to get my data across?

Thanks once again.

Regards,
Juan

[TECK]

yes.
don't forget, that's my personal oppinion. good luck with your site.
btw, just to show you that i'm not crazy, look how many queries sforums.com run on the main page only, forget about the forums.
it show a freaky number of 43 queries. that says it all.
see it for yourself:

[Kaelon]

Thanks, Nakkid. It certainly makes sense. How did you run that? Could I run something like that on my web site to see the number of queries I'm generating?

Thanks again.

Kaelon

[TECK]

double post. sorry. DAMN IE6

[TECK]

the best way to see the stats on your site is to install my vbMicroStats. you will see everything you need related to your performance, in very single page on your forums.

this hack was also installed here at vB.org. here it is an example:
[high]{genininfo}[/high]

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...threadid=35811

regards,
nakkid.

[Kaelon]

Thanks for the help.

My dedicated server's technicians have informed me that they think I need a memory upgrade. Does it make sense that vBulletin, or even vPortals, would use an excess of 196 megs of RAM?

What hardware are the rest of you using? I'm looking to support around 400 simultaneous users (much like vbulletin.org) since that's the sort of traffic I get. =)

Thanks,
Kaelon

[Bubba]

Originally posted by Kaelon
What hardware are the rest of you using? I'm looking to support around 400 simultaneous users (much like vbulletin.org) since that's the sort of traffic I get. =)

While I don't get 400 simultaneous users, I'm running a site that's loosely integrated with Vbulletin and generates on average 15 queries per page.

On my P3-700 w/ 512M of ram I get system loads of about .30 - .60 for ~75 simultaneous users. I even tried some php byte code cachers to reduce the compilation overhead but it didn't have the effect I was hoping.

[Erwin]

I used to run vBPortal, and it created over 200 queries on the index page alone. Try another portal program. TECK's vBHome is good and not server intensive.