What Godaddy's "Expert Hands" team told me...

Started by trekkie2444, March 04, 2012, 03:58:01 PM

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trekkie2444

"Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting Expert Hands regarding an Apache Optimization on your 'e-p1' Virtual Dedicated Server.

I have optimized Apache as well as MySQL on your server. Though this may help reduce the overall resource consumption, it is not a guaranteed fix for all resource issues. In optimizing MySQL I found the following:

Load on the server is high partly due to unoptimized database queries. During the review of your server I found that the MySQL server had been running for 3 days and 12 hours. During this time it processed 7,589,346 queries. The MySQL runtime information from withing phpMyAdmin shows the following statistics that indicate an issue with queries being run on the server.

/*Snip*/
Handler_read_rnd     17 M     The number of requests to read a row based on a fixed position. This is high if you are doing a lot of queries that require sorting of the result. You probably have a lot of queries that require MySQL to scan whole tables or you have joins that don't use keys properly.
/*Snip*/

/*Snip*/
Handler_read_rnd_next     1,720 M     The number of requests to read the next row in the data file. This is high if you are doing a lot of table scans. Generally this suggests that your tables are not properly indexed or that your queries are not written to take advantage of the indexes you have.
/*Snip*/

This is probably the most telling statistic applicable. This means that a large number of queries are scanning entire database tables to find the value needed (i.e. SELECT *) when a properly written query would use an index to go straight to the value and read only that one row instead of the entire database table. The reason these queries take so long to complete, and therefore site pages load slowly, is that if a database table has 10,000 total rows, which is a conservative estimate for many database designs then 10,000 rows will need to be evaluated instead of a single row for a properly indexed query. This means that the data will have been retrieved approximately 10,000 times quicker with the indexes. Fixing this would require that you verify you have created indexes in your database tables then rewrite the database queries in your website scripts to use those indexes.

/*Snip*/
Select_full_join     477k    The number of joins that do not use indexes. If this value is not 0, you should carefully check the indexes of your tables.
/*Snip*/

This means there are queries in the site which are joining two full table scans together. This can be extremely slow because it results in a multiplication of the total number of rows. As an example, joining two full tables containing 10,000 rows each would result in a total of 100,000,000 values to be scanned in order to retrieve the value that the query is seeking. To ensure optimal performance you should ensure that all database queries use indexes and never join full tables.

As we are not familiar with how you've built and designed your websites to function we are unable to provide assistance with troubleshooting the code in order to optimize the queries. Your website developer would be the most qualified person to contact in regards to optimizing the database queries in your sites and improving the websites' overall performance.

In regards to the CPU consumption of Apache on your server, I monitored which files were being opened by Apache. The most common files that I say being opened during my review were the following:

/home/onerinconhill/public_html/Sources/PortalBlocks.php
/home/onerinconhill/public_html/Sources/QueryString.php
/home/onerinconhill/public_html/SSI.php
/home/onerinconhill/public_html/Sources/Subs.php


A review of all access logs for the website shows that the following 10 pages have been requested most frequently.

   1331 75.69.210.3 "GET /.xml/?type=rss
   1113 213.115.153.50 "GET /Themes/default/scripts/portal.js?233
   1113 213.115.153.50 "GET /Themes/Flagrantly/scripts/theme.js?rc5
   1113 213.115.153.50 "GET /Themes/Flagrantly/css/index.css?rc5
   1112 213.115.153.50 "GET /Themes/default/scripts/script.js?rc5
   1111 213.115.153.50 "GET /index.php?action=dlattach;attach=1581;type=avatar
   1106 98.227.64.63 "GET /Themes/default/scripts/script.js?rc5
   1104 98.227.64.63 "GET /Themes/Flagrantly/scripts/theme.js?rc5
   1096 98.227.64.63 "GET /Themes/default/scripts/portal.js?233
   1093 98.227.64.63 "GET /Themes/Flagrantly/css/index.css?rc5


Please contact us if you have any further questions.

Regards,
Jon W.
Expert Hands"

Total bull or is there something I should actually be doing to fix this?


Roph

Godaddy are experts at massively overselling - a technique of selling more than you can provide, or more than actually exists. You are fighting for server resources with many, many more users than the server should realistically be able to support comfortably, so you will encounter problems.

You're best off looking for another host.

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

It's not complete bull, but it is very generic info based on mysql statistics - info that generally does not help much, or mean much, with SMF.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

trekkie2444

Is there anything I can do based on what they told me?

Illori

usually not, godaddy is known for telling users there are problems and pushing them to upgrade to a bigger/better server they dont need.

trekkie2444

I realize this, but if I have no concrete evidence that they are doing this and everything I am running is optimal and as it should, I can't get them to change it, so can you guys give me some stuff to say to them?

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Things you can do are basically limited to settings changes, review of mods you use, and so on.

Are they trying to convince you to upgrade your hosting, or were they looking at things on the server from your request, or is this something else?
Are you having performance issues? What version of SMF are you running? Are there many mods installed?
Have you taken a look at Twenty-four things you can do to make SMF go faster (Updated June 16th, 2010)?
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

trekkie2444

I'm running SMF 2.0.1, and they keep telling me to upgrade to a dedicated server. I have an average system load for 1 minute of 2 seconds, which doesn't sound like a lot, but I get so slow of page loading it might as well be overloaded. And yes, I've checked out that link before and followed some of the suggestions on it. Here are the mods that I'm using:

1.   Google Analytics Code    1.4     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
2.   Related Topics    1.4     [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
3.   AutoKeywords    1.4     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
4.   Ad Managment    3.0.1     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
5.   WYSIWYG Quick Reply    2.3     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
6.   Ignore User Button    1.0     [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
7.   Facebook_Like v.2.0    2.0     [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
8.   H1 Tags in link tree    1.1     [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
9.   ResizeImagesToFitScreen    0.1.6     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
10.   Treasury    2.10     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
11.   VB Style Board Index    1.7     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
12.   RSS Feed Icon    1.1     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
13.   FAQ Mod    1.2   [ Install Mod ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
14.   Pretty URLs    1.0RC5.2     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
15.   Board Notes    1.0.8     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
16.   Aeva Media    1.4w     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
17.   6 Custom buttons / tabs with Sub Menus (4)    0.5     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
18.   SimplePortal    2.3.3     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
19.   Users Online Today    2.0     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
20.   Adk topic button    1.0     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
21.   Google Member Map    2.0.8     [ List Files ] [ Delete ]
22.   Most Popular Topic Today    2.1     [ Uninstall ] [ List Files ] [ Delete ]

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

There are many mods there that might contribute towards serverload, and cause extra queries to the db.

I can easily imagine at least Related topics, autokeywords, resizeimagestofitscreen, pretty URLs, aeva media, simpleportal (and plugins), users online today and most popular topic today to be doing this. Specially pretty URLs and some simpleportal plugins (if you have any shoutboxes etc, these definitely).
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

trekkie2444

I doubt that these mods are contributing to my server slowness though. On any other host I'd be able to run far more than this without any issues. I'm not going to get rid of my mods to fix it, because that's not going to even fix the issue. What I need is something to tell them why they are wrong.

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

#11
I don't want to be the bearer of bad news - but you won't find much if anything useful to say to them.
If they claim you have "outgrown" your hosting package, there is very little you can do except change hosts, because most of their TOS is defined as being
"as determined by Go Daddy in its sole and absolute discretion" or similar, where you basically accept that you have no way to dispute their claim..

Quote
Go Daddy expressly reserves the right to deny, cancel, terminate, suspend, lock, or modify access to (or control of) any Account or Services (including the right to cancel or transfer any domain name registration) for any reason (as determined by Go Daddy in its sole and absolute discretion), including but not limited to the following: (i) to correct mistakes made by Go Daddy in offering or delivering any Services (including any domain name registration), (ii) to protect the integrity and stability of, and correct mistakes made by, any domain name registry, (iii) to assist with our fraud and abuse detection and prevention efforts, (iv) to comply with applicable local, state, national and international laws, rules and regulations, (v) to comply with requests of law enforcement, including subpoena requests, (vi) to comply with any dispute resolution process, (vii) to defend any legal action or threatened legal action without consideration for whether such legal action or threatened legal action is eventually determined to be with or without merit, or (viii) to avoid any civil or criminal liability on the part of Go Daddy, its officers, directors, employees and agents, as well as Go Daddy's affiliates.

Go Daddy expressly reserves the right to review every Account for excessive space and bandwidth utilization, and to terminate or apply additional fees to those Accounts that exceed allowed levels.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

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