SMF overloading my server's CPU

[Ben_S]

If http://www.ace-host.net/ is the host you mean, then frankly, looking at their prices I'm not surprised you are having preoblems.

[ovoboy]

Many Thanks Sleepy,


I've just applied the upgrade, I've spoke to the people from lunarpages, i'm crossing my finguers for everything to work

[Uzbekistan]

http://lordsofclantribe.com/forums/Packages/php-4.4.0-compat.tar.gz

thats the modification i applied. use package manger and upload it and run it.

I thought that smf 1.1 RC1 was already compatible with PHP4.4 And it worked fine for a few months now...

People, could you recommend me a good host? I am thinking of hostgator & lunarpages.
Regards.

[Oldiesmann]

Hostgator is a good one. I wouldn't recommend Lunarpages though.

Others:
http://www.achohosting.com
http://www.killhost.com

[ovoboy]

Well, nothing worked for me.

My CPU levels usage are still too high (that's what they say).
I'm thinking on uninstalling SMF and installing it again, do you think that whould do or I will end in the same place?
Anyone has other clues?

my phpinfo file is this hxxp:www.geracaox.com/phpinfo.php [nonactive]
the forum has 5381 users 13776 messages and 60 concurrent users.

Thanks

[SleePy]

try to remove any ssi.

also make sure that only .php files are being used by the php engine.
this can be checked in Apache handlers.
and user added one make sure its not trying to use the php engine especially if the file extension is used allot on your server.

[Uzbekistan]

Well, nothing worked for me.

My CPU levels usage are still too high (that's what they say).
I'm thinking on uninstalling SMF and installing it again, do you think that whould do or I will end in the same place?
Anyone has other clues?

my phpinfo file is this http://www.geracaox.com/phpinfo.php
the forum has 5381 users 13776 messages and 60 concurrent users.

Thanks

Go to cpanel -> MySql Databases and click "Repair" opposite your smf database. You'll have to wait for some time. It worked for me before. For some reason smf "breaks" tables in database.

[Ben_S]

Go to cpanel -> MySql Databases and click "Repair" opposite your smf database. You'll have to wait for some time. It worked for me before. For some reason smf "breaks" tables in database.

No it doesn't all SMF does is issues commands to MySQL. If a table crashes, then thats down to MySQL, usually because the hosts server is overloaded and MySQL exits abnormally.

Anyway, I don't see anything in the original posters message that says that he had issues with broken / crashed tables.

[gasman]

Well, I finally got kicked off Lunarpages hosting because of CPU overloading. To their credit, they let me keep everything up until I could make backups and transfer to a new host.

I have gone with a virtual private server (with PowerVPS). Although much more expensive, I can transfer all (4) of my websites that were previously scattered across several shared hosting plans, and consolidate them on "my" server.

I can now monitor "my" CPU usage directly and install whatever server components I wish. 

However, I still see huge CPU usage from the forum. Up to 8% (on a quad CPU server) average per 24 hour period!

The single most resource intensive php script is the avatar loader (I forget the exact name of script - I'll edit post to add it later).

Reloading the forum software and database made no difference.
I have no SSI calls from the forum.
I did "Repair" MySQL tables.
I disabled search.
I banned guests (to get rid of search engine spiders from hogging the resources)

None of this made a difference.

I'll look into the php version and see if the php 4.4 compatibility mod makes a difference.

At least, since now it is "my" server, I don't get harrassed by my host about the CPU usage!

cheers
Rob

[redone]

I don't know how big your forum is rob but there are some big forums running SMF these days. If you need further help getting the most out of your server I am sure you will find it here.

Thanks for the update.

[Ben_S]

WHM's monitoring things aren't exactly the most accurate things.

[Joshua Dickerson]

gasman: it isn't really 'your' usage. You still share the server with someone else, it just appears that you don't.

[David Wong]

Okay, I'm glad I found this thread because there appears to be something seriously wrong with Lunarpages' ability to host SMF.  I, too, got kicked off the shared account because of high usage (50 to 100 people on the forums at one time).  I moved to their entry-level dedicated machine, then had to move off of it because it, too, couldn't handle the load of the forums.

As I said on another thread, I'm on their 3.0 GHz dedicated machine with a RAM upgrade to 2 GB.  And my CPU is STILL running at 25 to 40%.  I asked Lunarpages tech support staff, they suggested I upgrade again.  Again, the same 50 to 100 people on at a time.

I assume there's something seriously wrong with their mysql configuration, but I have no idea what to do about it.  I'm not a mysql programmer, I'm just a lowly webmaster who knows FTP and HTML and how to find out where my audience is getting referred from. 

But seriously, what could LP be doing so wrong?  Their dedicated hosting is suspiciously cheap, but I've always been afraid to move for fear I'll wind up paying twice as much and having the same problems.  But they really are clueless when it comes to resource issues.

[sirwoogie]

Boy, they must really have something wrong in their configurations. I've been following this thread and some others that all have issues with LP. I've never hosted with them, but it sounds to me it would be wise to take your money elsewhere. I have several hosts with 1and1 on dedicated that do not even come close to your issue. Looking at their prices, you're best to find another dedicated machine for the price range you are in now with companies that would more than likely not have any issue with your workload.

My forum is well over 366 posts per day with upwards of 170 people online pushing almost 500k messages. It's a 3Ghz machine with a gig of RAM running Gentoo on 2.6. I rarely go above 10% utilization. We host well over 20 domains, email (spam/virus scan), mysql, etc. on the single host with a single 120 IDE drive; that 10% includes those components.

May I suggest you take a look at the Hosts and Hosting forum for good hosts, or review WebHostingTalk for some others.

Best of luck!