Seeking Solution for High Server Loads on a Dedicated Server, WebHost Blames it on vBSEO

Hi

Well, i recently made a shift from VPS server to a Dedicated Server as my website was eating into resources allotted to others. They put the blame on vbseo.php. But to be frank, my website was lightening fast of the VPS server with a homepage page load time between .50 to 1.25 secs. But since making the move to the dedicated server with better hardware configuration, the website is visibly slower than the VPS server. Again the blame has been squarely put on vbseo.php... i have told him that vbseo is going to stay on the server come what may...

I seek an expert advice from vbSEO Team as to what can i do to put a check on high server loads:

The following is the information that may help you in having an idea of the situation.

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PHP Info
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phpinfo()


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Dedicated Server Specs:
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Processor Information

Total processors: 2

Processor #1

Vendor
AuthenticAMD

Name
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+

Speed
2104.673 MHz

Cache
512 KB

Processor #2

Vendor
AuthenticAMD

Name
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+

Speed
2104.673 MHz

Cache
512 KB

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Memory Information
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Memory for crash kernel (0x0 to 0x0) notwithin permissible range
Memory: 4030664k/4718592k available (2547k kernel code, 145072k reserved, 1289k data, 208k init)

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System Information
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Linux dedicated.**********.*** 2.6.18-164.el5 #1 SMP Thu Sep 3 03:28:30 EDT 2009 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

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Physical Disks
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SCSI device sda: 156250000 512-byte hdwr sectors (80000 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
SCSI device sda: 156250000 512-byte hdwr sectors (80000 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
SCSI device sda: drive cache: write back
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sda
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0


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Current Memory Usage
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total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4034116 3831460 202656 0 163356 3062704
-/+ buffers/cache: 605400 3428716
Swap: 2031608 100 2031508
Total: 6065724 3831560 2234164


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Current Disk Usage
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Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 71G 29G 39G 43% /
/dev/sda1 99M 25M 69M 27% /boot
tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /dev/shm
/usr/tmpDSK 2.0G 35M 1.8G 2% /tmp

vbseo.php is a wrapper file. Nearly ALL requests will flow through it.

You can try a few
vBSEO Optimization Tips - vBulletin SEO Forums

Installing a cache like xcache will help
Using php as a DSO instead of cgi is usually good for doubling the speed of a site as well.
And of course, off load all the static file requests to a CDN

Thanks!

Using php as a DSO instead of cgi is usually good for doubling the speed of a site as well.

How to go about doing it? Please advice!

And of course, off load all the static file requests to a CDN

How to go about doing it? Please advice!

Installing a cache like xcache will help

xCache is now installed!

What according to you makes for an ideal configuration in php.ini for xcache?

The following is what i copy pasted from another website:

zend_extension="/usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/xcache.so"
[xcache.admin]
xcache.admin.auth = off
xcache.admin.enable_auth = off

; admin installation: InstallAdministration
xcache.admin.user = "admin username" ;if you're going to use this
xcache.admin.pass = "md5 hash of your password" ;change accordingly

[xcache]
xcache.shm_scheme = "mmap"
; to disable: xcache.size=0
; to enable : xcache.size=64M etc (any size > 0) and your system mmap allows
xcache.size = 128M
; set to cpu count (cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep -c processor)
xcache.count = 4
; just a hash hints, you can always store count(items) > slots
xcache.slots = 8K
; ttl of the cache item, 0=forever
xcache.ttl = 13300
xcache.cacher = On
; interval of gc scanning expired items, 0=no scan, other values is in seconds
xcache.gc_interval = 0

; same as aboves but for variable cache
xcache.var_size = 2M
xcache.var_count = 2
xcache.var_slots = 1K
; default ttl
xcache.var_ttl = 3600
xcache.var_maxttl = 7200
xcache.var_gc_interval = 300

xcache.test = Off
; N/A for /dev/zero
xcache.readonly_protection = Off
; for *nix, xcache.mmap_path is a file path, not directory.
; Use something like "/tmp/xcache" if you want to turn on ReadonlyProtection
; 2 group of php won't share the same /tmp/xcache
; for win32, xcache.mmap_path=anonymous map name, not file path
xcache.mmap_path = "/dev/zero"

; leave it blank(disabled) or "/tmp/phpcore/"
; make sure it's writable by php (without checking open_basedir)
xcache.coredump_directory = ""

; per request settings
xcache.cacher = On
xcache.stat = On
xcache.optimizer = Off

[xcache.coverager]
; per request settings
; enable coverage data collecting for xcache.coveragedump_directory and xcache_coverager_start/stop/get/clean() functions (will hurt executing performance)
xcache.coverager = Off

Regarding on your How To Questions you must search Google and other Search Engines for articles.

Ok!

Is vbseo.com running on dso or cgi setup?

Is there any thread which outlines an ideal server configuration? i could not find any.

Thanx

Hello Aman ,

vBSEO is using php as apache module

Thanks Mert!

In a layman's language, vbseo.com is using DSO, right?

Well, i just googled on this topic of whether DSO or suPHP or CGI...

Majority of links have suggested that DSO is a faster of the option as a php 5 handler but it is less secured as all the processes are run as 'nobody' as we never know which process is being run by whom. I think this could be problem in case of shared servers. Well, i have a dedicated server, should there any issues with all processes running as 'nobody'? I am the only one using the server. And should Apache suEXEC be set to 'on' in case i switch to DSO?

And what is vbseo.com using to secure the server.

Thank you so much for your help and patience. Once i hear from you, will move towards switching the handler to DSO.

Regards

Right, on a shared server, cgi is almost required.
If you have your own box, which you do, running dso is perfectly fine.

you'll need to rebuild apache/php with it. If you use a tool like easy apache in cpanel, there's options to use php as cgi.


I've ahd my personal server on dso for 8 years and never have had a security issue because of it.

Wow! Changing to DSO seems to have done wonders to my forum!! I also installed latest version of xCache and results are quite encouraging! Thanks for the help!

I will keep this thread updated frequently for anybody facing these issues.

Regards