Since Saturday I have been experiencing intermittent (frequent) server overload issues. I have been hosted on Dreamhost for over two years and have generally enjoyed the experience. In the past few months the traffic coming into two of my website specifically (teeth.com.pk and bloggers.pk) had gone overboard of normal shared hosting plans and was compelled to move into a virtual dedicated host (the affordable version of dedicated host). The hosts was definitely understanding since December, bearing with me until I finally decided to take the plunge and then last Wednesday (19th March) the ported me over to their Private Servers from which I was generally satisfied with the results.
But on Saturday (22nd March) Dreamhost underwent a scheduled maintenance downtime where, they did a 12 hour server move to a supposedly more stable architecture, sadly since the 22nd I have been facing server blues and my website has in turn hit a major road block. The CPU loads are astronomical hovering around 1300 MHz while RAM usage is lower closer to 500MB (graphical charts attached). It has nothing to do with the incoming traffic as it is almost 50% of normal loads. While a week long CPU usage chart shows that my woes did indeed start from the 22nd after the server move.
A careful inspection of the processes running on the server by utilizing the TOP command in the Shell access show a sudden increase of a process initiated executing a command ‘apache2-teeth-h‘. I have shot a few support tickets out to the host only getting one response as quoted below
I just checked your CPU and memory graphs and you do show a lot of usage. Unfortunately DreamHost can not identify the causes of the increased load and usage for you. We can only recommend that you review the CPU resources wiki article here:
Because the CPU resources output only shows the ftp user and not the individual files using all the CPU cycles then you will want to create a new ftp user for the different websites and applications you are running. This way you can then look at the CPU reports for the different ftp users and see which ones are using more CPU resources then others which will tell you which application is the problem.
I assume this mambo jambo means that the problem is due to some script on my site, and to specifically identify the offending website I would better be served if I were to separate the multiple websites to different users hence allowing us to troubleshoot. On careful investigation I cant seem to pinpoint anything. My argument could be [and is], if it were actually a process being run by my account (user:drawab) then it should actually show up as my process, and not as it appears for dhapache. In all honestly I have requested help from the hosts and they are slow in responding so I turn to the masses for any guidance and assistance to help me figure out the issue or explain to me what does dhpache actually do, as I am utterly lost. I sincerely hope to have things resolved soon but until then please expect some serious downtime.
Comments
13 responses to “Server issues – Downtime expected”
Congrads on all the traffic. You’ve got a great blog with aspects we don’t get to read about usually in Canada. We posted you’re link on our site. All the best from the Great White North and keep up the blogging.
http://www.waittimes.blogspot.com
take a hint from this and i highly recommend moving to 1and1.com
check this out. http://warrenellis.com/?p=5740
If you know how to manage a VPS, get a server at VPSlink.com. Dreamhost private servers are no better than their shared hosting. In theory, a wordpress blog should take 10 times the number of hits you might be getting (judging from your Alexa ranking) without a problem.
Time to shift to MediaTemple…
Umm, why do you have 2 dozen instances of apache running at once? (I’m assuming apache2-teeth-h is apache)
Even if you host more than one website, a single apache instance should be able to handle that.
I think the problem is something is causing lots of apache instances to launch, which fills up your RAM. Once there’s no more RAM, the CPU is maxed out with all the apaches trying (and failing) to allocate more memory. Of course I’m just making assumptions from incomplete data.
My two recommendations:
http://www.mediatemple.net/webhosting/gs/
http://www.site5.com/
I also had a dreamhost account back in the dark ages, and didn’t like them. Even today, their interface is really dated, while hosts like the above have really spiffy user interfaces with usable design and help, dreamhost still feels like Windows 3.11. And support is a bit slow there…
suggest medialayer.net
or go look at webhostingtalk.com
Thanks guys – I think I might indeed have to move. But I’m still on the hunt for a reliable host – need unlimited domains (coz i already have over 35 hosted here). For the sake of running Bloggers.pk I would also need Shell access as it runs under python 2.4 environment. rest I assume is also easy to port over. Any suggestions
Site5 has practically unlimited sites, and does it a lot better than Dreamhost.
As I said earlier, run a VPS using Plesk and you can run as many as you want. The VPS would cost you around $50-70 a month which is expensive compared to $5 dreamhost hosting.
also run a rootkit – you’re scripts may have compromised your server.
1and1 has a whole bunch of packages. i would highly recommend them. i personally use their business package. you can read more about the packages they offer here.
http://tinyurl.com/2vg7qd
hi this is good