Just wanna bounce off you (again) the idea of VPS administration .. should we need to go that route.

I'd rather stay shared, due mainly to price ($100/yr vs $500). But LP keeps telling me I need VPS.

Could always move to a *different* host (been there, done that) .. but what if we raise flags there too?

No idea what VPS admin involves, and would prefer continuing my foray into learning CSS design. (Then maybe PHP.)

If I have to learn VPS admin, I'd imagine it could get involved. Of course I would *like* to learn VPS admin .. but when I *want* to .. not cuz I *have* to. =/

Is there a chance it could become too much 4 you to handle?

Everything server-related these days seemed to be Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL/Perl-based scripts.

What about Apache? You up on that, too? Seems like a black art to me.

I was hoping that forwarding the old YaBB 1.4 forum and upgrading Y2.1 to Y2.2 would drop CPU.

Now they tell me I'm hogging memory. BTW here is comparison of Perl flat-file vs PHP/MySQL dynamic-based scripts. Written by the guy who leads YaBB, so I doubt he's unbiased, but interesting nonetheless.

http://www.yabbisback.com/media/YaBB_Versus.pdf

They also cited the TrackBack script in Movable Type .. tho not which *version* of MT, as I have both 2.63 and 3.35 installed.

The 2.63 version has way more blog entries (360), and I read somewhere about TB abuses with those early versions. So I'd gues that the culprit.

I also have an anti-TrackBack abuse plug-in installed in v3.35, so that another reason why I suspect 2.63.

I think I can go in and simply disable all trackbacks in 2.63 with a single click.

Anyway, I'm trying to feel things out should we be persuaded to go VPS.

On another note, I'd also expect a VPS-based server to respond more quickly. No? Certainly not more slugishly.

With less # of sites allowed on the server .. altho these should all be BUSY sites .. or they wouldn't be there in the first place. Right?

Rad

PS Sorry again about the part of that thread you lost. I've only heard of two such losses since we first launched YaBB, years ago. Doesn't mean there haven't been more, only that I've only heard of two. Wish I knew what happened and how to prevent.

Yeah, sucks we lost those posts.  It was one of the higher quality discussions Pleo and I have had.  Only way to prevent it would probably be to take database backups every week or two.  Then you could dig most of the thread out of the backup and rejoin it.  

I'm not afraid of a vps server.  I'm pretty comfortable with Apache.  It's actually pretty straight-forward once you get familiar with the configuration file.  As far as how much work I would have to do - Linux servers don't require much work once they are set up.  It would take me a little bit to set it up, but then I would just have to check on it occasionally and do upgrades if you needed it.  The only thing would be I'd have to be quick if it broke, but it really shouldn't break often if its set up right and secured properly.

I also have experience with Perl, PHP, MySQL, and all their tie-in's to Apache, so I really wouldn't have to learn much.  I could help you learn it if you want at some point later.  I actually find myself in the opposite shoes you are in - I'd like to learn to code better HTML (I'm terrible with standards) and learn CSS.  Right now I know just enough to tweak templates that are provided to me, but I couldn't really build it from scratch.  Unfortunately, its important to my career that I delve deeper into system administration and learn the internals of Unix right now, so there isn't time for web coding in my academic schedule.  So, I understand where you're at.  

As far as load, I'd expect a shared server to be faster.  You are paying more, so they should give you a much bigger share of the server.  If not, it seems a pretty raw deal.  Not that we've had any problems with performance since we moved to this particular server (that I'm aware of...?)

As far as the article on PHP vs. Perl, I don't really see any good benchmarks or scientific comparisons in that article.  While he is probably not impartial, I also don't think he is entirely wrong.  Both PHP and Perl have been essentially re-written in the last few years, and what I'm starting to find in poking around is that there isn't nearly the same differences between them that there used to be.  They still have their strengths, but those strengths have become more subtle.  Even if switching to PHP got you off the bad-boy list, it might not buy you much time.

I would say to disable those trackbacks.  Maybe try to find out what is causing the high memory usage and if there's anything we can do to help.  Threads in this forum tend to get very long compared to other forums - any thread Pleo joins is pretty much guranteed to go 5 pages  ;).  Maybe splitting some of the longest threads would help??  

Seems like your site should be able to fit into a shared setting, but maybe it has just simply grown past that.  I think we have a lot of lurkers on the forums these days gleaning technical tidbits, and your blog probably has grown in popularity with the variety of experiences you've shared over the last 2 years.  Do your site statistics show increased growth?  Last I looked you were over 1mil hits a month, which seems impressive for a personal site.  It's ironic that the most popular features like the Ghost Guide aren't really the troublemakers.  Something to be said for static HTML...

Quote:

..any thread Pleo joins is pretty much guranteed to go 5 pages.

Made me chuckle out loud.  :) I love Pleo. Very articulate. I especially like how he is able to present differing POVs in a respectful manner.

Well then, you are the man .. when it comes to VPS admin. ("I ain't scared of no stinkin' VPS.") I respect confidence.

I like how you say "once it's set up, it shouldn't take many man-hours to administrate." (paraphraing)

I will look into disabling trackbacks on MT 2.63.

I received another love-note from LP today, saying pretty much the same thing > how the site had reduced CPU usage, tho our memory consumption remained too high to move me back to "general population". (my phrasing)

On the subject of posts, I guess each thread gets it's own *.txt file. I had somehow (in my mind) thot each *page* got  its own own file. But not so, apparently. So those long (multi-page) threads get big file sizes.

I just got done transferring all threads/posts to the server from back-up I had downloaded.

Most files were 3-8 KB. But about 6 or 7 were up around 100 KB. Without exception, I had trouble x-ferring all those big files. I'd que up 50-or-so files,and if they were all small > no problem.

But if one was near 100KB, my FTP client would spit it out, and I'd have to x-fer it individually. Sometimes attempting more than once.

You'd think a server wouldn't care about file sizes, but my experience has been different.

So maybe we should (in the future) try to "split" threads longer than a certain size.

Again, I feel bad about losing those posts. I feel responsible.

Well, I definitely feel like you can handle the admin. (I'm impressed that you're not scared. :) )

The only other thing is their particular flavor of Linix. Are you comfortable with that?

And upgrades. Are you comfortable upgrading (should we need/want) to .. say, Linux, PHP, MySQL, etc.

On a related topic, what is your position on PHP4 vs PHP5? Or do you have one?

Anyway, whatever we do/decide, I appreciate your willingness to help.

http://www.lunarpages.com/virtual-private-server/

Rad


Quote:

I received another love-note from LP today, saying pretty much the same thing > how the site had reduced CPU usage, tho our memory consumption remained too high

I'm curious--what does that mean--*memory consumption*--I thought they were complaining about CPU usage--what functions of the forum or website *consume memory*--can't they tell you where that's coming from?

Test.

I take care of a few linux servers as part of my day job.  It's easy to be confident when I'm familiar with the task.  If I remember right, they said they would be installing CentOS 4.2 on the server, which is one of my favorite distros.  Its based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux source files, so it is very stable and I'm plenty familiar with it.

Upgrading PHP/MySQL/Perl shouldn't be any issue.  We would just have to make sure there aren't conflicting requirements in the apps you run.  MT and YaBB shouldn't cause any issues.  I don't know of any reasons not to start with the latest versions, tho, so you would be fine for a while after that.  I always use PHP 5 at home and I've never run into issues, but I could do some research to see if there is any reason to stick with 4.x for a little while longer on a production server              .

They don't really say. Here's the contents of their message.

Uh, I am having trouble posting the contents of their message. Erroring 403 Prohibited. So I'm posting in parts to see where the problem lies. Here's the first part.


Quote:

Hello, Thanks for your cooperation. After reviewing your account, it seems that your account usage is reduced but still not acceptable so we are not able to move your account back to the production server. We have to monitor your account for another 24 hours. Your account is still using high memory resources. If your account resources usage is acceptable then we will move your account back to our production server. Here is your resource usage for today:

Quote:

CPU usage: 1.14 Memory usage: 0.99 MySQL usage: 0.0

Okay, here is the part they don't like. I had to change the word P-E-R-L to "pearl" .. but you get it.


Quote:

radified.com Top Process %CPU 37.0 /usr/bin/pearl -- YaBB.pl Top Process %CPU 8.5 /usr/bin/pearl -- YaBB.pl Top Process %CPU 5.2 /usr/bin/pearl -- YaBB.pl

P-E-R-L is a skripting language, so that probably why LP flags (prohibits) it .. I'm guessing.

Notice how they say CPU usage in now okay, but that memory usage is the problem, yet give me breakdown stats for CPU usage, but no breakdown for memory .. just a global figure.

And their final comments.


Quote:

Please, upgrade all your addon(s) and audit all your scripts. We appreciate your attention to this important matter to ensure server security and stability. I hope this information is helpful.

Yes, you're correct > they install CentOS 4.2.

Glad to hear you like it.

Quote:

…any thread Pleo joins is pretty much guranteed to go 5 pages…

Thus the origin of the forum member name “Pleonasm,” defined as “The use of more words than are required to express an idea” . . .

:)

Just got this today:


Quote:

Hello, Your resource usage for memory on the server is currently at 1.42%. The allowed range is 1.0% or less we will need you to lower your memory on the server as this can become a potential risk to the shared community. If you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact our support team we will be more than happy to assist you further. Thank you.

Limiting you to 1% indicates they're putting AT LEAST 100 accts on each server .. cuz I'm sure there are plenty of sites which use less than 1%.

With VPS, I beleive they limit the number of accounts to 40, which would give everybody 2.5%

The kicker is .. I have no access to their stats. I'm mean they could be lying and how would I know? I mean, Radified is reasonably popular, tho I have no frame of reference.

Do you?

And *how* do they get this number? Cux, I'm sure this metric fluctuates. Lotsa questions. Can I see this metric myself, or do I simply have to believe them?

And why was it not a problem before .. when the forum had 273 people here?

I posed these questions at the YaBB forum:

http://www.yabbforum.com/community/YaBB.pl?num=1201486768

Here's the latest (Monday AM). Good news.


Quote:

Hello, Thanks for your cooperation. After reviewing your account it seems that your account usage is ok . We will again check your usage after 24 hours if usage is ok then we will move your account back to the production server. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask us, we will be happy to answer them. We are committed to making your hosting experiences pleasant and fulfilling. Thank you for contacting lunar pages support team.

Still, even if this latest usage report holds, we may, in the future, look to moving to a VPS acct, which gives us more control over things. Cost is the biggest deterrent ($8/mo vs $45). Also thanks to Magoo who has agreed to administrate, and even bring me up to speed on Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, etc.

Also, I deleted a krapload of files from old YaBB v2.1 (members + posts) and old YaBB v1.4 (again, both members + posts). They claim I can have 350 gigs, but in reality, they may not liked my acct having so many files. We're talking about the deletion of, say, 8- or 10K files .. *small* files, but files nonetheless.

I also put lots of Afiliate ads on my site, for Lunarpages .. not so much for the $60 I earn from someone joining LP via my site, but rather cuz LP is less likely to give me the boot if they're benefitting from my site advertising their hosting. I'm being realistic.

Upon further investigation, it appears TRACKBACKs are *not* enabled in MT 2.63 (the old version).

http://blog.radified.com/ (based on MT 2.63)

That would make TB's in MT 3.35 what they were talking about:

http://blogs.radified.com/ (based on MT 3.35)

TB spam/abuse is a common problem, and I've installed a plug-in to thwart such spammage.

It appears to be working, as I've yet to have any such problems, and can see in my admin console where bots from various IP addys have tried to spam my TB's (without success).

But these attempts by Trackback spammers must be what is generating CPU usage. Another possibility is that the anti-TB-spam plug-in I installed is poorly coded and therefore using excessive CPU cycles .. or even if it's WELL-coded.

Have you seen these search engine bots here?


Quote:

Search Engines: 50 Yahoo! Crawler (34), Googlebot (1), Yandex (1), Microsoft Live Search (14)

We've had up to 68 here today. Wonder what effect they have on resource usage.

Received this today:


Quote:

Dear Customer, After reviewing your account, it seem that you are still using excessive resources. Unfortunately, we would not be able to move off the temporary server at this time. Here is your resource usage for today: ----------------------------- | CPU usage: 2.89 | Memory usage: 0.84 | MySQL usage: 0.1 | | Top Process %CPU 30.0 [php] | Top Process %CPU 26.0 [php] | Top Process %CPU 24.0 [php] ----------------------------- The acceptable usage range for a shared environment accountis 1.0% average %CPU or less, 1.0% average %Memory or less and 0.3% average %MySQL or less. Please, continue optimization/updating of your PHP scripts to reduce the load average of your account. Let us know if you have any questions or concerns and we will gladly assist you. Thank you for your attention on this important matter.

This is very weird, cuz I do not use php. I mean, I would *like* to, and I have "Learn PHP" on my list of things to do .. but so far .. I haven't. I have *one* PHP page.

Rad

Isn't there a possible *intermediate* solution--such as paying a little more for two *units* of shared hosting to cover the extra usage?

And, shouldn't Lunarpages be able to use a similar program to *Task Manager* which can show which process or program is using the various CPU cycles--I don't know anything about *server* software--but seems like that tool should be available!  If they told you that, then you'd know where the problem(s) is/are.

Good question.

Just in - 2 emails:


Quote:

Dear Customer, We apologize for any inconvenieces caused. Looks like we sent stats for the wrong account to you. Here are your stats: ---------------------------- | CPU usage: 3.68 | Memory usage: 1.05 | MySQL usage: 0.0 | | Top Process %CPU 75.2 /usr/bin/peArl -- YaBB.pl | Top Process %CPU 65.3 /usr/bin/peArl -- YaBB.pl | Top Process %CPU 60.0 /usr/bin/peArl -- YaBB.pl ---------------------------- Please, continue optimization/updating of your peArl script to reduce the load average of your account. Let us know if you have any questions or concerns and we will gladly assist you. Thank you for your attention on this important matter.

and

[edit]Hello,

We apologize for the misinformation of the stats previously given to you. I have checked your correct stats on the server and have found that your site is above the allowed resource level. We will need you to review your account to help resolve this issue. you would need to review your account for scripts that may be the cause. Please check ones such as forums, blogs, content management systems, and galleries as these are especially likely to create high usage.

Please note that the acceptable usage range for shuttle and voyager plans is 1.0% average %CPU or less, 1.0% average %Memory or less, .5% mysql or less and Top Processes below 20%.

radified.com
cpu% 3.70
mem% 1.05
sql process 0.0
Top Process %CPU 75.2 /usr/bin/peArl -- YaBB.pl
Top Process %CPU 65.3 /usr/bin/peArl -- YaBB.pl
Top Process %CPU 60.0 /usr/bin/peArl -- YaBB.pl

If you should have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact our support team we will be happy to assist you further.[/edit]

Wow...
Our CPU usage trippled in a few days.  I do think those search bots have something to do with it.  Might just be because of the new forum - they have to get it all indexed now that they've found it...

The URLs of the "new" forum are same as those of old, so shouldn't look any different to search engines.

I'm sure the bots were here all along .. only now they are *identified* as bots.

I'm about out of tricks. VPS is looking more & more like a reality.

I like the idea. Only thing I don't like is the price. =/

Tho it seems like - with them saying we're at 3.3% - that even VPS (which allows 2.5%)  won't be enough.

Is VPS actually limited to 2.5, or is that what you are guessing based on the number of sites?  I'm sure the limit is higher than the average, since some sites use more than others.  Some people get a vps just to have the control.

Also, with VPS, we can track down exactly what is causing the CPU usage.  

I know of one more trick that might help - not sure if you already considered it.  You could add a robots.txt file to tell the search engines to stay away from the forum.  Obviously, it would keep the forum from getting indexed, which I'm sure you want, but you could see if it has any effect on resource usage.  If we can identify the problem, maybe we can figure out how to contain it or reduce it to a reasonable level.  I just think that since LP keeps complaining about Pe_rl usage and there are more search engines than users at any given moment, it might have a significant impact.

I'm pretty sure, tho not 100% positive it is 2.5% .. cuz they limit the # of accounts to 40 (100% / 40 = 2.5% each). I traded some mail with LP back in the day, when we were first thinking about VPS. 2.5% is what sticks in my mind.

Just in today


Quote:

Hello, I have checked that your account usage is suitable for shared hosting. Before moving your account back to the your original server we will monitor it for an additional 24hrs to be sure process continue to stay below their usage levels. Please reply to this ticket in 24hrs and we will continue with the move protocols. Thank you for reducing the usage.

Interesting... In one or two days, your CPU usage dropped by at least 70% from over 3% to under 1%.  Did they tell you what your usage was?  Are you just under 1%, or is there a little head room?  Obviously this has little to do with any plugins or particular forum software, since it changes daily even when you aren't making major modifications to the site.

No. You know what I know. Just got a follow-up that says I'm still below.

It all seems very strange to me.

I am still getting excessive usage notices.


Quote:

Dear Customer, I have posted your current stats, which seems to be a little bit high for cpu usage. Please contact our team to check your stats in 24hrs so that we can allow time for any updates. radified.com cpu% 3.29 mem% 0.91 sql processs 0.0 Top Process %CPU 59.6 /usr/bin/pearl -- YaBB.pl Top Process %CPU 34.0 /usr/bin/pearl -- YaBB.pl Top Process %CPU 0.9 httpd [ghost.radified.com] [/favicon.ico] If you should have any questions please do not hesitate to contact our support team we will be happy to assist you further.

Let's say, for sake of argument, we are headed for VPS.

Are there any stipulations I wanna make with Lunarpages?

Any configuration adjustments we wanna make?

We would have time to tweak O/S and "server" (being Virtal Private), so we could config *just* how we want, prior to the move (from stabilization server).

Do we want their OS ?? or do we want a different distro?? that you might be more comfortable with?

Any questions I should ask them?

Quote:

Top Process %CPU 0.9 httpd [ghost.radified.com] [/favicon.ico]

Your icon is one of your top processes??  That doesn't seem normal...

Cent 4.2 is perfect.  It is very stable, well documented, and easy to use.  It is rebranded Red Hat with no support contract.  The only thing that might be better is FreeBSD, but they wouldn't be able to put that on a VPS box.  Let's just stick with the standard so that it is easy for them to assist if we have questions.

My only concern is who is going to monitor the server.  I know we discussed it with them when we considered VPS several months ago, but I'd like to be clear on what they monitor and what they don't.  Do they monitor our VPS individually?  Will they check to make sure the website is working, or just the server itself?

Sent them a note saying what you said .. that it seems odd my icon is one of my top processes consuming CPU resources. Their response:


Quote:

Hello, First of all i advise you to please optimize your YaBB.pl script. Your current stats is given below as: cpu% 1.14 mem% 0.85 sql processs 0.0 radified.com Top Process %CPU 8.0 /usr/bin/peArl -- YaBB.pl Top Process %CPU 6.0 [YaBB.pl] Your account usages looks good and after 24 hours we will move your account back to production server. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask us, we will be happy to answer them. Please feel free to contact us for further help. We are committed to making your hosting experiences pleasant and fulfilling. Thank you for contacting lunar pages support team. Best Regards, XXX JSA II - System Administrator Lunarpages

Ummm, he kinda missed the point.  You've done a lot to try to optimize it already.  I'm sure if there was more you could do you'd be trying it.

The point was its is really strange for an icon to take up any kind of resources...

I noticed he didn't even mention the icon as a resource issue. I mean, it's just a (tiny) graphic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICO_%28icon_image_file_format%29

I use the international radiation tri-blade. It's just a static file serve, far as I can tell. (Probably violating some international law by using it ... most sites invert the symbol so it's upside down).

The folks at YaBB continue to work on the v2.2 release. It's obvious they released it b4 it was ready for primetime (wanting to release on the 2-year anniversary of the 2.1 release).

But I installed all patches released up to Jan 21. (.. which is WHY I waited 2 1/2 months after the offical release on Nov 8). And they have been busy-busy patching this release since then.

There are a dozen-or-so more fixes which have been released after Jan 21, which I could implement, but I'm going to wait until the official 2.21 release to grab all these patches.

I scanned a list of recent fixes,and none of them jumped out at me as ones we hadda have NOW:

http://www.yabbforum.com/community/YaBB.pl?board=y2bugsfixed

Heck, I even FOUND a bug myself, and submitted it (which they fixed):

http://www.yabbforum.com/community/YaBB.pl?num=1201133778

On second thought, I can't really tell, for sure, WHEN these patches have been released .. without more reserarch .. cuz only the LAST POST date is listed on the board .. and that doesn't really tell me anything.

But I heard they were releasing (up to) 3 patches a day, sometimes. (the max)

Regarding server monitoring, found this:


Quote:

Managed Lite - Managed Lite is available for Virtual Private servers. It starts at $9.99 per month and we will monitor your server 24/7/365.

and

Quote:

To assist our customer with running business critical services, we offer Managed Services addon. For an additional $9.99 per month you can have the following: * Up-to-date notifications of exploits on popular third party software * Monitoring of your VPS through Lunarpages' internal monitoring tools along with proactive reaction on service failures.

So, the answer looks like "No," they don't monitor .. at least not the site .. but they would HAVE TO monitor the server (memory, CPUs, hard drives,etc.) .. I'd assume .. since they and only they have access to it.

This is kinda interesting:


Quote:

Can I compile my own kernel on Linux VPS plan? Unfortunately, this is not possible. VPS account does not run its own kernel but uses a virtualized environment provided by the kernel of the physical server.

https://support.lunarpages.com/knowledge_bases/article/430

.. which would mean we get their flavor of Linux only, right? (Tho you said it's cool.)

Here's their response to my queries of exactly what their stats convey (just got today):


Quote:

Hello, I'd be happy to explain the stats for you. We use the CPU/Memory/SQL Stats area of WebHostManager to review account resource usage. These statistics are cumulative averages and reset every 24 hours. So from midnight (Pacific) until the time the stats were provided to you, your account has been averaging 2.46% for CPU usage. A single momentary load spike could not produce a result such as this, it would have to be periods of sustained CPU load. We like to see this number under 1.0% before moving accounts off temporary servers. As for the Top Process list showing the same process 3 times... WHM simply shows the 3 most active processes on your account. They are the same because in 3 separate instances the YaBB.pl script was the most active process for your account. These wouldn't have been the same process (same PID) but rather multiple instances of the script being run, though not necessarily at the same time. The "Top Process" area is less important in determining the resource usage of your account though they can help point you in the direction of what may be consuming the most resources on your account. I hope this information helps clarify the situation. If you have any further questions or issues please let us know and we'll be happy to assist you.

Ya, its probably more like a zone than a actual virtual server.  Virtual servers work by creating a virtual computer with software such as VMWare and then installing an entire OS onto it.  The overhead is significant and running a few virtual servers on one box can load it down pretty quick.  Zones use a virtual directory structure but make calls to the host system's kernel, eliminating most of the memory and CPU overhead of virtualization.

There's not much difference between the two for what we'll be doing and its a life saver for the host because they can put far more virtual hosts onto the same host and still get reasonable performance.

Most importantly, here are the all-important numbers:

https://support.lunarpages.com/knowledge_bases/article/413


Quote:

Each VPS is limited to 512 Megabytes of RAM and gets guaranteed 1/25th of total processors power. However, if the processors are not busy, the account can use some more CPU resources.

I was originally under the impression that VPS allocates each account 2.5% of the CPU, but can see now I was mistaken. The correct number is actually 4%. (100 / 25 = 4)

And from their forum:


Quote:

The VPS environment allows for bursting within reasonable limits, but does not permit one VPS from dominating the hardware node's resources. Consequently, it is very unlikely that a VPS account can be suspended for excessive memory or CPU usage.

http://www.lunarforums.com/lunarpages_vps_hosting/virtual_private_server_vps_faq-t36894.0.html;msg275870#msg275870

Here's a comparison of the Lunarpages VPS plan with another by a company called midPhase, titled "The Best VPS Hosting Plans":

http://www.prchecker.info/vps-hosting.php

Also, I found interesting:


Quote:

Our VPS all run on dual Xeon 2.0 GHz processors with 8 Gigs of RAM and SCSI RAID 5 disk subsystem.

https://support.lunarpages.com/knowledge_bases/article/419

Also cool (tho expected with VPS):


Quote:

You have administrator access to your virtual server. This means that you can install any software whenever you would like to use including those that cannot be installed on our shared plans.

https://support.lunarpages.com/knowledge_bases/article/422

Have you heard of Virtuozzo Power Panel? (I haven't)


Quote:

What is Virtuozzo Power Panel (VZPP)? VZPP is a powerful web-based VPS recovery and management tool. With VZPP you can easily do the following: * VPS Start/Stop/Reboot * VPS Services Management * VPS Resource monitoring * VPS Backup/Restore * VPS Repair * VPS Re-install * VPS Actions Log audit

https://support.lunarpages.com/knowledge_bases/article/408

I really think you should reconsider changing your forum software.  It could prevent you from needed to move to VPS.  Even if you do move to VPS, there is a lot more I can do to optimize the server if we use a forum that is not based on flat text files.  I wrote more here:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1202658524

Here's the all-important back-up info:


Quote:

Will you backup my files? We offer 1 Gb of FTP backup space with each VPS account allowing you to schedule backups to the remote FTP server.

https://support.lunarpages.com/knowledge_bases/article/429

My last back-up (tarball) was 1.15 gigs, so 1 gig ain't enough. Seems silly to offer 1 gig of back-up space with a 20-gig account, no?

May be getting ahead of myself, but found this thread interesting:

http://www.lunarforums.com/lunarpages_vps_hosting/vps_went_down_for_a_few_hours-t43212.0.html

especially:


Quote:

If your sites do not open, you would try to increase ServerLimit and MaxClients in /etc/httpd/httpd.conf. These settings are set to 10 by default which is too low for sites with medium and high traffic. You would use 100 or 150 for them.

and

Quote:

I have a busy site and tried to make this change..... When I did, then restarted, the web server would not load.... I went back to look at the file and most of it was missing. I have no idea what happened, but most of the config file info is just not there. I submitted a support ticket.... But I don't get what happened. All I did was change the default setting from 10 to 100, saved it, but know most of the file is empty.  What is going on there?

Here's something I didn't know (that VPS does NOT come with a Control Panel .. at least not standard):


Quote:

The Plesk 10 domain license is $0 setup and $10 / month for up to 10 accounts. For other licenses: * $10 install * 30 domains - $25 / month * 100 domains - $35 / month * Unlimited domains - $45 / month

Looks like this is a recent change:

http://www.lunarforums.com/lunarpages_vps_hosting/doesnt_plesk_come_with_vps-t45783.0.html

So, I would imagine, if I hosted 10 domains, each would getr their own CP. But if I don't get the CP (save $10/month), can I still host other sites? Not that I need to right now, but .. in the future, it would be nice. Maybe I'll call LP Sales and leave them a question on their answering machine.

Rad wrote on Feb 10^th, 2008 at 3:58pm:

My last back-up (tarball) was 1.15 gigs, so 1 gig ain't enough. Seems silly to offer 1 gig of back-up space with a 20-gig account, no?

Yeah, that's silly.  Its not a big deal, tho.  I could just write a cron job to tar up the directories we want to back up and ftp it somewhere safe.  Maybe on my file server here at home.  Maybe Microsoft Live Drive or the Google iDrive.  Probably both would be best...  I'd occasionally burn it to a DVD and throw it in my firesafe too.

MrMagoo wrote on Feb 10^th, 2008 at 4:31pm:

I could just write a cron job to tar up the directories...

That kind of talk gives me wood.  [smiley=smiley.gif] .. (mainly cuz I have no idea how to do it)

Rad wrote on Feb 10^th, 2008 at 4:30pm:

So, I would imagine, if I hosted 10 domains, each would getr their own CP. But if I don't get the CP (save $10/month), can I still host other sites? Not that I need to right now, but .. in the future, it would be nice. Maybe I'll call LP Sales and leave them a question on their answering machine.

I'm not a big fan of Plesk.  It's one of the more popular control panels, but it really isn't organized very nicely.  We don't need it.  We can host as many sites as we have the server resources for.  Its more a matter of how busy all the sites combined are than a matter of how many we can host.  Apache is essentially unlimited.

MrMagoo wrote on Feb 10^th, 2008 at 6:01pm:

We don't need it. We can host as many sites as we have the server resources for.

Man! You say *all* the right things. [smiley=smiley.gif]

I was just in the middle of crafting an email to LP pre-Sales regarding the details of Plesk (i.e. "What if I just wanna use Plesk for a *single* domain? .. Do I still need to buy a 10-doman license??) .. deleted it after reading this.

Must be a good feeling .. feeling comfortable with all this hi-tech mojo .. that makes the web-world go 'round. I can tell you're not scared.

Also, just read your post about 'Zones' vs actual virtual servers. I find this stuff interesting.

FYI, server usage stats as of Sunday nite, 9PM:


Quote:

radified.com CPU usage: 3.77 Memory usage: 1.26 MySQL usage: 0.0

Rad wrote on Feb 10^th, 2008 at 8:10pm:

Must be a good feeling .. feeling comfortable with all this hi-tech mojo .. that makes the web-world go 'round. I can tell you're not scared.

This is the stuff that makes Linux fun.  After I learned Linux, I stopped watching TV for a while.  Learning this stuff was way more fun.  Like you said, there's software out there that makes the web go around, and you don't need expensive hardware to play around with it (or expensive software licenses...)

And some stuff does still scare me.  I've been offered a new position at work where I'd be looking after a whole mess of servers that keep a heavily-trafficked e-commerce site up and running, and its going to be a little over my head at first.  So there are still things that scare me, but not this stuff.  I've done all this before.  I have a LAMP server in my closet now running a web site for my home network.  This stuff is like anything else in computers - once you do it once it seems easy, and I've done it more than once.

MrMagoo wrote on Feb 11^th, 2008 at 12:04am:

been offered a new position at work where I'd be looking after a whole mess of servers that keep a heavily-trafficked e-commerce site up and running, and its going to be a little over my head at first.

Congrats, bro. They're lucky to have you.

Looking after a whole gaggle of servers .. feeling in over your head .. out of your comfort zone .. that's what it's all about .. cuz that's what leads to growth.

And if we ain't learnin' & growin', we're done.

Today's numbers:


Quote:

radified.com CPU usage: 8.46 Memory usage: 1.29 MySQL usage: 0.0

I'm trying to recall problems I had when we migrated to Lunarpages back in 2006.

One problem I recall was subdomains. I make use of plenty of subdomains > ghost.radified.com etc.

I had to go into the control panel and configure every subdomain, individually.

Speaking of control panels, I called LP VPS people today and they told me the basic Plesk (10-domain) license is FREE. They also said they'd waive the $30 set-up fee.

But if we didn't have a control panel, I wouldn't know how to set up the subdomains at the new server.

Do you know how to do that? (without a control panel?)

Trying to anticipate problems.

Hard to believe we're at 8.46% CPU.

Setting up a sub-domain isn't an different than setting up the base domain in Apache.  Same thing in DNS - its just another domain name.  I can set it up easy.

This thread has over 700 views already.  Maybe all the extra CPU usage is coming from this thread about how to deal with the CPU usage.  That would be great.

Today's numbers:


Quote:

radified.com CPU usage: 11.24 Memory usage: 1.53 MySQL usage: 0.0

Now they tell me we don't qualify for VPS and need a *dedicated* server. Something is not right. I sent a sppt ticket asking them to look into the issue, since nothing I can see here supports such a dramatic increase.

Fact that I don't have access to their reporting module means they could tell me anything, and having no way to verify their numbers on my own makes me suspicious .. especially when you consider higher CPU numbers mean loftier hosting plan$ (VP$ & dedicated) which mean more money for them .. so it's not like they have no incentive to pad the numbers.

I temporarily disabled to search to see if that had any effect:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1202831161

Also lowered ""Max messages returned on recent posts by user.." from 30 to 10.

Started looking for a new "YaBB-friendly" host, as I don't see anything to ssupport or confirm their skyrocketing numbers:

http://www.yabbforum.com/community/YaBB.pl?board=mods_admins

Just a few days ago, they said usage was back within normal limits and they were preparing to move me back to the production server. And I can't see anything that has changed between then and now.

MrMagoo wrote on Feb 11^th, 2008 at 10:54pm:

This thread has over 700 views already. Maybe all the extra CPU usage is coming from this thread about how to deal with the CPU usage. That would be great.

Kinda funny .. uh, but maybe not. Started new thread .. to continue this discussion. See here:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1202845787