A process called php generating a huge load

[max2000]

Hello

On my servers, a Direct Admin process called just "php" is generating a HUGE load and sometimes crashes on my servers.

Here is the process in action:

root 31156 0.0 0.0 5792 1176 ? S 23:01 0:00 crond
root 31157 0.1 0.0 6640 1488 ? SNs 23:01 0:03 \_ /usr/local/directadmin/dataskq
diradmin 5568 23.0 0.2 11868 4304 ? RN 23:29 0:00 \_ /php


And here is the load:

07:40:02 PM         6       170      6.06      5.54      3.54
07:50:01 PM        10       159      1.62      2.39      3.05
08:00:02 PM         5       161      0.86      1.33      2.17
08:10:02 PM         5       181      1.54      1.18      1.64
08:20:01 PM         9       163      1.23      1.16      1.46
08:30:02 PM         8       154      0.68      0.88      1.17
08:40:01 PM         8       170      0.66      0.99      1.09
08:50:02 PM         4       161      1.19      1.23      1.13
09:00:01 PM         5       143      0.70      1.05      1.13
09:10:01 PM         5       161      1.61      1.88      1.47
09:20:01 PM         9       155      0.90      1.60      1.59
09:30:02 PM         6       148      0.56      0.89      1.20
09:40:01 PM         6       155      0.96      0.99      1.08
09:50:01 PM         7       175      0.53      1.35      1.24
10:00:01 PM         3       188      2.86      2.35      1.73
10:10:19 PM        32       246     32.94     16.70      8.34
10:21:39 PM        36       221     33.95     22.35     15.56
10:30:54 PM        26       324     61.72     50.20     32.11
10:40:01 PM         6       166      0.70      9.57     18.87
10:50:02 PM         5       155      1.82      2.70     10.63
11:00:01 PM        10       168      1.41      1.81      6.41
11:10:08 PM         9       179      7.91      4.31      5.23
11:20:02 PM         5       201      6.10     10.35      8.58
Average:            8       157      2.53      2.14      1.94

As you see, the 1 min average is often under 1 then, 3 to 5 times a day, it raises up to 50 or even more.

It is impossible to google or search for this. A process called PHP generates anyways tons of results.

Thank you for your help

 

[toml]

Php is just an interpreter, like Perl or bash. It runs scripts, and it is the script that the php process is running that is causing your load. You need to find the script that it is running, to find out why the load is so high.

I don't see anything in my crontabs that would cause datasq to run a php script. Perhaps John knows what script could be.

 

[max2000]

You are right toml

No one has a shell access to the machine. So, as far as I know, all PHP scripts are processed by Apache and never directly by the PHP interpreter.

How could a regular user launch a PHP script without using Apache?

 

[toml]

It is being run the the dataskq which is the Directadmin task queue. What it is running, I don't know. That program should just start services that aren't running (apache,exim,ftp,...), run tallies and other accounting tasks. It is also used for doing some upgrades, but running a php script I don't think is one of them.

Do you have any other services listed in your /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/services.status besides:
directadmin=ON
exim=ON
httpd=ON
mysqld=ON
named=ON
proftpd=ON
sshd=ON
dovecot=ON

(instead of dovecot, you might have vm-pop3d and imapd).