Apache config for busy one site.

[pug123]

Hello!

I need special Apache config for just one site. Yes...one site is killing server
and hardware is Quad 9300 (4cores) 8GB RAM.
OS: 64bit Centos with DA

This is very simple site with live scores:

www.livemecz.pl

There are times that about 2000 people are on this site waiting for scores to change. It is using Ajax to update scores I think people rather do not refresh.
ANyway the first problem was becouse it could not handle more than about 2000people online which I resolved changing MaxClients=700 ServerLimit=700,Keepalive=ON 1sec

What is now the problem that sometimes server is going under very heavy load for about 20-30 value..I think it is coused by apache processed queued, don't you think?

It has crashed today when suddenly load went to 350...yes..first time saw on linux so much and could work under ssh..

What is strange it is still using about 5-30% of CPu time and only max 3-4GB of RAM.

For example:
load average: 3.89, 3.03, 3.05

Mem: 7873672k total, 1843632k used, 6030040k free, 65584k buffers
Swap: 4000176k total, 0k used, 4000176k free, 375496k cached


After big crash today I found in dmesg,many of these:
httpd[3004]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[2980]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[2845]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[2625]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[3106]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[2819]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[3131]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[2679]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[2646]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[2919]: segfault at 00002ba7c4e860c0 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[3096]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4
httpd[2886]: segfault at 00002ba7c0e89310 rip 00002ba7baf3fed8 rsp 00007ffff2eaa400 error 4


I have requested RAM check on this machine and it will be done on monday night so it may couse this...but anyway it is strange.

DO you have any suggestions for Apache config?

<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
    StartServers          5
    MinSpareServers       5
    MaxSpareServers      10
    ServerLimit        700
    MaxClients         700
    MaxRequestsPerChild   1000 (used to have "0" here,I have changed now)
</IfModule>

Thank you for all your sugestions. I'm thinking about switching to Nginx to test it under second server for this site and use DNS roundrobin.

 

[pug123]

changed

Hi!

I have changed values of:
StartServers 5
MinSpareServers 5
MaxSpareServers 10


to much higher and server seems to be more stable now. I wonder if it wasn't coused by too low value of MinSpareServers..will see under high load.

 

[nobaloney]

That's a good move. You should also be using apache 2.x if you're not already; it uses a multi-score server much better than apache 1.x.

Jeff