Slow site load

[dssrage]

To keep this as short as possible here is a little history of my problem. About 10 days ago my server started to have major MySQL problems. The server is fully managed so after numerous contacts with support they finally tell me the problem was:

The problem was with your /var partition having no space. We have cleared and provided some space for these operations to take place.

So this indeed fixed my database issues but now my site is slow. I run a lot of short video clips from my site which is a phpnuke site. Page loads are decent but are slower then prior to my problem and to stream a 10Mb video clip now takes 2 - 3 minutes to start whereas before it took 2 - 3 seconds. So, support tells me that there is nothing wrong with apache and that I (all of a sudden) need to upgrade my RAM.

Here are my server specs:
Processor Name Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
Vendor ID GenuineIntel
Processor Speed (MHz) 3001.960
Processor Name Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
Vendor ID GenuineIntel
Processor Speed (MHz) 3001.960
Total Memory 1003152 kB
Free Memory 4776 kB
Total Swap Memory 2048248 kB
Free Swap Memory 2045884 kB
System Uptime 0 Days, 21 Hours and 51 Minutes
Apache 1.3.33 Running
DirectAdmin 1.24.3 Running
Exim 4.50 Running
MySQL 4.0.23 Running
Named 9.2.1 Running
ProFTPd 1.2.9 Running
sshd Running
vm-Pop3d 1.1.7e Running
Load Average 0.66, 0.58, 0.48

Now before my problem and whatever they did to resolve it I do not know how much free memory I had but now it fluctuates around 5000kB. When I restart httpd via DirectAdmin it jumps up to around 350 000kB but after 2 minutes its back down to 5000kB.

I am at a loss here because I really do not know much about this stuff. What should I look at or what else can I provide you with or look at to see what the problem is? Could they be right about an upgrade?

Thanks in advance

 

[nobaloney]

Sure it could be a memory problem. I don't have any idea how busy your server is. Do you?

However it appears your system isn't using any swap memory at all, which it probably would be if it were a memory issue.

Don't worry about the small amount of available memory; that's an artifact of how linux reporting tools report memory "available for use".

Can you post a copy of the output of the "top" command while your server is struggling to deliver the content?

One possible problem that comes to mind is a misconfiguration between your network port and your ethernet port. Another is congestion on the ethernet line or elsewhere at the data center or it's provider connectivity.

Jeff

 

[dssrage]

Is this what you need:

top - 21:14:38 up 1 day, 42 min, 1 user, load average: 0.62, 0.38, 0.28
Tasks: 188 total, 1 running, 187 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 4.6% us, 2.7% sy, 0.0% ni, 83.8% id, 5.5% wa, 0.9% hi, 2.6% si
Mem: 1003152k total, 998136k used, 5016k free, 6052k buffers
Swap: 2048248k total, 2364k used, 2045884k free, 750004k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
20472 apache 15 0 26736 17m 19m S 4.0 1.8 0:00.12 httpd
13828 mysql 16 0 56408 24m 3756 S 3.0 2.5 0:16.20 mysqld
18695 apache 15 0 24040 14m 19m S 0.7 1.5 0:00.19 httpd
13830 mysql 16 0 56408 24m 3756 S 0.3 2.5 0:16.00 mysqld
19510 apache 15 0 24040 14m 19m S 0.3 1.5 0:00.28 httpd
19734 apache 15 0 24036 14m 19m S 0.3 1.5 0:00.28 httpd
19742 root 16 0 8088 1984 6848 S 0.3 0.2 0:00.10 sshd
19805 apache 16 0 25604 16m 19m S 0.3 1.7 0:00.34 httpd
19812 apache 16 0 24036 14m 19m S 0.3 1.5 0:00.06 httpd
19829 apache 15 0 23764 14m 19m S 0.3 1.5 0:00.06 httpd
19833 apache 15 0 24036 14m 19m S 0.3 1.5 0:00.12 httpd
20311 apache 15 0 24032 14m 19m S 0.3 1.5 0:00.18 httpd
20335 apache 15 0 25676 16m 19m S 0.3 1.7 0:00.26 httpd
20412 apache 15 0 26392 17m 19m S 0.3 1.8 0:00.36 httpd
20435 apache 15 0 25624 16m 19m S 0.3 1.7 0:00.19 httpd
20439 apache 15 0 24032 14m 19m S 0.3 1.5 0:00.11 httpd
20441 root 16 0 2436 988 1620 R 0.3 0.1 0:00.23 top

 

[nobaloney]

You are using some swap memory, so it's possible you could benefit from additional memory.

The server does not appear to be under load.

But anytime you use swap memory your system is actually reading from and writing to disk when the program thinks it's just using memory. Of course that's going to slow down your system.

Jeff

 

[dssrage]

Thank you, I will see what the host has to say after their test on the server's line and upstream connection.