runaway httpd processes

[Yvette]

YaBB SE Version: 1.5.1 RC1
PHP Version: 4.3.2
MySQL Version: 4.0.x
Server Platform: Unix, Linux, or BSD
Link to Forum: http://vegweb.com/yabbse/index.php

Problem Description:
Hi,
I posted this question about runaway processes back in January but didn't know enough about what I was doing to respond with the right information.

I swiched from YaBB Gold to (ultimately) YaBB 1.5.1. After the switch, I noticed in "top" that there were a lot of httpd processes that kept running and after a bunch of those processes were created and still running, everything on my site would slow way down.

I set up a cron job to kill the runaway processes every five minutes, and that seemed to work as a temporary fix. I thought the problem was related to something I did wrong when installing MySQL and PHP. Also, I orginally started with YaBBSE 1.5.0 and had hoped that the upgrade to 1.5.1 (back when it came out) would fix the problem.

I've since moved to a virtual private server where everything was already set up, and all I did was move the site over, including the MySQL database. Everything is working fine, but I still get the runaway httpd processes.

How can I isolate what the problem is so that I can fix it? Is there an optimization script I could run?

Here is a copy of my information from top:

 7:21am  up 7 days, 21:42,  1 user,  load average: 1.75, 1.64, 1.73
83 processes: 79 sleeping, 3 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states:  3.2% user,  3.2% system,  0.0% nice, 92.3% idle
CPU1 states:  3.0% user,  1.2% system,  0.0% nice, 95.0% idle
CPU2 states:  2.2% user,  1.1% system,  0.0% nice, 95.2% idle
CPU3 states:  3.0% user,  1.0% system,  0.0% nice, 95.2% idle
Mem:  8243116K av, 8001608K used,  241508K free,       0K shrd,  124496K buff
Swap: 16776424K av, 2322536K used, 14453888K free                 3587976K cached

 PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
8250 nobody    18   0  5168 4884  2672 S     2.9  0.0   0:00 httpd
10256 nobody    15   0  3752 3444  2604 S     2.5  0.0   0:00 httpd
4554 nobody     9   0  5204 4920  2676 S     1.7  0.0   0:08 httpd
2647 nobody    12   0  5772 5496  2776 S     0.7  0.0   0:10 httpd
3159 nobody    10   0  5164 4880  2672 S     0.7  0.0   0:07 httpd
 902 nobody    11   0  5528 5248  3032 R     0.3  0.0   0:01 httpd
12447 root      12   0  1044 1044   824 R     0.3  0.0   0:00 top
2644 nobody     9   0  5228 4944  2680 S     0.1  0.0   0:08 httpd
2722 nobody    10   0  5656 5376  3036 S     0.1  0.0   0:09 httpd
3225 nobody    10   0  5644 5372  2776 S     0.1  0.0   0:09 httpd
30586 nobody    10   0  3784 3476  2596 R     0.1  0.0   0:01 httpd

For example, by the time that the httpd processes that are 0:08 or 0:10 all get to 0:30 or more my load average will be 15 to 20. If I kill them, the load average goes back down to 1 or .80 or less.

Server Specs:

SuperMicro Dual Xeon 2.66Ghz
8 GB Registered ECC DDR RAM
10x73GB U320 SCSI drives in Hardware RAID 5
Hot-Spare drives
Hot-Swap drives and fans
Redundant Hot-Swap power supplies (3 total)
Dual 10/100/1000 Network Interfaces
Product Specifications:
RedHat Linux
Equal-share CPU usage
2 GB Storage
100 GB Monthly Transfer
512 MB RAM burst, guaranteed 128 MB minimum

I will be upgrading soon to a new server with 1024 MB RAM (1 GB) burst, guaranteed 256 MB minimum.

Any help would really be appreciated.

Yvette

[Douglas]

If you're eatting up resources with specs like that, then there's something else going on with the server itself.  Has your apache.conf been optimized?  Has your my.cnf been optimized?

When I switched from DP (my old forum software) over to YSE, I've watched my load averages go from 3-5 DOWN to 0.30 or less.

ALSO, UPGRADE!  You're on a very insecure version, so you need to upgrade.

[Yvette]

Thank you for the reply. Where are apache.conf and my.cnf located? I take it that apache.conf is different from httpd.conf, right? Do you know of a recourse that I could use for direction in optimizing the files? I'd really have no idea on where to begin.

I started to upgrade to 1.5.4 once, but I believe that it uses session IDs instead of cookies. The rest of my site uses cookies. Is there an option to use cookies instead of session IDs?

Thanks again,
Yvette

[Douglas]

apache.conf is the same as httpd.conf.  Each server needs it's own tweaking, so without having shell access and someone that's familiar with your system, you'd probably have to hire someone to optimize the server for you.

[[Unknown]]

Try turning off output compression.

-[Unknown]

[Yvette]

Try turning off output compression.

-[Unknown]

I have both zlib.output_compression and output_buffering set to off in php.ini. Is this what you are referring to?

Yvette

[Peter Duggan]

I have both zlib.output_compression and output_buffering set to off in php.ini. Is this what you are referring to?

I'm guessing that [Unknown] might be referring to 'Enable Compressed Output' in your YaBB SE Installed 'Mods' Settings and Options...

[Yvette]

Oh!   Okay, I'll give that a shot. Thanks.

Yvette