*PLEASE READ*

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  • #1

    *PLEASE READ*

    This most recent forum downage was brought to us by the hosing provider. Granted I was out of town when it happened, but essentially something was generating too many queries on the database, causing a server overload. You may have noticed the SQL errors and slowness recently, all stemming from this same issue. Because Z31Performance is hosted on a shared server, this impacted other users and forced the hosing company to take action. Their recommendation was for me to purchase a dedicated server on which to host the forum. Not wanting to spend the $170/month to do that, I persuaded them to give me an opportunity to remedy the situation. I am trying things to reduce the server overload until I can figure out what the exact cause of the problem is.

    This server overload is caused by any number of things, including:
    1. People using the built-in search function in PHPBB to search the forum - serach function is now disabled - please use google to search the forum
    2. Spammers and Bots - I have implemented and am working on new anti-spam and upgrades to control the bots crawling the forum.
    3. Lots of users on at one time - Less of an issue, but I have limited it to 50 concurrent users. We also seem to get a lot of guests hogging it up, so for now guest access is disabled. Because people can't register right now, this makes the forum inaccessible unless you already have an account.
    4. Doing a lot of things at once, like opening new threads/searches in different windows before others have completed. please avoid doing this.

    I have also made numerous forum configuration changes which will result in less server load. I am working on a better solution to all the above issues without any drawbacks for the users.

    Thanks,
    Jason
  • #2
    Yooo Hooooo! I am ....

  • #3
    Jason84NA2T wrote:
    Their recommendation was for me to purchase a dedicated server on which to host the forum. Not wanting to spend the $170/month to do that
    Between web hosting and dedicated should be Virtual server ( well.. in somecases they say virtual server is dedicated.. ). Thay should be enable to limit bandwidth and memory use.
    But hell.. i'll give you money for hosting money.

    I have virtual server in use.. $50/month. 512MB (soon 1GB), 20GB, 10MB link, no bandwidth limit (yet)

    http://www.askwebhosting.com/whs/22/…ting/michigan/

    http://www.tvog.net/services.php - 100GB disc, 400Gb bandwidth, $50/month.
    Get 12 Months for the price of 10! Pay for a year of service on any of our packages, and recieve 2 months absolutely FREE!
    The VonOstin Group, Novi 48377, Michigan MI
    $500/first year..

    http://www.maxvps.com/vps/?id=vps-100 - Virtual Private Servers VPS-100, 20GB, 256MB, 500 GB Bandwidth, $29.95.. ( $360/year)
    NEXCESS.NET L.L.C., Ann Arbor, MI

    edit: ok.. 500GB/month is not enought.

    Have you think Google ad's?
    Jukka Kivinen - Europe / Finland - '88 Turbo 2+2 Targa
    Datsun Nissan Sports Cars of Finland
    http://www.z31turbo.com / http://www.z31na.com
  • #4
    I really don't think it is actual users causing the problems. I'd suspect the bots and spam scripts being the culprit. Does the host have a way for you to see what processes you have running and what resources they consume? You may be able to track it down a little more closely if they do.
    http://z31performance.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=147
  • #5
    Jukka, thanks for the suggestions. For now we get to see how things go. I don't think anyone is going to want to put up with importing our database again (let alone me). The tech support team at the current host is considered to be way above average, but even they had trouble with our 200MB sql DB. This is after I almost crashed their server a couple times trying to import it with bigdump.

    Steve88t wrote: I really don't think it is actual users causing the problems. I'd suspect the bots and spam scripts being the culprit. Does the host have a way for you to see what processes you have running and what resources they consume? You may be able to track it down a little more closely if they do.

    Yes, but all I am able to see if number of users running each script. So we have 5 people running posting.php and 25 running index.php, etc etc.

    For now, I have all guest access disabled    . This will prevent any sort of crosslinking or hotlinking from other forums/websites, which might be one of the bigger issues (like when someone posts a thread here on a huge forum with 100K members).

    I also implemented two new fields on registration which will force people to answer two VERY simple questions (are you a bot, what site is this) and should stop most of the automated bots that get past captcha. The spammers that can get in now will most likely be people, which will force us to simply be more reactive to their postings.

    The google bot and yahoo bot are on the forum very frequently, but there are ways to control how fast and how often they grab new threads.

    I should reiterate after all the e-mails I have received that bandwidth is not an issue. It's server utilization (CPU/RAM, etc)
  • #6
    I noticed the "recent posts" link is missing. Was that a planned change as well?

    Thanks!
    <<SOLD>>
    87' NA 5speed GL <-- "Gett'in Laid" (Not so much right now actually)
    17" Panasport C5C2 "G7" wheels
    Suspension Techniques Springs / HP Blues…

  • #7
    View new topics after last visit button i miss.. :-(
    Jukka Kivinen - Europe / Finland - '88 Turbo 2+2 Targa
    Datsun Nissan Sports Cars of Finland
    http://www.z31turbo.com / http://www.z31na.com
  • #8
    are you bringing the search feature back there are a few posts i am trying to find and cant beacuse there is no search
  • #9
    How the hell were there 50 users on here at 4am last night?

    Guess mid day is the best time right now. Glad we are back up and at least limping along. Thanks Jason.
    86na - BlueZ
    Shiro #366 - Kouki Monster
    85t - Mr Tickles
  • #10
    ak86na300z wrote: are you bringing the search feature back there are a few posts i am trying to find and cant beacuse there is no search
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=fi&r…mance.com+&lr=

    Use Google with site only tag

    For English use this link. Type in the word or text string you wish to search
    after "site:z31performance.com' in the Search box.
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%…=Google+Search
    Edited by 1artworks, May 20, 2009
    Jukka Kivinen - Europe / Finland - '88 Turbo 2+2 Targa
    Datsun Nissan Sports Cars of Finland
    http://www.z31turbo.com / http://www.z31na.com
  • #11
    It's very unlikely the server overload was caused from actual registered users or even human interaction at all. Bots seem to get worse as time goes on, plaguing internet message boards and server load and bandwidth relentlessly. A few questions, how long do you have the user account login period set for? Many forums run into too many users logged on because the server isn't set to update immediately once a user has logged out, sometimes leaving accounts logged on for up to 24 hours at a time. Also, your log files in the cpanel should give some evidence as to why the MySQL crashed as well as your awstats clearly pointing as to which bots and spiders are sucking up the most bandwidth. I assume you also have your robots.txt file set to exclude malicious/unwanted bots?
    Originally posted by Andrew84zx
    tell her your car is so fast it will make her panties fly off
    545 RWHP & 540 RWTQ
  • #12
    smelly$cat wrote: I noticed the "recent posts" link is missing. Was that a planned change as well?

    Thanks!
    I'm sure it was. Even if it wasn't, it still uses the "search feature" and wouldn't function anyway until Jason enables searching again.
    Originally posted by Andrew84zx
    tell her your car is so fast it will make her panties fly off
    545 RWHP & 540 RWTQ
  • #13
    Any chance of maybe sponsorship-level type deals? I'd be interested in helping support this site.
    Chicks dig me, rust fears me.
  • #14
    zachary.ard wrote: Any chance of maybe sponsorship-level type deals? I'd be interested in helping support this site.
    viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1028
  • #15
    zachary.ard wrote: Any chance of maybe sponsorship-level type deals? I'd be interested in helping support this site.
    http://z31performance.com/ - Make a donation via Paypal.
    Jukka Kivinen - Europe / Finland - '88 Turbo 2+2 Targa
    Datsun Nissan Sports Cars of Finland
    http://www.z31turbo.com / http://www.z31na.com
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