Huge Spike in Load After Moving to IPB 4.1

[Ghan]

Hi all,

We just migrated our site to IPB 4 coming from the current version of xenForo. Since reopening the site, the server has been getting slammed with about 4x the DB query load and higher CPU usage across the system. I've seen CPU usage go from 200-250% across 8 cores to 800-1000% across 12 cores. Some general server details:

 

• MySQL 5.7.14
• Litespeed 5.0.19
• PHP 7.0.8
• Redis caching
• Linode VPS - Previously 24 GB RAM, now 48 GB just to get access to more cores.
• ~1000 concurrent users online (guests + registered logged in users)

 

I'd rather not have to double our hosting bill just to move to IPB, but that's what I'm looking at right now. I'm fairly new to IPB, so what should I be looking for here? How can I reduce the CPU load on our system? Is there a tuning document somewhere I can work through? Searching hasn't come up with much unfortunately. Any pointers are appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[RevengeFNF]

Can you run mysqltuner on your vps and post here the results?

PS: You are paying 320$/Month for that vps. You can get a much better dedicated server with that kind of money.

[Ghan]

Certainly, though I have already run it once and applied a few minor changes. It doesn't look to me like the problem lies with the MySQL server itself - it's behaving mostly as expected after getting a 4-5x increase in query load. I think the problem is just that IPB is hitting the DB a lot more than xenForo was.

 

As for the hosting, I know there are better solutions out there in that price range. I haven't started looking yet. We just decided to upgrade the VPS for now as that was the quickest solution to the huge increase in load. The site is still much slower now than before the migration though.

 

Here is the mysqltuner result:

[OK] Currently running supported MySQL version 5.7.14-log
[OK] Operating on 64-bit architecture

-------- Storage Engine Statistics -----------------------------------------------------------------
[--] Status: +ARCHIVE +BLACKHOLE +CSV -FEDERATED +InnoDB +MEMORY +MRG_MYISAM +MyISAM +PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA
[--] Data in MyISAM tables: 208K (Tables: 5)
[--] Data in InnoDB tables: 40G (Tables: 582)
[--] Data in MEMORY tables: 756K (Tables: 6)
[!!] Total fragmented tables: 2

-------- Security Recommendations ------------------------------------------------------------------
[OK] There are no anonymous accounts for any database users
[OK] All database users have passwords assigned
[--] There are 605 basic passwords in the list.

-------- CVE Security Recommendations --------------------------------------------------------------
[OK] NO SECURITY CVE FOUND FOR YOUR VERSION

-------- Performance Metrics -----------------------------------------------------------------------
[--] Up for: 2h 24m 38s (10M q [1K qps], 197K conn, TX: 68G, RX: 2G)
[--] Reads / Writes: 94% / 6%
[--] Binary logging is disabled
[--] Physical Memory     : 47.2G
[--] Max MySQL memory    : 15.1G
[--] Other process memory: 1.5G
[--] Total buffers: 12.3G global + 9.5M per thread (300 max threads)
[--] P_S Max memory usage: 72B
[--] Galera GCache Max memory usage: 0B
[OK] Maximum reached memory usage: 13.3G (28.14% of installed RAM)
[OK] Maximum possible memory usage: 15.1G (31.95% of installed RAM)
[OK] Overall possible memory usage with other process is compatible with memory available
[OK] Slow queries: 0% (56/10M)
[OK] Highest usage of available connections: 35% (106/300)
[OK] Aborted connections: 0.00%  (2/197271)
[!!] name resolution is active : a reverse name resolution is made for each new connection and can reduce performance
[OK] Query cache is disabled by default due to mutex contention on multiprocessor machines.
[OK] Sorts requiring temporary tables: 0% (105 temp sorts / 1M sorts)
[!!] Joins performed without indexes: 21548
[!!] Temporary tables created on disk: 49% (969K on disk / 1M total)
[OK] Table cache hit rate: 99% (3K open / 3K opened)
[OK] Open file limit used: 0% (30/24K)
[OK] Table locks acquired immediately: 100% (1K immediate / 1K locks)

-------- Performance schema ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[--] Performance schema is enabled.
[--] Memory used by P_S: 72B
[--] Sys schema is installed.

-------- ThreadPool Metrics ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[--] ThreadPool stat is disabled.

-------- MyISAM Metrics ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[!!] Key buffer used: 18.3% (6M used / 33M cache)
[OK] Key buffer size / total MyISAM indexes: 32.0M/141.0K
[!!] Read Key buffer hit rate: 73.1% (26 cached / 7 reads)

-------- AriaDB Metrics ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[--] AriaDB is disabled.

-------- InnoDB Metrics ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[--] InnoDB is enabled.
[!!] InnoDB buffer pool / data size: 12.0G/40.3G
[!!] InnoDB buffer pool instances: 8
[OK] InnoDB Used buffer: 98.96% (778136 used/ 786336 total)
[OK] InnoDB Read buffer efficiency: 99.99% (10609215270 hits/ 10610184758 total)
[OK] InnoDB Write log efficiency: 99.62% (2411457 hits/ 2420604 total)
[OK] InnoDB log waits: 0.00% (0 waits / 9147 writes)

-------- TokuDB Metrics ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[--] TokuDB is disabled.

-------- Galera Metrics ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[--] Galera is disabled.

-------- Replication Metrics -----------------------------------------------------------------------
[--] Galera Synchronous replication: NO
[--] No replication slave(s) for this server.
[--] This is a standalone server.

-------- Recommendations ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
General recommendations:
    Run OPTIMIZE TABLE to defragment tables for better performance
      OPTIMIZE TABLE rpnation_ips.core_edit_history; -- can free 4169 MB
      OPTIMIZE TABLE rpnation_ips.core_log; -- can free 15862 MB
    Total freed space after theses OPTIMIZE TABLE : 20031 Mb
    MySQL started within last 24 hours - recommendations may be inaccurate
    Configure your accounts with ip or subnets only, then update your configuration with skip-name-resolve=1
    Adjust your join queries to always utilize indexes
    When making adjustments, make tmp_table_size/max_heap_table_size equal
    Reduce your SELECT DISTINCT queries which have no LIMIT clause
Variables to adjust:
    join_buffer_size (> 8.0M, or always use indexes with joins)
    tmp_table_size (> 128M)
    max_heap_table_size (> 128M)
    innodb_buffer_pool_size (>= 40G) if possible.
    innodb_buffer_pool_instances(=12)

 

 

 

[RevengeFNF]

You core log table is occupying alone more that 15Gb?

[Ghan]

3 minutes ago, RevengeFNF said:

You core log table is occupying alone more that 15Gb?

No, I have no idea where it is coming up with that idea. This is the core log table:

 

The core edit history table is 5.4 GB though.

[RevengeFNF]

Mysqltuner said this: 

OPTIMIZE TABLE rpnation_ips.core_log; -- can free 15862 MB

Your server has 48Gb of Ram, so you can safely change the Buffer Pool to 40Gb, leaving 8Gb for the rest. Change also the instances to 40.

You have 50% of temporarily queries writing to disk. Try change the tmp table size and heap table size to 256Mb.

[Rhett]

Have you enabled your guest cache in the admincp?  That is the first thing I would check, with a site that active, I would use a setting of 300 second, make the needed updates to your constants.php file, then take another look at things, if that isn't on now or setup properly in constants.php, it will make a large improvement. 

 

 

 

[Ghan]

19 minutes ago, RevengeFNF said:

Mysqltuner said this: 

OPTIMIZE TABLE rpnation_ips.core_log; -- can free 15862 MB

Your server has 48Gb of Ram, so you can safely change the Buffer Pool to 40Gb, leaving 8Gb for the rest. Change also the instances to 40.

You have 50% of temporarily queries writing to disk. Try change the tmp table size and heap table size to 256Mb.

The IPB database itself is only around 20 GB. I've increased the buffer pool to 24 GB to see how it does and if anything changes there.

I also increased the temp table size to 256 MB, though I think this is a red herring. The reason there are lots of on-disk tables is probably because the tables are TEXT or BLOB types, which cannot be created as MEMORY tables.

 

17 minutes ago, Rhett said:

Have you enabled your guest cache in the admincp?  That is the first thing I would check, with a site that active, I would use a setting of 300 second, make the needed updates to your constants.php file, then take another look at things, if that isn't on now or setup properly in constants.php, it will make a large improvement. 

 

 

 

Yes, we do have that turned on, though it was only set to 30 seconds. I've set it to 300 seconds now, but I don't expect it to have much impact. Typically more than half of the active users are registered and logged in if I remember correctly.

[SecondSight]

Hello !

Regarding the search engine, I don't know if you encountered this problem, have a look here also :

 

[SecondSight]

Have a look here too :

 

1 hour ago, RevengeFNF said:

You have 50% of temporarily queries writing to disk. Try change the tmp table size and heap table size to 256Mb.

I'm also having this problem... I lowered the sort_buffer_size value and set it at 2 M. Now I'm waiting to see if it improves performance.

[SecondSight]

Also, check you mysql slow log.

[ASTRAPI]

[--] Data in MyISAM tables: 208K (Tables: 5)

Convert them also to Innodb

[!!] name resolution is active : a reverse name resolution is made for each new connection and can reduce performance

use:
skip-name-resolve

[--] Performance schema is enabled.

use:
performance_schema=OFF

[!!] Key buffer used: 18.3% (6M used / 33M cache)

key_buffer_size = 12M

[!!] InnoDB buffer pool / data size: 12.0G/40.3G

use:
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 41G

[!!] InnoDB buffer pool instances: 8

use:
innodb_buffer_pool_instances=41

tmp_table_size (> 128M)

use:
tmp_table_size = 256M

max_heap_table_size (> 128M)

use:

max_heap_table_size = 256M

 

Also try to use (more is not always better):

join_buffer_size = 2M
read_buffer_size = 2M
sort_buffer_size = 2M

You can check for log tables also and if you not need the old data inside you may clear them if they can offer you many GB smaller your database.

There are many more optimizations related to mysql but most of them can't be used on VPS due to the fact that you have shared resources and maybe some related limits like ssd limits.

 

 

Paying 320$/Month for that vps ?

 

You can get with the same money a dedicated server

 

 

[Ghan]

> Convert them also to Innodb

Only two tables in the IPB database are still MYISAM, and my initial assumption would be that they are that way for a reason - is there some documentation somewhere that details this?

 

> skip-name-resolve

How much CPU would this really save? Assuming persistent connections are used, is it really such a big deal?

 

> performance_schema=OFF

Why should this be off? I'm not familiar with this feature.

 

> key_buffer_size = 12M

MYISAM doesn't get much use here, so I can probably turn this down as far as I want. Considering it's only 32 MB right now, I don't expect this to make much difference.

 

> innodb_buffer_pool_size = 41G

I have increased the pool size to 24 GB, yet the issue persists. This is bigger than the database - raising it more is unlikely to do anything.

 

> innodb_buffer_pool_instances=41

I'm curious as to why you want to have 1 buffer pool per GB of RAM assigned (I'm assuming this is what you're going by here). I've read about how you can have contention and locking issues if you don't have enough instances, but why this rule? Is there a way to detect if the buffer pool is having contention? I'll have to see if that's possible to measure....

 

> tmp_table_size = 256M

I did make this change - so far, mysqltuner hasn't brought it up again.

 

> join_buffer_size = 2M
> read_buffer_size = 2M
> sort_buffer_size = 2M

I had a feeling that these settings might be better if they were actually somewhat more limited, but I don't have a clue how to investigate what queries are hitting these limits (if any) and why the tuner script might complain about it. I'll try these and see.

 

 

The database size didn't increase much over the xenForo install, so I don't think we have a whole lot of data to save there, but it's worth a look.

I'm more concerned with the fact that both MySQL and PHP are using several times the CPU as the old forum on the same exact server configuration. How can we track down what is causing the software to make so many more requests against the server as a whole?

[TSP]

20 minutes ago, Ghan said:

> Convert them also to Innodb

Only two tables in the IPB database are still MYISAM, and my initial assumption would be that they are that way for a reason - is there some documentation somewhere that details this?

It would probably help for them if you specified the names of these tables. 

Generally you don't wanna mix InnoDB and MyISAM in the same database. However, theoretically it shouldn't pose any problems (I think) unless some query involves both an InnoDB table and MyISAM table.

[Ghan]

I've never thought it was a big deal, but the two tables in question were both from addons, so I just converted them. Seems to be fine.

I've also tried converting from Redis to Memcached, but I'm still seeing absurdly high CPU usage on the box. Load has spiked over 40 at times.

[RevengeFNF]

Which process's are consuming the most cpu?

[Ghan]

PHP and MySQL

PHP processes might consume anywhere from 20-90% CPU each, while MySQL is typically in the 100-300% range.

[ASTRAPI]

Post also php settings here so we can check

[Ghan]

Here's the php.ini file:

 

[PHP]

;;;;;;;;;;;
; WARNING ;
;;;;;;;;;;;
; This is the default settings file for new PHP installations.
; By default, PHP installs itself with a configuration suitable for
; development purposes, and *NOT* for production purposes.
; For several security-oriented considerations that should be taken
; before going online with your site, please consult php.ini-recommended
; and http://php.net/manual/en/security.php.


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; Allow ASP-style <% %> tags.
asp_tags = Off

; The number of significant digits displayed in floating point numbers.
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; You can redirect all of the output of your scripts to a function.  For
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;       directive. Instead, explicitly set the output handler using ob_start().
;       Using this ini directive may cause problems unless you know what script
;       is doing.
; Note: You cannot use both "mb_output_handler" with "ob_iconv_handler"
;       and you cannot use both "ob_gzhandler" and "zlib.output_compression".
;output_handler =

; Transparent output compression using the zlib library
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;       output_handler, or otherwise the output will be corrupted.
zlib.output_compression = Off
zlib.output_compression_level = 1

; You cannot specify additional output handlers if zlib.output_compression
; is activated here. This setting does the same as output_handler but in
; a different order.
;zlib.output_handler =

; Implicit flush tells PHP to tell the output layer to flush itself
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; PHP function flush() after each and every call to print() or echo() and each
; and every HTML block.  Turning this option on has serious performance
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implicit_flush = Off

; The unserialize callback function will be called (with the undefined class'
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; declaration.  You're encouraged to try and turn this option Off and make
; sure your scripts work properly with it in order to ensure they will work
; with future versions of the language (you will receive a warning each time
; you use this feature, and the argument will be passed by value instead of by
; reference).
;allow_call_time_pass_reference = On

; Safe Mode
;
safe_mode = Off

; By default, Safe Mode does a UID compare check when
; opening files. If you want to relax this to a GID compare,
; then turn on safe_mode_gid.
safe_mode_gid = Off

; When safe_mode is on, UID/GID checks are bypassed when
; including files from this directory and its subdirectories.
; (directory must also be in include_path or full path must
; be used when including)
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; When safe_mode is on, only executables located in the safe_mode_exec_dir
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;
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safe_mode_allowed_env_vars = PHP_

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; open_basedir, if set, limits all file operations to the defined directory
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;open_basedir =

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;highlight.keyword = #007700
;highlight.bg      = #FFFFFF
;highlight.default = #0000BB
;highlight.html    = #000000


;
; Misc
;
; Decides whether PHP may expose the fact that it is installed on the server
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expose_php = Off


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Resource Limits ;
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max_execution_time = 1800
max_input_time = 300
memory_limit = 2G

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; E_NOTICE          - run-time notices (these are warnings which often result
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;                     initial startup
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;   - Show all errors except for notices
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;error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED

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; instead (see below).  Keeping display_errors enabled on a production web site
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; server, your database schema or other information.
display_errors = Off

; Even when display_errors is on, errors that occur during PHP's startup
; sequence are not displayed.  It's strongly recommended to keep
; display_startup_errors off, except for when debugging.
display_startup_errors = Off

; Log errors into a log file (server-specific log, stderr, or error_log (below))
; As stated above, you're strongly advised to use error logging in place of
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log_errors = On

; Set maximum length of log_errors. In error_log information about the source is
; added. The default is 1024 and 0 allows to not apply any maximum length at all.
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; Do not log repeated messages. Repeated errors must occur in same file on same
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; Ignore source of message when ignoring repeated messages. When this setting
; is On you will not log errors with repeated messages from different files or
; sourcelines.
ignore_repeated_source = Off

; If this parameter is set to Off, then memory leaks will not be shown (on
; stdout or in the log). This has only effect in a debug compile, and if
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report_memleaks = On

; Store the last error/warning message in $php_errormsg (boolean).
track_errors = Off

; Disable the inclusion of HTML tags in error messages.
;html_errors = Off

; If html_errors is set On PHP produces clickable error messages that direct
; to a page describing the error or function causing the error in detail.
; You can download a copy of the PHP manual from http://www.php.net/docs.php
; and change docref_root to the base URL of your local copy including the
; leading '/'. You must also specify the file extension being used including
; the dot.
;docref_root = "/phpmanual/"
;docref_ext = .html

; String to output before an error message.
;error_prepend_string = "<font color=ff0000>"

; String to output after an error message.
;error_append_string = "</font>"

; Log errors to specified file.
error_log = "/var/log/php/php.log"

; Log errors to syslog (Event Log on NT, not valid in Windows 95).
;error_log = error_log;


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Data Handling ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;
; Note - track_vars is ALWAYS enabled as of PHP 4.0.3

; The separator used in PHP generated URLs to separate arguments.
; Default is "&".
;arg_separator.output = "&amp;"

; List of separator(s) used by PHP to parse input URLs into variables.
; Default is "&".
; NOTE: Every character in this directive is considered as separator!
;arg_separator.input = ";&"

; This directive describes the order in which PHP registers GET, POST, Cookie,
; Environment and Built-in variables (G, P, C, E & S respectively, often
; referred to as EGPCS or GPC).  Registration is done from left to right, newer
; values override older values.
variables_order = "EGPCS"

; Whether or not to register the EGPCS variables as global variables.  You may
; want to turn this off if you don't want to clutter your scripts' global scope
; with user data.  This makes most sense when coupled with track_vars - in which
; case you can access all of the GPC variables through the $HTTP_*_VARS[],
; variables.
;
; You should do your best to write your scripts so that they do not require
; register_globals to be on;  Using form variables as globals can easily lead
; to possible security problems, if the code is not very well thought of.
register_globals = Off

; This directive tells PHP whether to declare the argv&argc variables (that
; would contain the GET information).  If you don't use these variables, you
; should turn it off for increased performance.
register_argc_argv = Off

; Maximum size of POST data that PHP will accept.
post_max_size = 20M

; This directive is deprecated.  Use variables_order instead.
gpc_order = "GPC"

; Magic quotes
;

; Magic quotes for incoming GET/POST/Cookie data.
magic_quotes_gpc = Off

; Magic quotes for runtime-generated data, e.g. data from SQL, from exec(), etc.
magic_quotes_runtime = Off

; Use Sybase-style magic quotes (escape ' with '' instead of \').
magic_quotes_sybase = Off

; Automatically add files before or after any PHP document.
auto_prepend_file =
auto_append_file =

; As of 4.0b4, PHP always outputs a character encoding by default in
; the Content-type: header.  To disable sending of the charset, simply
; set it to be empty.
;
; PHP's built-in default is text/html
default_mimetype = "text/html"
;default_charset = "iso-8859-1"

; Always populate the $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA variable.
;always_populate_raw_post_data = On


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Paths and Directories ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

; UNIX: "/path1:/path2"
include_path = ".:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php"
;
; Windows: "\path1;\path2"
;;include_path = ".;c:\php\includes"

; The root of the PHP pages, used only if nonempty.
; if PHP was not compiled with FORCE_REDIRECT, you SHOULD set doc_root
; if you are running php as a CGI under any web server (other than IIS)
; see documentation for security issues.  The alternate is to use the
; cgi.force_redirect configuration below
doc_root =

; The directory under which PHP opens the script using /~username used only
; if nonempty.
user_dir =

; Directory in which the loadable extensions (modules) reside.
extension = "memcached.so"
zend_extension=opcache.so
opcache.memory_consumption=256
extension=redis.so

; Whether or not to enable the dl() function.  The dl() function does NOT work
; properly in multithreaded servers, such as IIS or Zeus, and is automatically
; disabled on them.
enable_dl = Off

; cgi.force_redirect is necessary to provide security running PHP as a CGI under
; most web servers.  Left undefined, PHP turns this on by default.  You can
; turn it off here AT YOUR OWN RISK
; **You CAN safely turn this off for IIS, in fact, you MUST.**
; cgi.force_redirect = 1

; if cgi.nph is enabled it will force cgi to always sent Status: 200 with
; every request.
; cgi.nph = 1

; if cgi.force_redirect is turned on, and you are not running under Apache or Netscape
; (iPlanet) web servers, you MAY need to set an environment variable name that PHP
; will look for to know it is OK to continue execution.  Setting this variable MAY
; cause security issues, KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING FIRST.
; cgi.redirect_status_env = ;

; cgi.fix_pathinfo provides *real* PATH_INFO/PATH_TRANSLATED support for CGI.  PHP's
; previous behaviour was to set PATH_TRANSLATED to SCRIPT_FILENAME, and to not grok
; what PATH_INFO is.  For more information on PATH_INFO, see the cgi specs.  Setting
; this to 1 will cause PHP CGI to fix it's paths to conform to the spec.  A setting
; of zero causes PHP to behave as before.  Default is zero.  You should fix your scripts
; to use SCRIPT_FILENAME rather than PATH_TRANSLATED.
; cgi.fix_pathinfo=0

; FastCGI under IIS (on WINNT based OS) supports the ability to impersonate
; security tokens of the calling client.  This allows IIS to define the
; security context that the request runs under.  mod_fastcgi under Apache
; does not currently support this feature (03/17/2002)
; Set to 1 if running under IIS.  Default is zero.
; fastcgi.impersonate = 1;

; cgi.rfc2616_headers configuration option tells PHP what type of headers to
; use when sending HTTP response code. If it's set 0 PHP sends Status: header that
; is supported by Apache. When this option is set to 1 PHP will send
; RFC2616 compliant header.
; Default is zero.
;cgi.rfc2616_headers = 0


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; File Uploads ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

; Whether to allow HTTP file uploads.
file_uploads = On

; Temporary directory for HTTP uploaded files (will use system default if not
; specified).
upload_tmp_dir = "/tmp"

; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 100M


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Fopen wrappers ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

; Whether to allow the treatment of URLs (like http:// or ftp://) as files.
allow_url_fopen = On

; Define the anonymous ftp password (your email address)
;from="john@doe.com"

; Define the User-Agent string
; user_agent="PHP"

; Default timeout for socket based streams (seconds)
default_socket_timeout = 60

; If your scripts have to deal with files from Macintosh systems,
; or you are running on a Mac and need to deal with files from
; unix or win32 systems, setting this flag will cause PHP to
; automatically detect the EOL character in those files so that
; fgets() and file() will work regardless of the source of the file.
; auto_detect_line_endings = Off


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Dynamic Extensions ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;
; If you wish to have an extension loaded automatically, use the following
; syntax:
;
;
; For example, on Windows:
;
;
; ... or under UNIX:
;
;
; Note that it should be the name of the module only; no directory information
; needs to go here.  Specify the location of the extension with the
; extension_dir directive above.


;Windows Extensions
;Note that MySQL and ODBC support is now built in, so no dll is needed for it.
;


;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Module Settings ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

[Syslog]
; Whether or not to define the various syslog variables (e.g. $LOG_PID,
; $LOG_CRON, etc.).  Turning it off is a good idea performance-wise.  In
; runtime, you can define these variables by calling define_syslog_variables().
define_syslog_variables = Off

[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
;SMTP = localhost
smtp_port = 25

; For Win32 only.
;sendmail_from = me@localhost.com

; For Unix only.  You may supply arguments as well (default: "sendmail -t -i").
sendmail_path = "/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i"

[Java]
;java.class.path = .\php_java.jar
;java.home = c:\jdk
;java.library = c:\jdk\jre\bin\hotspot\jvm.dll
;java.library.path = .\

[SQL]
sql.safe_mode = Off

[ODBC]
;odbc.default_db    =  Not yet implemented
;odbc.default_user  =  Not yet implemented
;odbc.default_pw    =  Not yet implemented

; Allow or prevent persistent links.
odbc.allow_persistent = On

; Check that a connection is still valid before reuse.
odbc.check_persistent = On

; Maximum number of persistent links.  -1 means no limit.
odbc.max_persistent = -1

; Maximum number of links (persistent + non-persistent).  -1 means no limit.
odbc.max_links = -1

; Handling of LONG fields.  Returns number of bytes to variables.  0 means
; passthru.
odbc.defaultlrl = 4096

; Handling of binary data.  0 means passthru, 1 return as is, 2 convert to char.
; See the documentation on odbc_binmode and odbc_longreadlen for an explanation
; of uodbc.defaultlrl and uodbc.defaultbinmode
odbc.defaultbinmode = 1

[MySQL]
; Allow or prevent persistent links.
mysql.allow_persistent = On

; Maximum number of persistent links.  -1 means no limit.
mysql.max_persistent = -1

; Maximum number of links (persistent + non-persistent).  -1 means no limit.
mysql.max_links = -1

; Default port number for mysql_connect().  If unset, mysql_connect() will use
; the $MYSQL_TCP_PORT or the mysql-tcp entry in /etc/services or the
; compile-time value defined MYSQL_PORT (in that order).  Win32 will only look
; at MYSQL_PORT.
mysql.default_port =

; Default socket name for local MySQL connects.  If empty, uses the built-in
; MySQL defaults.
mysql.default_socket =

; Default host for mysql_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
mysql.default_host =

; Default user for mysql_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
mysql.default_user =

; Default password for mysql_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
; Note that this is generally a *bad* idea to store passwords in this file.
; *Any* user with PHP access can run 'echo get_cfg_var("mysql.default_password")
; and reveal this password!  And of course, any users with read access to this
; file will be able to reveal the password as well.
mysql.default_password =

; Maximum time (in seconds) for connect timeout. -1 means no limit
mysql.connect_timeout = 60

; Trace mode. When trace_mode is active (=On), warnings for table/index scans and
; SQL-Errors will be displayed.
mysql.trace_mode = Off

[mSQL]
; Allow or prevent persistent links.
msql.allow_persistent = On

; Maximum number of persistent links.  -1 means no limit.
msql.max_persistent = -1

; Maximum number of links (persistent+non persistent).  -1 means no limit.
msql.max_links = -1

[PostgresSQL]
; Allow or prevent persistent links.
pgsql.allow_persistent = On

; Detect broken persistent links always with pg_pconnect(). Need a little overhead.
pgsql.auto_reset_persistent = Off

; Maximum number of persistent links.  -1 means no limit.
pgsql.max_persistent = -1

; Maximum number of links (persistent+non persistent).  -1 means no limit.
pgsql.max_links = -1

; Ignore PostgreSQL backends Notice message or not.
pgsql.ignore_notice = 0

; Log PostgreSQL backends Noitce message or not.
; Unless pgsql.ignore_notice=0, module cannot log notice message.
pgsql.log_notice = 0

[Sybase]
; Allow or prevent persistent links.
sybase.allow_persistent = On

; Maximum number of persistent links.  -1 means no limit.
sybase.max_persistent = -1

; Maximum number of links (persistent + non-persistent).  -1 means no limit.
sybase.max_links = -1

;sybase.interface_file = "/usr/sybase/interfaces"

; Minimum error severity to display.
sybase.min_error_severity = 10

; Minimum message severity to display.
sybase.min_message_severity = 10

; Compatability mode with old versions of PHP 3.0.
; If on, this will cause PHP to automatically assign types to results according
; to their Sybase type, instead of treating them all as strings.  This
; compatibility mode will probably not stay around forever, so try applying
; whatever necessary changes to your code, and turn it off.
sybase.compatability_mode = Off

[Sybase-CT]
; Allow or prevent persistent links.
sybct.allow_persistent = On

; Maximum number of persistent links.  -1 means no limit.
sybct.max_persistent = -1

; Maximum number of links (persistent + non-persistent).  -1 means no limit.
sybct.max_links = -1

; Minimum server message severity to display.
sybct.min_server_severity = 10

; Minimum client message severity to display.
sybct.min_client_severity = 10

[dbx]
; returned column names can be converted for compatibility reasons
; possible values for dbx.colnames_case are
; "unchanged" (default, if not set)
; "lowercase"
; "uppercase"
; the recommended default is either upper- or lowercase, but
; unchanged is currently set for backwards compatibility
dbx.colnames_case = "unchanged"

[bcmath]
; Number of decimal digits for all bcmath functions.
bcmath.scale = 0

[browscap]
;browscap = extra/browscap.ini

[Informix]
; Default host for ifx_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
ifx.default_host =

; Default user for ifx_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
ifx.default_user =

; Default password for ifx_connect() (doesn't apply in safe mode).
ifx.default_password =

; Allow or prevent persistent links.
ifx.allow_persistent = On

; Maximum number of persistent links.  -1 means no limit.
ifx.max_persistent = -1

; Maximum number of links (persistent + non-persistent).  -1 means no limit.
ifx.max_links = -1

; If on, select statements return the contents of a text blob instead of its id.
ifx.textasvarchar = 0

; If on, select statements return the contents of a byte blob instead of its id.
ifx.byteasvarchar = 0

; Trailing blanks are stripped from fixed-length char columns.  May help the
; life of Informix SE users.
ifx.charasvarchar = 0

; If on, the contents of text and byte blobs are dumped to a file instead of
; keeping them in memory.
ifx.blobinfile = 0

; NULL's are returned as empty strings, unless this is set to 1.  In that case,
; NULL's are returned as string 'NULL'.
ifx.nullformat = 0

[Session]
; Handler used to store/retrieve data.
session.save_handler = files

; Argument passed to save_handler.  In the case of files, this is the path
; where data files are stored. Note: Windows users have to change this
; variable in order to use PHP's session functions.
; As of PHP 4.0.1, you can define the path as:
session.save_path = "/tmp"
; where N is an integer.  Instead of storing all the session files in
; /path, what this will do is use subdirectories N-levels deep, and
; store the session data in those directories.  This is useful if you
; or your OS have problems with lots of files in one directory, and is
; a more efficient layout for servers that handle lots of sessions.
; NOTE 1: PHP will not create this directory structure automatically.
;         You can use the script in the ext/session dir for that purpose.
; NOTE 2: See the section on garbage collection below if you choose to
;         use subdirectories for session storage
;session.save_path = /tmp

; Whether to use cookies.
session.use_cookies = 1

; This option enables administrators to make their users invulnerable to
; attacks which involve passing session ids in URLs; defaults to 0.
; session.use_only_cookies = 1

; Name of the session (used as cookie name).
session.name = PHPSESSID

; Initialize session on request startup.
session.auto_start = 0

; Lifetime in seconds of cookie or, if 0, until browser is restarted.
session.cookie_lifetime = 0

; The path for which the cookie is valid.
session.cookie_path = "/"

; The domain for which the cookie is valid.
session.cookie_domain =

; Handler used to serialize data.  php is the standard serializer of PHP.
session.serialize_handler = php

; Define the probability that the 'garbage collection' process is started
; on every session initialization.
; The probability is calculated by using gc_probability/gc_divisor,
; e.g. 1/100 means there is a 1% chance that the GC process starts
; on each request.

session.gc_probability = 1
session.gc_divisor = 100

; After this number of seconds, stored data will be seen as 'garbage' and
; cleaned up by the garbage collection process.
session.gc_maxlifetime = 1440

; NOTE: If you are using the subdirectory option for storing session files
;       (see session.save_path above), then garbage collection does *not*
;       happen automatically.  You will need to do your own garbage
;       collection through a shell script, cron entry, or some other method.
;       For example, the following script would is the equivalent of
;       setting session.gc_maxlifetime to 1440 (1440 seconds = 24 minutes):
;          cd /path/to/sessions; find -cmin +24 | xargs rm

; PHP 4.2 and less have an undocumented feature/bug that allows you to
; to initialize a session variable in the global scope, albeit register_globals
; is disabled.  PHP 4.3 and later will warn you, if this feature is used.
; You can disable the feature and the warning separately. At this time,
; the warning is only displayed, if bug_compat_42 is enabled.

session.bug_compat_42 = 1
session.bug_compat_warn = 1

; Check HTTP Referer to invalidate externally stored URLs containing ids.
; HTTP_REFERER has to contain this substring for the session to be
; considered as valid.
session.referer_check =

; How many bytes to read from the file.
session.entropy_length = 0

; Specified here to create the session id.
session.entropy_file =

;session.entropy_length = 16

;session.entropy_file = /dev/urandom

; Set to {nocache,private,public,} to determine HTTP caching aspects
; or leave this empty to avoid sending anti-caching headers.
session.cache_limiter = nocache

; Document expires after n minutes.
session.cache_expire = 180

; trans sid support is disabled by default.
; Use of trans sid may risk your users security.
; Use this option with caution.
; - User may send URL contains active session ID
;   to other person via. email/irc/etc.
; - URL that contains active session ID may be stored
;   in publically accessible computer.
; - User may access your site with the same session ID
;   always using URL stored in browser's history or bookmarks.
session.use_trans_sid = 0

; The URL rewriter will look for URLs in a defined set of HTML tags.
; form/fieldset are special; if you include them here, the rewriter will
; add a hidden <input> field with the info which is otherwise appended
; to URLs.  If you want XHTML conformity, remove the form entry.
; Note that all valid entries require a "=", even if no value follows.
url_rewriter.tags = "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=,fieldset="

[MSSQL]
; Allow or prevent persistent links.
mssql.allow_persistent = On

; Maximum number of persistent links.  -1 means no limit.
mssql.max_persistent = -1

; Maximum number of links (persistent+non persistent).  -1 means no limit.
mssql.max_links = -1

; Minimum error severity to display.
mssql.min_error_severity = 10

; Minimum message severity to display.
mssql.min_message_severity = 10

; Compatability mode with old versions of PHP 3.0.
mssql.compatability_mode = Off

; Connect timeout
;mssql.connect_timeout = 5

; Query timeout
;mssql.timeout = 60

; Valid range 0 - 2147483647.  Default = 4096.
;mssql.textlimit = 4096

; Valid range 0 - 2147483647.  Default = 4096.
;mssql.textsize = 4096

; Limits the number of records in each batch.  0 = all records in one batch.
;mssql.batchsize = 0

; Specify how datetime and datetim4 columns are returned
; On => Returns data converted to SQL server settings
; Off => Returns values as YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss
;mssql.datetimeconvert = On

; Use NT authentication when connecting to the server
mssql.secure_connection = Off

; Specify max number of processes. Default = 25
;mssql.max_procs = 25

[Assertion]
; Assert(expr); active by default.
;assert.active = On

; Issue a PHP warning for each failed assertion.
;assert.warning = On

; Don't bail out by default.
;assert.bail = Off

; User-function to be called if an assertion fails.
;assert.callback = 0

; Eval the expression with current error_reporting().  Set to true if you want
; error_reporting(0) around the eval().
;assert.quiet_eval = 0

[Ingres II]
; Allow or prevent persistent links.
ingres.allow_persistent = On

; Maximum number of persistent links.  -1 means no limit.
ingres.max_persistent = -1

; Maximum number of links, including persistents.  -1 means no limit.
ingres.max_links = -1

; Default database (format: [node_id::]dbname[/srv_class]).
ingres.default_database =

; Default user.
ingres.default_user =

; Default password.
ingres.default_password =

[Verisign Payflow Pro]
; Default Payflow Pro server.
pfpro.defaulthost = "test-payflow.verisign.com"

; Default port to connect to.
pfpro.defaultport = 443

; Default timeout in seconds.
pfpro.defaulttimeout = 30

; Default proxy IP address (if required).
;pfpro.proxyaddress =

; Default proxy port.
;pfpro.proxyport =

; Default proxy logon.
;pfpro.proxylogon =

; Default proxy password.
;pfpro.proxypassword =

[com]
; path to a file containing GUIDs, IIDs or filenames of files with TypeLibs
;com.typelib_file =
; allow Distributed-COM calls
;com.allow_dcom = true
; autoregister constants of a components typlib on com_load()
;com.autoregister_typelib = true
; register constants casesensitive
;com.autoregister_casesensitive = false
; show warnings on duplicate constat registrations
;com.autoregister_verbose = true

[Printer]
;printer.default_printer = ""

[mbstring]
; language for internal character representation.
;mbstring.language = Japanese

; internal/script encoding.
; Some encoding cannot work as internal encoding.
; (e.g. SJIS, BIG5, ISO-2022-*)
;mbstring.internal_encoding = EUC-JP

; http input encoding.
;mbstring.http_input = auto

; http output encoding. mb_output_handler must be
; registered as output buffer to function
;mbstring.http_output = SJIS

; enable automatic encoding translation accoding to
; mbstring.internal_encoding setting. Input chars are
; converted to internal encoding by setting this to On.
; Note: Do _not_ use automatic encoding translation for
;       portable libs/applications.
;mbstring.encoding_translation = Off

; automatic encoding detection order.
; auto means
;mbstring.detect_order = auto

; substitute_character used when character cannot be converted
; one from another
mbstring.substitute_character = none

; overload(replace) single byte functions by mbstring functions.
; mail(), ereg(), etc are overloaded by mb_send_mail(), mb_ereg(),
; etc. Possible values are 0,1,2,4 or combination of them.
; For example, 7 for overload everything.
; 0: No overload
; 1: Overload mail() function
; 2: Overload str*() functions
; 4: Overload ereg*() functions
mbstring.func_overload = 0

[FrontBase]
;fbsql.allow_persistent = On
;fbsql.autocommit = On
;fbsql.default_database =
;fbsql.default_database_password =
;fbsql.default_host =
;fbsql.default_password =
;fbsql.default_user = "_SYSTEM"
;fbsql.generate_warnings = Off
;fbsql.max_connections = 128
;fbsql.max_links = 128
;fbsql.max_persistent = -1
;fbsql.max_results = 128
;fbsql.batchSize = 1000

[Crack]
; Modify the setting below to match the directory location of the cracklib
; dictionary files.  Include the base filename, but not the file extension.
; crack.default_dictionary = "c:\php\lib\cracklib_dict"

[exif]
; Exif UNICODE user comments are handled as UCS-2BE/UCS-2LE and JIS as JIS.
; With mbstring support this will automatically be converted into the encoding
; given by corresponding encode setting. When empty mbstring.internal_encoding
; is used. For the decode settings you can distinguish between motorola and
; intel byte order. A decode setting cannot be empty.
;exif.encode_unicode = ISO-8859-15
;exif.decode_unicode_motorola = UCS-2BE
;exif.decode_unicode_intel    = UCS-2LE
;exif.encode_jis =
;exif.decode_jis_motorola = JIS
;exif.decode_jis_intel    = JIS

; Local Variables:
; tab-width: 4
; End:


[Zend]
date.timezone = "America/New_York"

 

Here's what I have on Litespeed's PHP config:

 

[ASTRAPI]

You can try to increase :

Max connections to 1200

Disable mysql persistent connections

Set keep alive requests to 4 or 5

Check if Zend OPCache  is enabled or not and enable it...

 

Test and let us know

 

[Ghan]

I do have OPCache enabled - I've been using it exclusively ever since PHP finally included it by default.

I'm not getting max connection errors, so not sure if that's a big deal - I tried doubling it to 200 but that doesn't seem to have done anything. I did disable MySQL persistent connections in php.ini as well, but that also seems to have had no effect.

Playing around with keepalives and persistent connections in Litespeed seems to be a bad idea - the server load went over 60 and things got even worse when I disabled persistent connections there. I switched it back and now things are back down to 25 load, but the site itself is quite slow. The server is basically maxing out all 12 cores right now with ~550-600 users online.

[RevengeFNF]

@Ghan you seem someone that knows what is doing, so probably your server is well configured. I would change your mysql to mariadb, and litespeed to nginx+php-fpm, but i don't think mysql or litespeed are the cause. Right now, IPS4 is more resource hungry than xenforo(its also better, you can't have both).

I suggest you to move to a dedicated server. With the money you are paying now, you will not have any problem finding one that will work good with your site.

[ASTRAPI]

Yup hard to say what is causing your issue without checking from inside

As my recommendations to open it a bit more didn't help it seems that something may crash like a schedule task on IPB and even if you let software to get more power it will try to get more and more cpu (for php?)....

You can try to open a support ticket so IPB stuff can check it....

I agree with Revenge FNF also about the dedicated server ....

[Ghan]

8 minutes ago, RevengeFNF said:

@Ghan you seems someone that knows what you are doing, so probably your server is well configured. I would change your mysql to mariadb, and litespeed to nginx+php-fpm, but i don't think mysql or litespeed are the cause. Right now, IPS4 is more resource hungry than xenforo(its also better, you can't have both).

I suggest you to move to a dedicated server. With the money you are paying now, you will not have any problem finding one that will work good with your site.

Yeah, I'm thinking that as well. Though I have run Nginx with PHP-FPM with xenForo in the past, and Litespeed did a lot to reduce load on that setup, so I'm not keen to move back since it seems to perform quite a bit better. If I had the resources I might give it a try on a test/dev setup first to see how it feels, but for now I'll keep that as an open suggestion to try.

I have tried to run MariaDB, actually, and I have in the past. However, ever since the newer versions, I have not been able to get it to work. (This may be because I compile from source rather than go with the usual package install though.) It's odd though because I use the same compile options as I do on MySQL, yet it fails on startup with the following:

 

2016-08-11 20:24:45 140310543702080 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' init function returned error.
2016-08-11 20:24:45 140310543702080 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' registration as a STORAGE ENGINE failed.
2016-08-11 20:24:45 140310543702080 [Note] Plugin 'FEEDBACK' is disabled.
2016-08-11 20:24:45 140310543702080 [ERROR] Could not open mysql.plugin table. Some plugins may be not loaded
2016-08-11 20:24:45 140310543702080 [ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB
2016-08-11 20:24:45 140310543702080 [ERROR] Aborting

 

I'm not sure how much performance gain to expect even if I could get it to work. MySQL 5.7 seems to have made some big improvements in performance. Still, every bit would help and I may take another crack on it with a fresh system instead of trying to do an upgrade over top of an existing install.

 

7 minutes ago, ASTRAPI said:

Yup hard to say what is causing your issue without checking from inside

 

Understood. I do appreciate all the help so far from everyone in this thread, though. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's a bit stumped here.

Thanks!

[ASTRAPI]

Your issue is easy to fix

Rename or move both the "ib_logfile0" and "ib_logfile1" files, and then start the MySQL server.

Usually they are located at:

/var/lib/mysql