Some snips of info from my hosts which help people find what this problem is (Ive edited out the bits that aren't of much info):
DPrincetonNOC [12:49]: i show the load of the server 15 min ago was 65 _
DPrincetonNOC [12:49]: 65 +
DPrincetonNOC [12:50]: last pid: 16163; load averages: 1.32, 11.55, 65.54442 up 0+19:55:30 11:50:31
384 processes: 80 running, 304 sleeping
CPU states: 1.9% user, 0.0% nice, 7.1% system, 0.4% interrupt, 90.7% idle
Mem: 154M Active, 10M Inact, 74M Wired, 788K Cache, 34M Buf, 644K Free
Swap: 480M Total, 458M Used, 23M Free, 95% Inuse, 616K In, 1336K Out
8498 root 29 0 2352K 792K RUN 0:53 3.63% 1.07% top
7821 root 29 0 2352K 792K RUN 0:56 3.30% 0.98% top
187 root 2 0 10040K 1536K select 0:22 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15306 apache -14 0 11616K 2128K inode 0:04 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15396 apache 28 0 11608K 2120K RUN 0:04 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15305 apache 28 0 11692K 1896K RUN 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15477 apache -14 0 12920K 2664K inode 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15278 apache -14 0 11540K 2096K inode 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15294 apache 28 0 11704K 2212K RUN 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15234 apache -14 0 12948K 2596K inode 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15517 apache -14 0 11440K 2160K inode 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15443 apache 28 0 11512K 1772K RUN 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15465 apache 28 0 11496K 1972K RUN 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15476 apache -14 0 11532K 1892K inode 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15480 apache -14 0 11444K 2096K inode 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
15464 apache 28 0 11508K 1692K RUN 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpd
172 root 2 0 4304K 256K select 0:03 0.00% 0.00% httpsd
DPrincetonNOC [12:51]: there are about 500 httpd processes running right now
DPrincetonNOC [12:51]: thats why it died again.MrKopTalk [12:53]: hmmm....Could a news site that checks my site every 5 minutes for updates cause any of this? When I update a news item I edit a page which can be found here:
http://www.koptalk.com/regulars/newsnow.shtmlThose items then appear at:
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/newsfeed/?name=LiverpoolIt was just a thought.
DPrincetonNOC [12:53]: that might be whats doing it
DPrincetonNOC [12:54]: im rebooting the box again now
MrKopTalk [12:54]: I'll remove that page so it cant spider the site
DPrincetonNOC [12:54]: i was never told this before so i wasnt loooking for anything like that in the logs
MrKopTalk [12:54]: i didnt know it could be that...just a wild guess
DPrincetonNOC [12:55]: spiders could be doing that and they create httpd requests and its not like a browser that someone closes
DPrincetonNOC [12:55]: and 5 min could be to short of an interval and the process never closes on its own.
DPrincetonNOC [12:55]: its taking much longer for the box to die now so its a slow thing
DPrincetonNOC [12:56]: as far as the mysql goes, Plesk knows about the patches and they have released hot fixes for PSA
DPrincetonNOC [12:56]: which we have applied.
DPrincetonNOC [12:56]: no need to worry about that.
DPrincetonNOC [13:20]: its about every 10 hours that it goes
DPrincetonNOC [13:20]: there are still httpd spawns from the spider and they dont close so they just all add up
MrKopTalk [13:21]: so you think this spider thing every 5 mins could the prob? i can soon work around that as I dont have to use it
DPrincetonNOC [13:21]: we will be able to get it to work if you can get some stable code from them
MrKopTalk [13:21]: when a new headline appears on newsnow.co.uk from my site people click on it and they are taken to my site via a pop-up
DPrincetonNOC [13:22]: see if they can make it every 10 min or something
MrKopTalk [13:22]: koptalk is the 3rd busiest site on there
DPrincetonNOC [13:22]: then if the server goes down every 20 hours we know it was that.
MrKopTalk [13:22]: i'll let you guys know what they say - it might not even be that
DPrincetonNOC [13:23]: I can format and reinstall and write some extra code into the kernal to allow 5,000 httpd connections at any time
DPrincetonNOC [13:23]: right now our custom kernal is set for 2,500 which hasnt ever been a problem for any other customers
DPrincetonNOC [13:28]: how many were online last time you were on
MrKopTalk [13:28]: 500
MrKopTalk [13:29]: maybe my site is too busy for Threads even if this problem is fixed?
DPrincetonNOC [13:29]: i noticed you still had that first page up, can you make it just go to the forum
DPrincetonNOC [13:29]: i doubt it
DPrincetonNOC [13:31]: well let me get this think rebooted again and see what I can see and then steve will work on it
DPrincetonNOC [13:37]: ask allen if he can put a non beta version of threads on the box with the same index page, just create another DB with same content
DPrincetonNOC [13:38]: have the index point to the non beta version on the server and see if that still crashes the box.