We've got two packages running, OpenX and Phorum, that seem to make a lot of database connections. Sometimes so many that the whole database runs out of connections. Phorum gets hammered by bots looking to exploit vulnerabilities in the code (and sometimes finds them). OpenX is just greedy. Or ...
The Frankenserver must go. Today we were having a little bit of woah with the old Phorum installation. Does seem to get derailed, that one. More on that later: the net result was that Apache was choking to the point where I couldn't even ssh into the machine. I phoned Ye Olde Rackspace, who confirmed Franken's unresponsiveness and had the data center reboot it. And for a split second I was able to get in and run top, which showed me a whole lot of apache processes. More than I've ever seen before. I quit top and tried to stop apache: sudo /etc/init.d/httpd stop That failed the first time but being a persistent sort of woman I tried it again. And then I called Rackspace to find out what they were doing. We have a support contract with them, you see, and I realized that ... 1) I don't want to work at cross purposes with their esteemed technical whiz-kids, and 2) I don't want to do work someone else is already doing. I've got other things to do. Blogs to read. That was a joke, by the way. I don't read blogs at work. Ever. So I get them on the phone and whiz kid one says to me "well, I'm just going to restart apache here and see what that tells us." What restarting apache tells us. And before I could say "hang on" he did. Just in time to snarl my request for the tail of apache's error logs. It just went down hill from there, the upshot being that I mostly resolved the problem despite Rackspace. I'm done paying $350+/month for Rackspace. They aren't earning it. I've been moaning about this server for eons. When last we left off I was contemplating life without a service contract. I can see now that I don't need this service contract. Liberating revelation, that one. Elastic clouds scare me because I don't understand them. Also because I don't think I can have a static IP on a cloud. VPS I understand. So now I'm sketching my new server and workplan. Here's what I think I'm installing:
FolioGrid - a Premium Wordpress Theme by FrogsThemes.com