[Bubba]

Due to a recent surge in popularity / activity on this site, the forum is suffering performance problems.

Unfortunately at the moment, I cannot afford to upgrade my web server, but I am trying to tweak the existing server to help alleviate these problems. This involves some trial and error on my part because I've never really done much Apache performance tuning before.  

I will also soon be moving the forum software away from phpBB to something which is more stable, secure and performant.

Also, once the forum is changed, I will be upgrading the gallery and bringing back some of the old site sections.

As usual this has to fit around me working full time, etc, so don't expect anything to happen in a hurry.

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Yeah I did notice was a bit slow, the other thing I noticed recently was there is reguarly something like '80 users online', but only 2 signed in is this normal? Or is 'something strange afoot'? It feels a bit like  a big dark empty room with a couple of you lit by candle light, but hundreds of eyes peering in from the blackness....or is that just me?!  :shock:

Oh, and while we're at it, probably overdue again for a 'Thanks for all the hard work Bubba, it is appreciated'  :D  :D  :D  :D  :D

[Bubba]

I'm trying to work out whether the increase in traffic is straight up or malicious, i.e. some sort of attack. Hopefully not.

Thanks for the props

[andy_e]

There was a post recently on UKC asking about UKB... other such posts mentioning UKB obviously attract more attention...

We should all buy Bubba a pint next time we see him, he deserves it!  :D

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Yeah I did notice was a bit slow, the other thing I noticed recently was there is reguarly something like '80 users online', but only 2 signed in is this normal? Or is 'something strange afoot'? It feels a bit like  a big dark empty room with a couple of you lit by candle light, but hundreds of eyes peering in from the blackness....or is that just me?!  :shock:

Oh, and while we're at it, probably overdue again for a 'Thanks for all the hard work Bubba, it is appreciated'  :D  :D  :D  :D  :D

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Whoops, sorry, gremlins at work again, the forum had frozen and I didn't think it had posted. And is it 'You cannot delete your posts in this forum"?? :roll:

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

or edit??

[Jim]

me neither. Seems to be 24 guests online and me and its 6.22 in the morning. something is amiss me thinks

[Bubba]

I'm trying to work out whether the increase in traffic is straight up or malicious, i.e. some sort of attack. Hopefully not.

Thanks for the props

[andy_e]

Whoa... this post has gone bananas...

If we were all to buy Bubba a pint, it would be something... I wonder what he's like after 916 pints...

[Bubba]

916 pints - yes please

See this notice: http://ukbouldering.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=74358

I've temp. banned guest access.

[Houdini]

Probably the best place to put this query.

What's with this new scroll bar on the right hand side of most of the posts?  Yep, I guess it's to minimize the size of each, er, 'postbox' but some of the time text is lost or it's behaving a little funny.  I find it a pain.  What gives?

[Bubba]

Erm dunno - i don't see it and nothing should have changed 

[Houdini]

OK I'm not on the usual PC but a public library PC in Birmingham.  I wonder if has something to do with it?  I'm confused Bubba....

[Bubba]

Yeah, that's probably it - still not sure why it would happen, but hey ho

[Bubba]

Sorry about last night's crash - it was caused by a problem regarding running SMF forums on an Ubuntu host.

What was happening was that due to the way Ubuntu handles php sessions by default, old sessions were not being deleted from the sessions tables and they just grew and grew from the time the server was upgraded a while back.

Across ukb/ukc there was something like a million records in the sessions tables - understandably this had a big impact on performance...but this should be fixed now.

[SA Chris]

I thought it was due to all the business Mick "sent here"

[Bubba]

Nah, nothing to do with that - he might like to think that ukclimbing has 500,000 concurrent users, but i very much doubt that's the case.

The forum has actually been getting slower and slower with more database connection problems since the server upgrade but I couldn't figure out why. I came across a solution quite by chance on the SMF support forums whilst trying to work out what had failed when i got back from work last night. The problem affects all Debian/Ubuntu hosts but a solution isn't provided as part of the SMF basic package.

[SA Chris]

The problem affects all Debian/Ubuntu hosts but a solution isn't provided as part of the SMF basic package.

I understood until you wrote this bit.