Resource Usage In Cpanel (SDX) Details?

[FreeFall]

Hello

It seems the Resource Usage part of my Cpanel is now active, and I can see some stats for that which is good, it's nice to know what my account is using on a shared server.
But can you explain what certain things actually mean, e.g.

I seem to hit the max memory limit and max cpu limit a few times, but the averages are really really low, (average cpu usually under 10% and never above 20%, average memory usually under 10mb) and there are a few occasions where the "number of times the application hasnt been able to execute correctly due to memory limit". The spikes just seem weird considering the average is so low.

In reality the site runs fine, pretty fast and no real issues.

[JPC-Sajjad]

The Resource Usage plugin is a result of cloud linux. This Implements fair-share scheduling on the level of group of processes. By enabling cloud linux on the server a Single site cannot prevent other sites from taking down or slowing down the server. Once a website reaches the limit of resources which has been set, the site will begin to slow down. Once the number of entry processes (apache/http) requests is reached, that particular user will get a 503 error message. The website that is consuming too many resources will stop working but the other users on the server will continue to run normal.

cPanel Resource Usage statistics plugin comes integrated with cPanel 11.30 and higher. It is available for end users and allows end user to see their CPU usage, Memory usage and concurrent connections directly from their cPanel interface. The plugin will display your CP, Memory usage and Entry Processes. CPU usage is calculated based on the CPU limit customer has.

If you need further information for any particular term in the plugin or experiencing any issues please open a ticket in support department and we shall be glad to assist you further.

[Ron]

That sounds like some good stuff.

On which servers are you running Cloud Linux?

[the_ancient]

I remember reading awhile back that JPC was thinking about deploying some cloud linux servers... Did not realize you had

How are they worked out, if it works as advertised it is almost worth me ending my cPanel boycott.......

[JPC-Sajjad]

We have tested it randomly on some servers which were experiencing constant load issues and so far its going fine and smooth. However we have not deployed it on bulk of servers yet.

[FreeFall]

oh no, not sharing! So this is almost like a VPS style now?

The problem with limits is that you could set them too low, or that they are pretty useless "shared out".

e.g. look at my stats:
average cpu usage per hour: 8, 4, 4, 12, 8, 8, 8, 4
Max cpu usage per hour: 96, 96, 100, 96, 100, 96, 88

How can the average be so low, yet in the same hour I hit the maximum/over 90% most of the time?

memory is similar, I seem to hit the limit (although not as much) a fair bit, and the average is low once again. The limit is 512mb too, which is like the cheapest VPS, but they are burstable to 2gb...more powerful now? I was always under the impression that Semi dedicated would give more power but you have less control.

I liked it better when we had the whole server resources, sure you could get a client slowing everyone down or bringing the server down, but as long as it wasnt excessive or dealt with quickly it was better.

My account this month has only used 22224.74mb in 29 days, that is only 766mb per day, which doesnt strike me as much; Certainly nowhere near my "1,500,000mb limit"

[the_ancient]

oh no, not sharing! So this is almost like a VPS style now?

The problem with limits is that you could set them too low, or that they are pretty useless "shared out".

e.g. look at my stats:
average cpu usage per hour: 8, 4, 4, 12, 8, 8, 8, 4
Max cpu usage per hour: 96, 96, 100, 96, 100, 96, 88

How can the average be so low, yet in the same hour I hit the maximum/over 90% most of the time?

memory is similar, I seem to hit the limit (although not as much) a fair bit, and the average is low once again. The limit is 512mb too, which is like the cheapest VPS, but they are burstable to 2gb...more powerful now? I was always under the impression that Semi dedicated would give more power but you have less control.

I liked it better when we had the whole server resources, sure you could get a client slowing everyone down or bringing the server down, but as long as it wasnt excessive or dealt with quickly it was better.

My account this month has only used 22224.74mb in 29 days, that is only 766mb per day, which doesnt strike me as much; Certainly nowhere near my "1,500,000mb limit"

I am going to caveat this reply with this
1> I have no personal experiance with Cloud Linux,
2> I hate cPanel

With that said, the memory usage on the ***shared*** account should only be what your scripts/database is using, unlike on a VPS where memory would include the actual operating system, email systems, control panel (which if using cPanel that is a memory hog and a half unless they have fixed in recently) so that is not a good 1:1 compare unless cloud linux can some how figure out how much of these system level services your individual account is using,

Even if it can, unless it is including cPanel, 512MB should work for most sites, if your peaking that 1> How much traffic do you have 2> are you using any caching system if not why? 3> you may need to optimise your applications

[Jamsori]

Cloudlinux counts RAM usage more like OpenVZ, rather than Xen. To expand on that, it counts used + reserved RAM under your username as full RAM. On some servers, 1 PHP process counts as like 100-150MB RAM, so if you have a few going at once, you'll probably reach your RAM limit. In reality, this should only really happen on cron jobs or big traffic bursts. I wouldn't really worry about the CPU usage too much - it doesn't cause site issues, just slowness. Since your average is so low, i imagine it wouldn't be noticeable at all.

From a server admin perspective, CloudLinux is great, since it makes it easy to see the abusers. From a client perspective, it's pretty annoying, especially with low memory limits.

[FreeFall]

With that said, the memory usage on the ***shared*** account should only be what your scripts/database is using, unlike on a VPS where memory would include the actual operating system, email systems, control panel (which if using cPanel that is a memory hog and a half unless they have fixed in recently) so that is not a good 1:1 compare unless cloud linux can some how figure out how much of these system level services your individual account is using,

aah right, then maybe I didnt take that into consideration.

It is just a worrying site to see lots of red numbers, the max cpu usage is 90% more than anything over 24 hours, however the average is usually in single digits, its like my site is fine, unless someone visits, then I hit the limit

[the_ancient]

aah right, then maybe I didnt take that into consideration.

It is just a worrying site to see lots of red numbers, the max cpu usage is 90% more than anything over 24 hours, however the average is usually in single digits, its like my site is fine, unless someone visits, then I hit the limit

The only way to find out is to look at the traffic logs for the time frame it was at 90% and see what was happening.

If there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, no massive emai/web traffic, no cron job running etc then you might want to contact support. If there is something running at that time you need to look at that process and see if it can be optimized

[Ron]

e.g. look at my stats:
average cpu usage per hour: 8, 4, 4, 12, 8, 8, 8, 4
Max cpu usage per hour: 96, 96, 100, 96, 100, 96, 88

I read that as:
"For each of these 8 hours:
What was the average CPU usage during this given hour
and
What was the high point spike during that hour"

If it means something different, let me know.

Even so, I'm not sure what use that statistic is. Any process can burst to 100% of CPU for an instant, and technically as you look at CPU usage more granularly each and every single process will consume 100% of a core or virtual thread while it is executing. It needs to be averaged over some stated amount of time to be useful, such as "Max 5 second CPU usage per hour" or some such. Lastly is it talking percent of a CPU or of total system CPU.

Also while shared RAM was previously mentioned, does this CPU stat take into account CPU utilization from shared resources like the MySQL server?

[Ron]

Cloudlinux counts RAM usage more like OpenVZ, rather than Xen. To expand on that, it counts used + reserved RAM under your username as full RAM. On some servers, 1 PHP process counts as like 100-150MB RAM, so if you have a few going at once, you'll probably reach your RAM limit.

This might cause me to need to adjust parts of my system.

How is the php process RAM amount figured? Does it go by how much RAM is actually consumed by the process, or does it go by the PHP configuration parameters, including memory_limit?

[Jamsori]

Also while shared RAM was previously mentioned, does this CPU stat take into account CPU utilization from shared resources like the MySQL server?

I believe Cloudlinux just counts anything running under the relevant username. MySQL runs as MySQL, so it doesn't count it. However, i do believe they're working out a method to do this.

This might cause me to need to adjust parts of my system.

How is the php process RAM amount figured? Does it go by how much RAM is actually consumed by the process, or does it go by the PHP configuration parameters, including memory_limit?

It counts the amount it uses and reserves. For example, the PHP process might reserve 100MB RAM for itself, but only use 40MB. A dedicated server would only count 40MB as being used whereas Cloudlinux would count it as 100MB. For this example, i'm not 100% sure if PHP would count memory_limit under that 100MB of 'reserved' RAM since i'm not sure if PHP allocates all that RAM, but compiled modules (even if not in use by the script) would count.

Anyway, i hope that helps a bit.

[Carter]

Hi guys,

I'm running into hitting the upper limits of memory allocation on my Semi-Dedicated account. I obviously need to track down the resource hogs and figure out what I need to fix to lower this.

Is there an way to spot which applications (ie. chat line, bulletin board, etc) are using the most memory?

[Ron]

On a system where you do not have access to root, support MUST provide you with tools and/or reports to help you diagnose memory usage.