High % WA load

EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
edited December 2004 in Science & Tech
When viewing "top" I normally get greeted with stats like this
Cpu(s): 0.0% us, 2.7% sy, 0.0% ni, 0.0% id, 97.0% wa, 0.3% hi, 0.0% si
And as such, the machine is running like crap, even simple tasks take ages. It's not actually doing anything, so why it's running like this I don't know. The processor usage doesn't show up when I pull up a process list: ( http://atomnet.co.uk/load.txt ).

I know it is something to do with one or all of the following because when I stop Apache, the problem goes away: Apache2, MySQL, PHP. But the question is why would something cause this and any idea what it is specifically?

Comments

  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Er, for those that aren't aware, it's Gentoo Linux running Kernel 2.6.1
    Apache2 2.0.52
    mod_php 4.3.9
    php 4.3.9
    MySQL 4.0.22
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Have you added any new custom code recently that could be hogging a process?

    Im trying to think of reasons that are not necessarily OS related.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    One thing, but it's private and only takes a few seconds to run (validates things in a database against things actually on the servers drive). I'll get rid of it, but as it isn't public I dont see how it would be making a difference.

    I stop apache, system goes back to normal. Start it again and whoop, wa is back up to 50%+ in a few seconds.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Sounds like something is hogging, leaking or getting stuck. Of which, I don't have enough knowledge to answer. I will ask, have you recompiled any of those apps recently for newer versions of the source? Especially PHP & Apache.

    Might be worth compiling a new apache.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Shorty wrote:
    Sounds like something is hogging, leaking or getting stuck. Of which, I don't have enough knowledge to answer. I will ask, have you recompiled any of those apps recently for newer versions of the source? Especially PHP & Apache.

    Might be worth compiling a new apache.

    All of them, almost bi-weekly too. I've just recompiled them all and the problem is still there...
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Ok, uninstalling php and mod_php entirely then reinstalling them :( Probably won't work. Any other ideas are gratefullly accepted...
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Ok, for the record, when I uninstalled and reinstalled all of the programs involved, the problem went away, so it's sorted basically.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited December 2004
    Ok, this is still doing it, and I think it may be a "runaway" script like you mentioned, but I have no idea what. Any ideas for narrowing it down?
  • EMTEMT Seattle, WA Icrontian
    edited December 2004
    Have you checked apache's logs? They might have a clue...
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited December 2004
    Nothing in the error log, nothing unusual in the main log :(
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