Elgg VPS Server was overloaded with the apache processes . The RAM on the server gets exhausted due to this website load which results in server slowness and errors on the website.

My URL : https://safalaya.com . I am using elgg - 1.8.19 . My Elgg VPS Server was overloaded with the apache processes . The RAM on the server gets exhausted due to this website load which results in server slowness and errors on the website. . I am giving you the Server logs . 

09:40:01 AM   runq-sz  plist-sz   ldavg-1   ldavg-5  ldavg-15
09:50:01 AM         2       333      3.15      2.88      1.82
10:00:09 AM         1       439      3.10      4.96      3.42
10:10:19 AM         0       578     86.72     68.54     32.96
10:20:42 AM         0       520    111.14    104.68     70.03
10:30:09 AM         3       364      2.50     21.30     42.12
10:40:05 AM         5       515     13.07     11.19     26.39
10:50:03 AM         0       668     57.64     36.65     28.25
11:03:56 AM         1       761    170.79    132.20     76.51
11:10:51 AM         0       897    162.87    162.05    111.91
11:21:19 AM         0       676    173.99    118.39    106.82
11:30:33 AM         2       549    132.76    153.38    134.23
11:40:03 AM         1       368      9.01     41.64     86.78
11:50:02 AM         0       265      7.09     13.46     49.84
12:00:09 PM         3       363      2.77      3.73     27.12
12:10:01 PM         0       682     14.55     14.38     20.37
12:20:32 PM         0       800    122.10     93.10     51.27
Average:            1       549     67.08     61.41     54.37


top - 10:07:24 up 33 min,  0 users,  load average: 111.43, 48.52, 20.01
Tasks: 397 total,   5 running, 387 sleeping,   0 stopped,   5 zombie
Cpu(s): 24.4%us, 10.9%sy,  0.0%ni,  0.0%id, 63.9%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.8%si,  0.0%st
Mem:   1527664k total,  1475932k used,    51732k free,      716k buffers
Swap:  3145724k total,  1219160k used,  1926564k free,    39680k cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 1567 mysql     20   0 2416m 321m 3000 S 124.2 21.5  38:12.59 /usr/sbin/mysqld -
 4289 nsikdar   20   0  222m  11m 2824 S  4.1  0.7   0:00.63 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4340 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3860 S  2.9  1.2   0:00.30 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4322 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3852 S  2.6  1.2   0:00.30 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4345 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3916 S  2.6  1.2   0:00.32 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4362 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3924 S  2.6  1.2   0:00.31 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4300 nsikdar   20   0  220m  15m 3376 S  2.4  1.1   0:00.35 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4354 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3908 S  2.4  1.2   0:00.24 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4294 nsikdar   20   0  222m  10m 2828 R  1.9  0.7   0:00.56 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4325 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3852 S  1.9  1.2   0:00.28 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4339 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3852 S  1.9  1.2   0:00.31 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4352 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3908 S  1.9  1.2   0:00.27 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3490 nsikdar   20   0  222m 8644 2452 S  1.7  0.6   0:00.86 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4323 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3852 S  1.7  1.2   0:00.25 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4324 nsikdar   20   0  220m  19m 3852 S  1.7  1.3   0:00.26 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4329 nsikdar   20   0  220m  17m 3860 S  1.7  1.2   0:00.27 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4306 nsikdar   20   0  220m  15m 3296 S  1.4  1.1   0:00.37 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3567 nsikdar   20   0  222m  10m 3332 D  1.2  0.7   0:00.46 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3523 nsikdar   20   0  222m  10m 3332 S  1.0  0.7   0:00.44 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4146 nsikdar   20   0  222m 9856 2980 D  1.0  0.6   0:00.39 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4381 nsikdar   20   0  180m 6092 3604 D  1.0  0.4   0:00.06 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4407 root      20   0 13400 1288  716 R  1.0  0.1   0:00.12 top -n 2 -b -c
   73 root      20   0     0    0    0 D  0.7  0.0   0:06.86 [kswapd0]
 3502 nsikdar   20   0  222m 9524 2624 D  0.7  0.6   0:00.73 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3790 nsikdar   20   0  221m 5160 2296 D  0.7  0.3   0:00.28 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3889 nsikdar   20   0  132m  11m 3532 D  0.7  0.8   0:00.45 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3931 nsikdar   20   0  127m 7336 3440 D  0.7  0.5   0:00.48 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4301 nsikdar   20   0  218m  13m 3276 D  0.7  0.9   0:00.29 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4379 nsikdar   20   0  218m  15m 3864 R  0.7  1.0   0:00.18 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4400 nsikdar   20   0  180m 6096 3604 D  0.7  0.4   0:00.05 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4405 nsikdar   20   0  180m 6084 3596 D  0.7  0.4   0:00.05 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3336 nsikdar   20   0  222m 5828 2360 D  0.5  0.4   0:00.45 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3483 nsikdar   20   0  222m 8296 2584 D  0.5  0.5   0:00.82 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3600 nsikdar   20   0  132m  10m 3140 D  0.5  0.7   0:00.49 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3975 nsikdar   20   0  222m  10m 2980 D  0.5  0.7   0:00.34 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4257 nsikdar   20   0  222m  11m 3376 S  0.5  0.8   0:00.46 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4297 nsikdar   20   0  222m  13m 2964 S  0.5  0.9   0:00.50 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4307 nsikdar   20   0  218m  13m 3200 R  0.5  0.9   0:00.29 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4321 nsikdar   20   0  217m  14m 3800 S  0.5  1.0   0:00.20 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4327 nsikdar   20   0  218m  14m 3800 S  0.5  1.0   0:00.21 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4401 nsikdar   20   0  192m 6280 3732 D  0.5  0.4   0:00.05 /usr/bin/php /home/
   20 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.2  0.0   0:00.11 [events/1]
  934 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.2  0.0   0:00.42 [flush-7:0]
  938 root       0 -20     0    0    0 D  0.2  0.0   0:05.42 [loop0]
 1391 root      20   0 64364  404  316 S  0.2  0.0   0:00.04 /usr/sbin/sshd
 1716 root      20   0 98.2m  18m 1760 D  0.2  1.3   0:00.27 /usr/local/cpanel/c
 3305 nsikdar   20   0  222m 6828 2356 R  0.2  0.4   0:00.49 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3315 nsikdar   20   0  222m 5684 2356 D  0.2  0.4   0:00.43 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3337 nsikdar   20   0  223m 7960 2476 D  0.2  0.5   0:00.48 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3342 nsikdar   20   0  222m 5560 2356 D  0.2  0.4   0:00.42 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3346 nsikdar   20   0  222m 9224 2600 S  0.2  0.6   0:00.42 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3440 nsikdar   20   0  222m 9240 2616 D  0.2  0.6   0:00.75 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3476 nsikdar   20   0  222m 9528 2872 D  0.2  0.6   0:00.54 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3480 nsikdar   20   0  222m 9128 2624 S  0.2  0.6   0:00.72 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3492 nsikdar   20   0  222m 9676 2624 D  0.2  0.6   0:00.85 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3498 nsikdar   20   0  222m  10m 2836 D  0.2  0.7   0:00.81 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3507 nsikdar   20   0  222m 8900 2564 S  0.2  0.6   0:00.70 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3510 nsikdar   20   0  222m 9232 2624 S  0.2  0.6   0:00.75 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3513 nsikdar   20   0  222m 6352 2440 D  0.2  0.4   0:00.61 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3571 nsikdar   20   0  222m  10m 2880 D  0.2  0.7   0:00.54 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3796 nsikdar   20   0  222m 8676 2948 D  0.2  0.6   0:00.41 /usr/bin/php /home/
 3909 nsikdar   20   0  222m  12m 3372 D  0.2  0.8   0:00.41 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4227 nsikdar   20   0  222m  12m 3164 S  0.2  0.8   0:00.48 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4312 nsikdar   20   0  218m  14m 3760 S  0.2  1.0   0:00.27 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4328 nsikdar   20   0  218m  14m 3800 S  0.2  1.0   0:00.19 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4335 nsikdar   20   0  218m  14m 3800 S  0.2  1.0   0:00.19 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4346 nsikdar   20   0  218m  14m 3864 S  0.2  1.0   0:00.20 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4357 nsikdar   20   0  217m  14m 3812 S  0.2  1.0   0:00.16 /usr/bin/php /home/
 4380 nsikdar   20   0  180m 6084 3596 D  0.2  0.4   0:00.04 /usr/bin/php /home/

Please tell me urgently how can I solve the problem . I am not able to do my job for 15 days .

  • Try to disable PHP secure stuffs that you have enabled in WHM.. Re-configure Apache when you do make sure you only choose what you know are try to choose only what elgg requires..

    When you Re-configure / Rebuild Apache make sure you don't choose anything extra other than what elgg basic requirement needs & try to run the site & check this can solve ur problem ..    

  • It quite impossible to give any good advice what might need to be improved in the server config with just a single top output.

    You need to investigate what happens over a certain time. Is it a RAM bottleneck or could it be a matter of disc I/O blocking processes? Is the MySQL config, Apache config suitable for the amount of RAM available? Could it some plugin of Elgg causing a high server load due to causing many http requests and/or database queries? All this is something you need to investigate over a certain time while trying out stuff on the Elgg site a typical user would do (log in, move on the site from page to page, post something) while keeping an eye on the server load / output of top.

    In general you can check what runs on the server apart from Apache, MySQL, mail server and security services and stop what you don't need to save RAM and CPU load. Then you need to learn what might improve performance in tuning the MySQL and Apache config (e.g. cache settings and several other settings in my.cnf). You might need to decrease some of the my.cnf setting values to have more free RAM for Apache and PHP processes (which only run for a few seconds each but require some free RAM). It's not easy to find a good configuration and it will take some time. But it's something you need to learn as it's very server specific and difficult to give any general advice here.