FUDforum
Fast Uncompromising Discussions. FUDforum will get your users talking.

Home » FUDforum » FUDforum Installation Issues » Efficiency/speed tweaks?
Show: Today's Messages :: Polls :: Message Navigator
Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Efficiency/speed tweaks? [message #25294] Fri, 03 June 2005 23:36 Go to next message
Crimson is currently offline  Crimson   United States
Messages: 51
Registered: June 2005
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Karma: 0
Member
i'm not sure which forum this is appropriate for, so I apologize if this isn't the best spot.

Here's the situation. I am running a FUD Forum that I just converted from phpBB. Stats:
Quote:

Our users have posted a total of 188853 messages inside 13778 topics.
We have 3563 registered user(s).


The load average on my box has been significantly higher since switching to FUD Forum. The load time for pages at the bottom stays reasonable, and browsing is fine... I'm just concerned about the load average inflation.

Mind you, I won't be switching away from FUD Forum... It has so many features I've been wanting, and the templating seems boatloads easier than phpBB... plus I was recently hacked by a phpBB exploit, so security is a huge factor.

My server is a P4 3.2 gHz with a gig of RAM.

I have made sure my templates are compiled, the mysql db's optimized. Are there any other speed tweaks I should consider? Is FUD optimized to work with tools like mmcache?

Thanks in advance. Smile

[Updated on: Fri, 03 June 2005 23:36]

Report message to a moderator

Re: Efficiency/speed tweaks? [message #25295 is a reply to message #25294] Fri, 03 June 2005 23:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer
FUDforum will definately benefit from mmcache or APC running on the system, just as any PHP application would benefit from an opcode cache.
If you are asking if FUDforum makes use of any mmcache specific features, then the answer is no.

Have you tried seeing what is responsible for the higher load? If the pages come up and quick and page generaion times are reasonable I'd be reluctant to blame the forum...


FUDforum Core Developer
Re: Efficiency/speed tweaks? [message #25468 is a reply to message #25294] Thu, 09 June 2005 06:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Crimson is currently offline  Crimson   United States
Messages: 51
Registered: June 2005
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Karma: 0
Member
I found the reason for the higher load. I have a PHP script I wrote that runs constantly (in screen) and monitors the apache log for malicious behavior. Since installing FUD Forum, my hits have increased exponentially, and the reason isn't necessarily a good one. For some odd reason, clients aren't making ONE request for an image, they are making several.

In fact, I found this extreme in the logfile generated by this script:

[01:17:46 am] 67.71.70.226 - 50 requests for theme/default/images/down.gif in 3 seconds

This is NOT an isolated incident. I had to tweak the script to allow more identical requests because so many of my users were being banned in the firewall (dropping packets) through normal use. This script only bans for making identical requests in a very short period of time (such as a script that requests index.php over and over to make your load average go through the roof) -- the script was catching people making dozens of requests for the same exact image dozens of times per page load.

As a result, my script was working overtime sorting through all the hits which made my load average go so high.

I have made some tweaks to the script (namely ignoring images) which has taken care of most of the problem, but I am still concerned with the excessive image requests and the impact that might have on bandwidth consumption. Is there a reason a client isn't requesting the image once, and if so, how can I help the situation?

Thanks again!
-Christine
Re: Efficiency/speed tweaks? [message #25477 is a reply to message #25468] Thu, 09 June 2005 13:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   Canada
Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer
You need to check your logs and see who makes those requests. Normally images being static files are cached by the browser and after the 1st load are retrieved from cache. It is possible that your web server sends headers indicating that they should not be cached, you can check that by analyzing the headers sent in response to an image request.

FUDforum Core Developer
Re: Efficiency/speed tweaks? [message #25493 is a reply to message #25294] Thu, 09 June 2005 19:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Crimson is currently offline  Crimson   United States
Messages: 51
Registered: June 2005
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Karma: 0
Member
OK, after examining my logs, it appears that only IE browsers are not caching the images properly. (which is currently about 44% of my sessions according to my Urchin reports) They are accessing the .gif files and not caching them, while Firefox is correctly downloading the .png version once.

Further, it appears that my regex for the logfile was incorrect becauuse apparently FUD Forum changes the locale for time zones which makes different GMT offsets appear in the logfile instead of always -0700 or whatever it used to be (I forget)... so when +0000 or +0430 appeared, the regex failed which was logged and this overall ended up eating more CPU than usual.

Also, FUD forum does seem to cause a little over twice the amount of hits I received with phpBB. Daily Average: 97,935.57 with FUD compared to Daily Average: 45,776.93 with phpBB.

So I guess the remaining problem to be found is why IE browsers are requesting the .gifs over and over. Is there an easier way to investigate the headers besides packet sniffing?
Re: Efficiency/speed tweaks? [message #25503 is a reply to message #25493] Fri, 10 June 2005 15:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   United States
Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer
FUDforum uses PNG images that have alpha-transparency not rendered by IE, so to make those images display properly JavaScript it use to change the .png images to their .gif equivalents.

You can disable this process by disabled onLoad "ip_png_hack" found inside lib.js


FUDforum Core Developer
Re: Efficiency/speed tweaks? [message #25504 is a reply to message #25294] Fri, 10 June 2005 16:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Crimson is currently offline  Crimson   United States
Messages: 51
Registered: June 2005
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Karma: 0
Member
Will disabling the 'png_hack' change the appearance of the forum for IE users (compared to IE users with GIFs), and would it stop IE users from requesting the same image each time it appears on the page? I'm thinking it would stop the 'problem'...
Re: Efficiency/speed tweaks? [message #25505 is a reply to message #25504] Fri, 10 June 2005 17:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ilia is currently offline  Ilia   United States
Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer
The JavaScript change may cause some icons to have a "false" background, so you may want to convert them to non-alpha-transperent PNGs.
Without JS the images will appear as is, so the IE bug with image reloading should not be triggered.


FUDforum Core Developer
Re : Re: Efficiency/speed tweaks? [message #25590 is a reply to message #25295] Tue, 14 June 2005 20:51 Go to previous message
DogManStar is currently offline  DogManStar   France
Messages: 60
Registered: March 2005
Karma: 0
Member
Ilia a écrit le ven, 03 juin 2005 23:54

FUDforum will definately benefit from mmcache or APC running on the system, just as any PHP application would benefit from an opcode cache.
If you are asking if FUDforum makes use of any mmcache specific features, then the answer is no.

Have you tried seeing what is responsible for the higher load? If the pages come up and quick and page generaion times are reasonable I'd be reluctant to blame the forum...


At this time i think it's better to use e-accelerator (http://eaccelerator.net/HomeUk?lg=uk) because mmcache is no longer updated.


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams ... glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All those ... moments will be lost ... in time, like tears ... in rain. Time ... to die.
  Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Previous Topic: Help me in installation please.
Next Topic: Failed installation...
Goto Forum:
  

-=] Back to Top [=-
[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ]

Current Time: Fri Mar 29 09:10:40 GMT 2024

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.02870 seconds