Apache getting hammered... Wordpress site. CPU 100%

Question

Hi folks. I hope one of your gurus can point me in the right direction.

I have two servers, one for Apache and one for MySQL, 4GB and 2GB RAM respectively. They run about 10 wordpress sites with very low traffic, and resources have not been a problem.

I now added another WP site with about 3000 pageviews per day and the server that runs Apache is sitting at 100% CPU all the time. Page load speed is dismal, somewhere around 6 seconds.

The site is www.fairtattoo.com. It has about 5000 posts currently.

Plugins are W3Total Cache, SEO by Yoast, WP Optimize. The theme is a professional theme from mythemeshop (truepixel) and I have used it without a problem on other sites.

Apache uses mpm_prefork.

Strangely, apache will use only about half the available RAM, approx 2GB of teh 4GB available. I’ve tried tweaking mpm_prefork with a few variations, but no luck so far.

Here’s the mpm_prefork:

<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
    # Default 5
    StartServers        5

    # Default 5
    MinSpareServers     5

    # Default 10
    MaxSpareServers     10

    # default 256
    ServerLimit     256

    # default 256, less or same as Server Limit
    MaxRequestWorkers   256

    # deprecated: Called MaxRequestWorkers now
    #MaxClients     128

    # Can be a high number like 20000 but do not set to 0 (unlimited)
    MaxConnectionsPerChild  20000

    # No need to Keep alive, just keeps threads busy
    KeepAlive On

Where next? How to diagnose?

Thanks in advance

varange · Answer

Also, as a quid pro quo, I thought I’d describe to other readers of this thread how to get Theme-My-Login to disable wp-login.php.

Step 1: Install Theme My Login. Just look for a new plugin from your wordpress admin console Step 2: Enable the Security Module from TML Settings

http://www.fairtattoo.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/tml_enable_security.png

Step 3: Go to the Security Module’s settings and “Disable wp-login”

http://www.fairtattoo.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/tml_disable_wp-login.png

That’s it!

I also like to set up Recaptcha. Easy enough to do.

PS: Jonathan, would you link to the media files in this comment please? No idea how to do that.

varange · Answer

Good thought! I installed Theme-My-Login, and that redirects and puts Recaptchas whereever I want them https://wordpress.org/plugins/theme-my-login/

varange · Answer

OK, found the problem! The THEME! Really, no jokes. Who woulda thought? I load a different theme (twenty-fifteen) and life is good. Goes to show.

varange · Answer

top - 11:58:29 up 11:36, 1 user, load average: 27.45, 30.32, 38.95 Tasks: 131 total, 19 running, 111 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie %Cpu0 : 96.7 us, 2.7 sy, 0.0 ni, 0.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.7 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st %Cpu1 : 97.3 us, 2.7 sy, 0.0 ni, 0.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st KiB Mem: 4048356 total, 1665908 used, 2382448 free, 123444 buffers KiB Swap: 3906244 total, 80 used, 3906164 free. 645800 cached Mem PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 30513 www-data 20 0 452972 48640 28352 S 11.3 1.2 0:01.58 apache2 30512 www-data 20 0 450304 45668 27912 S 11.0 1.1 0:03.54 apache2 30633 www-data 20 0 450580 43536 25520 R 11.0 1.1 0:01.45 apache2 30570 www-data 20 0 452640 44888 25272 R 10.0 1.1 0:04.97 apache2 30533 www-data 20 0 452896 45084 25204 R 9.3 1.1 0:02.35 apache2 30553 www-data 20 0 453404 45748 25140 S 9.3 1.1 0:02.26 apache2 30572 www-data 20 0 453220 48004 27804 R 9.3 1.2 0:01.59 apache2 30523 www-data 20 0 452960 47456 27484 R 9.0 1.2 0:01.44 apache2 30571 www-data 20 0 470120 86828 49700 R 9.0 2.1 0:02.14 apache2 30591 www-data 20 0 450336 42860 25092 R 9.0 1.1 0:03.88 apache2 30574 www-data 20 0 453152 45588 25224 R 8.6 1.1 0:02.18 apache2 30632 www-data 20 0 452120 44460 25120 R 8.6 1.1 0:01.02 apache2 30507 www-data 20 0 457268 53112 28408 R 8.3 1.3 0:05.94 apache2 30552 www-data 20 0 453164 45592 25224 R 8.3 1.1 0:02.19 apache2 30515 www-data 20 0 475780 105148 62596 S 7.0 2.6 0:03.52 apache2 30585 www-data 20 0 452888 45036 25108 S 6.3 1.1 0:01.80 apache2 30590 www-data 20 0 451864 43912 25096 R 5.3 1.1 0:01.68 apache2 30560 www-data 20 0 450332 42908 25136 R 5.0 1.1 0:04.42 apache2 30593 www-data 20 0 452864 45244 25128 R 5.0 1.1 0:01.75 apache2 30556 www-data 20 0 450336 42996 25220 S 4.3 1.1 0:01.93 apache2 30589 www-data 20 0 450340 42984 25208 S 4.0 1.1 0:01.89 apache2 30509 www-data 20 0 454144 49332 27888 S 3.7 1.2 0:02.92 apache2 30524 www-data 20 0 452888 45164 25140 R 3.3 1.1 0:02.37 apache2 30562 www-data 20 0 452864 45240 25124 S 2.7 1.1 0:01.87 apache2 30564 www-data 20 0 450080 42656 25136 R 2.7 1.1 0:02.03 apache2 30602 www-data 20 0 453144 45496 25136 R 2.7 1.1 0:01.59 apache2 30545 www-data 20 0 450328 42928 25160 R 2.3 1.1 0:01.60 apache2 30558 www-data 20 0 452968 46724 26520 S 2.3 1.2 0:02.06 apache2 30618 www-data 20 0 453148 45488 25152 S 2.3 1.1 0:01.13 apache2 30554 www-data 20 0 450328 42884 25116 S 1.7 1.1 0:01.52 apache2 30565 www-data 20 0 450328 42892 25124 S 1.7 1.1 0:02.25 apache2

Question

Apache getting hammered... Wordpress site. CPU 100%