HTTPD loops & connections

[easydoesit]

My site has been down for a cumulative 2 weeks due to this problem.  My host is addaction.net.

The first time my site was suspended was because:

Your account was drawing a lot of Apache (web server) connections and it brought the server down. Is there anything special you have changed on your site in the past days? Any reason that you know of that would create many webserver connections?

I think that was because my gallery was getting lots of traffic all of a sudden (powered by coppermine.sourceforge.net).

Then I get suspended again:

Your account is suspended because it has brought the server down several times and we have not been able to pinpoint the problem. Your site uses a lot of PHP and database connections and part of your PHP on your site causes the server load to rise real high at times. Since your account has been suspended the server has had no problems. Would it be possible for you to use different content on your site, that is less PHP?

So they couldn't tell from the logs what was bringing their server down and I had no clue either.

We have unsuspended your account. At this time we can not find what would be the cause of the sudden peaks in CPU load that your site is causing. We see connections to the database server but they are within norm.

After they unsuspended my site I disabled the need to register on my gallery so you can just straight up look at the pictures.

But then a few days later I get suspended again...

Your account was suspended because it caused a loop in the HTTPD (web server). This caused the server to go down. I have asked our sys admin to check the logs and see if it is possible to provide you with more information as to what caused it.  The logs don't tell us much. It looks like a normal load for your site. The overload due to your account was for the httpd (the web server). This was similar to the things that happened before. It is likely a loop (for example a redirect that keeps redirecting to itself). This does not show in your domain log.  My advise would be to return to the basics with your site with just HTML code or using a script like PHPNuke and create a new site from scratch as it will be very difficult to find errors like that in the code. Let me know if this would be a solution for you and I will unsuspend your site.

So I don't know what I should be looking for through the scripts that I'm using...and asking to 're-create' my site with different content or whatever is ludicrous.

I would just take down the gallery script since everything seemed to go downhill after it got popular, but I don't know.  What do you guys think?

This is what I get for renewing my hosting for a year.  I should have paid monthly. 

[hyperion]

Do you frequently batch add large numbers of images?

[Tarique Sani]

1) Your host has lousy support OR is clueless - access logs can provide exact information as to when and what pages caused the overload
2) Recently friends have complained that msnbot (the crawler from msn search) was running a havoc on their site. Ban all robots and crawlers
3) See the stats on your site -  find out who / where the hits are comming from, also find who are the users on your sites (look at usernames), script kiddies who do not understand the difference between stand alone Coppermine (which is safe) and Coppermine for CMS (which can be attacked if not patched) have been trying to break into (unsuccesfully) my installation since ages.
4) Demand a refund and change to a more co-operative host

Hope that helps

[Casper]

2) Recently friends have complained that msnbot (the crawler from msn search) was running a havoc on their site. Ban all robots and crawlers

I had this exact problem myself.  My site suddenly saw it's bandwidth usage skyrocket, and in 2 days used double it's normal monthly limit.  It was msnbot causing this, and placing an .htaccess file to block it has stopped the problem.

Luckily, my host is more than sympathetic, and rather than suspend or threaten, was very helpful.

[easydoesit]

Do you frequently batch add large numbers of images?

Nope.  Hardly anybody uploads pictures to the gallery.

1) Your host has lousy support OR is clueless - access logs can provide exact information as to when and what pages caused the overload.

I quoted their support convo and they said, "I have asked our sys admin to check the logs and see if it is possible to provide you with more information as to what caused it.  The logs don't tell us much."

OMG....would this have anything to do with it being version 1.2.1?  I know 1.3 just came out recently...

Oh and as of press time I cannot quote me and the hostings' support (from AddAction.net) convo's anymore as "the conversations concerning your account are not for public display, please do no post them anymore on WHT (Web Hosting Talk Forum)."

Thx.

[Tarique Sani]

The logs don't tell us much."

ROFLMAO - Logs are more or less plain english to anyone who knows what he is reading

[Joachim Müller]

unless you currently get hosting for free I would strongly recommend looking for another webhost...

GauGau