Hello, I have a Vb forum on a VPS.Its has 20 GB harddisk, 500 GB bandwidth transfer & 512 MB RAM.Uptill now i have used 3.5 GB space and around 60-80 GB bandwidth per month.Daily around 1.5-2k visitors visit the site.But the site remains down for most of the time. The officials say that : I cant understand how to decrease the load on servers. Please anyone can tell me how to reduce the load on server as i think that the site is now using high resources which according to its present situation is very high.
VBulletin with all the defaults turned on can cause a heavy server load. But really, 1,500 - 2,000 is not a LOT of traffic. You might want to consider a VPS with more memory. My site has around 700 members visiting ever 24 hours and 1,900 members visiting ever 30 days. My VPS has 800 megs memory, of which I am using about 400 - 500 megs and that is running 3 forums (2 VB and 1 SMF) and 2 wordpress websites. Here are some tips that might help. Turn off signatures Turn off the reputation system Turn off images in signatures if you have them enabled - this one can be a real killer. If you allow members to upload huge images to their signatures, this can really tax your server. How image heavy it your theme? If the theme has a lot of images, each image takes processor and memory time. When a member registers, do you have their profile set to subscribe to every thread they post in with instant email notification? If so this can tax your server sending out emails by the hundreds. Change this to weekly emails, or do not subscribe. How big are the avatars? Can members upload custom animated avatars? These can tax your server. Are avatars stored in the database or file system? They need to be on the file system Turn off the instant messenger option for private messages. This one option takes one query off the database with every page load. If your getting a few thousand page loads a day, this frees up a few thousand database queries a day. Are uploaded images stored in the file system or database? They need to be stored in the file system. Just by turning off the instant messenger option, reputations and signatures you have saved 3 queries to the database with every page load. If you are getting a million page views a month, you just saved over three million database queries a month. Turn off "view site stats" for guest. If you have the "how many members visited in 24 hours" mod installed, edit the group permissions so guest can not see it. Do you have the "top X number of stats" mod installed? Edit guest permissions so they can not see it. Run the database maintenance in VB control panel - repair and optimize tables. Be sure to back up your database BEFORE you do this. This is usually when I back up may database anyway. Chat rooms - these can cause heavy mysql load. Shoutbox - there is one shoutbox for vb that is supposed to bring the server to its knees. Its not the MGC shoutbox, its something else. If you have a shoutbox, is it the MGC chatbox version, if not check the version you have installed. But this one modification can drag your server to a crawl. How many mods do you have installed? Believe it or not, some people have 50+ mods installed and then wonder why their site is running slow.
VB is a resource hog. Not sure but you may want to modify it to remove a lot of it's JUNK. If I were you...sell your VB license and get a slimmer forum software like MYBB. How many registered users and posts do you have? Make sure also to limit search. If you have a big forum search is probably the #1 resource hog. Some big forums have servers fully dedicated just to search function. Also be careful about threads that are huge. I personally close all threads with 1000 replies. Threads like that just slow down a site and suck resources. People like those crazy off-topic threads that go on and on but if it's going to cost you more money and downtime then it's just not worth it. Can you post your forum for further analysis?
This has to be some of the worst advice I have ever heard. Do you realize the lead programmer of mybb is around 15 years old? http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=184335&page=3 How is a 15 year old and his buddies supposed to compete against a team of coders with years of PHP, mysql and security experience? They can not compete. An example - some of the coders of mybb refuse to put any commercial grade modifications in - such as paid memberships. How are you supposed to build a forum with paid memberships if the coders refuse to put it in there? Mybb is an ok forum software, but it can not touch the professional quality of VB.
How do you compare the server load consumption between SMF and VB. I am not using VB because of the server load issue. I have an SMF site 1,000 visitors a day.
After thinking about your question for a little while, I think I came up with a comparison. Vbulletin is like a race car. If you drive it like a race car all the time, it can drink a lot of gasoline. When vbulletin is first installed, just about all features are turned on, but do you really need all the features? Comparing the features between vb and smf is like comparing a family car with a race car. Sure smf is easier on the server. This is because it does not have the features VB does. But, VB does have all the features smf has, plus a lot more. The people that complain about the server load of VB, usually do not know how to administrate a VB forum. At the top of this thread I posted a detailed list of just some of the stuff that can be tweaked on VB to increase the performance. The problem is, a lot of people never look into tweaking the settings . They install the software, think the server is running slow and then complain. Complaining does not fix the problem. Take that race car, drive it like a family car and everything will be ok. But some people drive VB like a race car all the time - and then complain? Just one example - the reputation system. Do you really need a reputation system? By turning it off you save one database query with every page load. Currently I run 2 VB forums and 1 smf forum on a virtual private server with 832 megs of memory. The server usually has 300 - 400 megs of free memory at all times. The main forum gets 1.5 million page views a month and around 3,000 - 4,000 daily uniques. One of the things about VB, its a powerful forum software. When going from free forum software to VB, expect a steep learning curve. It took me around a 6 - 8 months to really learn how to use VB. And even after using it for 18 months, I am still learning how to use some of the features.
I think he is 16 now lol. However that's irrelevent to the discussion here. My advice was to get a slimmer forum. I almost always suggest mybb as a possible alternative. It's a viable forum with extremely good features. I respect your opinion if you feel another software is better but I ask that you also respect mine as well as the hard working unpaid developers of mybb. And the owner/project manager is not a teenager btw. Right now lead developer is young but I have seen some teens better at coding than some college grads. I have a similar sized mybb forum. My server doesn't even blink at the load. I have about 50 other sites on it as well including resource intense proxies. I ran VB forums before. They suck up resources and that's just a fact. He has a resource problem and to solve it...he either needs to upgrade hosting or change forum software.
As I have said before and I will say it again, most of the people that complain about the the performance of a VB forum - do not know how to run a VB forum. A basic, stripped down VB forum, like what smf is, would barely use any resources. Most people do not realize how many options VB has. And then they complain when the site runs slow??? Most of the people that I see complaining, do very little server and forum optimization. VB is like a race car - tune it right and use it right, and you will be happy with it. Here are some sources for server and site performance optimization: Server configuration - http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=14 Hosting questions - http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=11 There used to be a server and site optimization section on VBulletin.com, but I dont see it right now. The post should still be there if the section was deleted, the post would be moved. Look through those threads and you should be able to find ways to make the site run its best.
The best you can do is to disable some features in vBulletin as ~kev~ has suggested. Images in signatures for example. You can also put some reasonable file size limit on avatars (like 25Kb - that's enough for most pictures up to 130x130px). If your forum style is image heavy, I suggest compressing images to the smallest size possible - try to use as much GIF images as possible, use JPG only for logo or very colorful images and PNG only when transparency is required. If you would want to switch to another forum software (I don't recommend that, vB is very good), I wouldn't recommend myBB. Yes, it is a nice project but it lacks proffesionality, community and support of phpBB and SMF. Personally, I'm a big fan of phpBB. The main advantage of phpBB is a HUGE community and very good support. You can get answers for any questions or issues at their support forums, there are many experienced active developers.
And what's the purpose of owning the VB license if you're going to strip it down to the point that it's like SMF? I agree but not everyone can be a capable sysadmin like you or I. Something I sort of agree with. There is a total lack of professionalism with mybb staff but luckily I don't rely on them. They are functional at best but the software itself goes far beyond phpbb or smf. The new 1.4 is worlds apart. Yes that's true and if you decide to use phpbb expect to be asking a LOT of questions and requiring a lot of help. phpbb is a junk project at this point. It's been poorly managed to the point it's not relevant to serious forum admins. You can't take 5 years to release a new version (2.x to 3x) and then not even add a quick reply and still be taken seriously. Quick Reply is the #1 used featured of any forum. Shows me their lack of foresight and stupidity. But back to topic. OP seems to have steered clear of our discussion and it would be interesting to know what he thinks so far.
Well, I have been using phpBB on few websites already and I never had to ask a question, but then again I am fairly experienced developer, so usually I can figure everything out myself or I just code a custom mod just for my needs. I would be able to code my own forum software if I really needed But not worth months of development when there are already many solid solutions. I wouldn't say it's a junk project. If it were, it wouldn't be the most widely used free forum software.
That doesn't imho mean much. phpbb just happened to be one of the first free ones. And as you are an experienced developer you wouldn't need mybb support either but it's base package is far superior to phpbb. Anyways...enough of my mybb babblings.
The problem can also lie with your template. An image heavy template with a high amount of visitors can lead to a very high amount of HTTP requests.
Thanks every one for their constructive suggestions It really worked and load of the site has decreased considerably Thanks everyone once again ...
Oh and did I mention something like eaccelerator or xcache? Both of those can also greatly reduce load with caching tecniques and they setup fairly easy.
Maybe it's time to switch to a dedicated server with better specs and resources and, if price is an issue, through my sig you can fin managed dedicated servers from $49