[Phpwm] Problems with live Silverstripe website (httpd spawingproceses, high CPU)

[phil at infolinkelectronics.co.uk]

> Hi everybody,
>
> I have a live SilverStripe site I've inherited that I'm experiencing
> major problems with. After the site has been running for a while it
> starts spawning multiple httpd processes, some taking up huge
> percentages of the CPU (these can be seen using top). The site
> progressively become more and more unresponsive returning 500 errors
> for requests.
>
> Has anyone experienced similar behaviour on a server/site? I'm trying
> to determine if the problem is with the Apache setup or if it's been
> caused by the PHP (Silverstripe) application. At first I thought this
> was most likely to be an server misconfiguration, but the apache setup
> seems ok. Could some dodgy logic in the PHP cause this behaviour, is
> it even possible to make Apache (mis)behave like this using PHP? It
> happens inconsistently which makes trying to fix the problem a joy!
>
> The site has low to medium traffic and is on fairly hefty dedicated
> server so should be able to handle the load easily. I've been running
> Apache Bench on the live server and profiling the code (on my dev
> server) however this hasn't shed any light on what's going wrong yet.
> Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, I'm starting to go
> slightly mad.
>
> Pete
>
> ps. Apologies to anyone also on the PHP New Zealand mailing list
> (unlikely) that recieved a similar email, apparently it's where the
> Silverstripe devs hangout, but I think their all in bed.

Pete,
Also check there's no phpmailer type things running that could be externally
exploited - might be worthwhile putting a copy on a ringfenced server under
a different URL to see if it's an attack related issue.

Regards,

Phil Beynon
Sales & Operations Director

** Infolink Electronic Systems Ltd.
** S/W Birmingham's Longest Established ISV & VAR
** http://www.infolinkelectronics.co.uk
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