Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

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JAB Creations
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Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by JAB Creations »

I'm far from proclaiming that I know everything (I did but I forgot most of it :|) but does squid server really suck? Granted I know most of you didn't wake up at 7am this Saturday morning (in zone -0500) like myself (I have insomnia due to my life's circumstances right now) but it was down for a couple hours. I know http://www.mozillazine.org runs squid server as well because they have pretty much the same server response issues as devnet sometimes. By sometimes I mean frequently enough to irk me when I've already consumed my not exactly inexpensive source of caffeine and now I can't see the responses that set me back the length of the downtime. :roll: Or is it something else that both sites might have in common?
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JayBird
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Re: Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by JayBird »

I dunno the ins and outs of Squid, but i know our site is running a damn site smoother than it was without it
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Re: Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by JAB Creations »

What server were you guys using before? What was wrong with it that made you guys switch? What's with the hiccups like yesterday morning?
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Chris Corbyn
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Re: Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by Chris Corbyn »

Squid isn't a server. We still run apache. Squid is a caching proxy ;)
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JAB Creations
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Re: Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by JAB Creations »

Ah it seems to have been my ignorance...though I'm still confused about why there is a bit of downtime. The server does seem to run smoother of late though I have to admit. Since PHP doesn't (as far as I know) mimic ASP.NET/IIS in recompiling files uploaded (in to I think machine code) to be executed by the server quicker is using Squid the or nearly an equivalent?
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RobertGonzalez
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Re: Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by RobertGonzalez »

The way apache works is that it accepts a request and attempts to negotiate and serve a response. It can handle a certain number of requests at a time before it starts to croak. Each request consumes a certain amount of memory. When the request requires a database connection it will consume more resource. When the database connection takes too long or has issues the request times out. And this has led to some issues.

Resource was being consumed but not freed up. This was causing Apache to use up pretty much all of our RAM and most of our swap. Just that, by itself, was crippling our machine. What squid does is sort of meter the requests that apache receives so that the request/response process smooths out.
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Re: Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by JAB Creations »

Cool, that makes sense and I appreciate the explanation.

When I loaded up Firefox this morning a couple of tabs with threads received this error and I'm not sure if it relates or if it's a separate issue...?
ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved
The following error was encountered:
* Unable to forward this request at this time.
I'm not exactly a server administrator though it is on my list after web developer. :mrgreen:
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RobertGonzalez
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Re: Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by RobertGonzalez »

That means that Apache cannot take anymore requests. Generally the request will have a time that it can live while it waits for apache. Squid will push it when it can. If the request takes to long though you will get that message.
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Re: Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by JAB Creations »

That too makes sense...

...but it doesn't make sense for the server to be exceptionally busy in the mid-am (I'm -0500 Eastern Standard Time) between 6am-10am. I don't know the site's traffic patterns but mine generally is busier between 2pm-11pm. Unless our friends across the big pond are going nuts posting during their maybe midday-afternoon? I'm definitely missing a part of the big picture.

I'm all ears! :mrgreen:
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Re: Is it my ignorance or does squid server suck?

Post by RobertGonzalez »

We have activity at all times on this board. We also have bots spidering this community at all times.
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