web server very slow, bombarded with php-cgi processes?

[azn137]

Hello,

I have a Parallel Plesk 11.0.0 with CentOS 6.3. Lately, I've noticed that my web server runs VERY slow (not the norm), CPU average at 80% no matter what kind of traffic, and my top is filled with these:

# top
top - 23:46:02 up 13:14, 1 user, load average: 70.87, 68.98, 66.78
Tasks: 504 total, 77 running, 426 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
Cpu(s): 76.7%us, 22.9%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.3%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 16431960k total, 9584416k used, 6847544k free, 322880k buffers
Swap: 4194288k total, 0k used, 4194288k free, 3394184k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
29794 mysql 10 -10 3418m 200m 6592 S 25.5 1.2 16:34.02 mysqld
11166 fstops 20 0 224m 46m 9776 R 8.0 0.3 0:00.27 php-cgi
11149 fstops 20 0 226m 48m 9804 R 7.6 0.3 0:00.30 php-cgi
9917 fstops 20 0 241m 70m 7744 R 7.3 0.4 0:05.02 php-cgi
11143 fstops 20 0 240m 68m 7684 R 7.3 0.4 0:00.36 php-cgi
11152 fstops 20 0 226m 48m 9804 R 7.3 0.3 0:00.30 php-cgi
11160 fstops 20 0 225m 47m 9788 S 7.3 0.3 0:00.27 php-cgi
11167 fstops 20 0 223m 45m 9772 R 7.3 0.3 0:00.26 php-cgi
11169 fstops 20 0 222m 44m 9752 R 7.3 0.3 0:00.23 php-cgi
11172 fstops 20 0 221m 43m 9720 R 7.3 0.3 0:00.22 php-cgi
11155 fstops 20 0 227m 49m 9780 R 7.0 0.3 0:00.28 php-cgi
11157 fstops 20 0 226m 48m 9804 R 7.0 0.3 0:00.28 php-cgi
11159 fstops 20 0 226m 48m 9804 R 7.0 0.3 0:00.28 php-cgi
11170 fstops 20 0 222m 44m 9728 R 7.0 0.3 0:00.22 php-cgi

Will someone please help me troubleshoot the slowness? Thank you in advance, and please tell me what else I need to report.

 

[MislavO]

We could go on with the list whole day, this problem must be investigated directly on your server.

Anyway, try to tune fcgi options and check memory_limit in apache2 configuration. if you tune all server option, problem is somewhere else, e.g. some website is doing the problem. Checking all logs is also: must do it!