UGH! DH is still doing the website updating for this racing club we used to belong to with the kids (well, we are still members, technically, just do not race anymore). Our son (the IT guru) set up the web hosting account with Host Gator years ago and also set up how DH was to go about updating the website, through some program called Joomla. The website went down and I got this email from Host Gator. In exactly this format! (see below). How in the world am I supposed to understand this?! Good grief. I contacted support to ask about it and how do I fix it? Part of the problem is I (and DH) know nothing about this Joomla program. Apparently one of the fixes *might be to enable caching. Of which neither of us has any idea how to do. DH just knows the very basics of how to get into it, add or change something on the website and that's it. And up until now that's been working fine for several years.
Apparently the site is using too much CPU resources on their server. The guy I talked with put in a ticket and said an admin would look at it and email me back. They did quite quickly and "whitelisted" the account (what does that mean?) and said to notify them when the changes have been made and they will review the website. I emailed back: well, that was part of my question to the first person I talked with - I don't know how/what changes need to be made. Do we just need an upgraded account?
GRRRR! I really hate this, since we really out of our depth in dealing with this. And of course there is no son now to have help fix, which he could probably do in minutes. I've tried looking into Joomla help online but it's all way too techy for me to understand.
Hello,
Your account on gatorxxxx.hostgator.com has been overusing CPU
resources for an extended period of time and has been disabled in order
to ensure continued performance and stability of the server. While we do
limit each account to no more than 25% of a system's CPU in our terms
of service, we do not actively disable accounts until they greatly
exceed that number, which is what happened in this case.
Unfortunately, there is no way of predicting an account's resource usage
in advance. A sudden increase in traffic, a bot crawl, or a change in
site activity can cause a site to dramatically increase its resource
usage in an instant. When this happens, the server's ability to function
properly is jeopardized, and we must, by necessity, restrict the source
of the problem to keep the server functioning.
Please take a moment to review this email in full as it contains
important information and resources to assist you in resolving this
issue. Please note that this permanent restriction requires you take
further actions to gain access to and resolve the issues on your
account.
-How can you resolve the issue?
We have two solutions available. Moving the account to a dedicated
server, which will allow far greater hardware resources or you may try
following some of our tutorials for optimizing popular scripts. http://support.hostgator.com/articles/specialized-help/technical/optimize-cpu-resource-usage.
If you feel your scripts have already been optimized, it may simply be
time to consider the hardware upgrade.
-Important note
While an upgrade to a dedicated server would increase resource
availability, an upgrade to a VPS would not, in most cases. A VPS offers
a root environment in which custom installs and configurations can be
made, but only the very highest level VPS packages offer the same level
of server resources available on your current plan. Moving to a VPS in
this circumstance would likely make the problem worse, rather than
better. Additionally, our cloud platform is also a shared environment,
and does not offer an increase in available resources.
-What do I do next?
If you reply back to this email with your IP address (http://www.hostgator.com/ip.shtml)
we will be more than happy to go ahead and enable HTTP access for you,
allowing you to safely work on the script while minimizing the negative
effects on the server and its other users. If your IP address changes
frequently, you can reply back requesting password-based restrictions.
-How does a CPU issue occur?
Many times popular scripts may perform inefficient tasks repeatedly
leading to CPU overuse. Below please find helpful articles outlining
resource restrictions set on HostGator accounts:
https://support.hostgator.com/articles/pre-sales-policies/rules-terms-of-service/cpu-resource-restriction
https://support.hostgator.com/articles/pre-sales-policies/rules-terms-of-service/cpu-resource-usage
-How can I rate-limit search engine crawlers?
All major crawlers respect robots.txt to restrict them from crawling
certain pages. Additional steps may be needed to limit the rate at which
Googlebot and Bingbot craw your site:
http://support.hostgator.com/articles/hosting-guide/lets-get-started/how-to-use-robots-txt
http://support.hostgator.com/articles/telling-google-how-often-to-crawl-your-website
http://support.hostgator.com/articles/telling-the-bing-network-how-often-to-crawl-your-website
CPU Seconds used in the past hour: 3114, 87% CPU
Mon May 21 11:03:58 CDT 2018
Running Processes: 420779 5.0 0.0 300760 32220 ? RN 11:03 0:00 /opt/php52/bin/php-cgi /
Can you contact your son to ask him to do it? Does your mom or daughter have his info? He might be willing to help.
ReplyDeletewe only have maybe an email that is still good, but that's probably what I am going to have to attempt.
DeleteA whitelist refers to a list of websites (or email address domains) that are designated as not security threats (or spam) -- the name is semantically the opposite of a blacklist. They've basically said they're marking your site as not malicious.
ReplyDeleteCaching is a process that stores previously-retrieved data so that future requests for that data can be met faster; the "location" of the stored data is referred to as a cache.
It's the same principle as keeping a container of your most-used kitchen implements on the counter: you use them most, so you "cache" them on the counter for ease and speed of retrieval, so that you have to take the time to rummage through your implement drawer only for less-used items like your turkey baster or garlic press.
If Host Gator's tutorials aren't helpful to you, you might want to try checking YouTube for videos on both HostGator and Joomla.
Please note, though, that caching would only help your CPU issue if the problem is caused by your website and/or database *content* -- if the kitchen implements are hard to retrieve because the contents are jumbled together instead of separated by dividers (database organization) or if the drawer sticks (website issues). If your issue is caused by sheer demand for the site, that's like taking a long time to get the eggbeater because you have to wait for someone else to finish using it. If that's your issue, only upgrading to a private server (or switching to another host) will address that. Can you check the stats for the site to see if there have been any spikes in site usage in the past few months? That could help you to figure out which of the two possible causes it is.
thanks for the info. I will try to see if I can figure out how to check the stats. Most of the google and you tube stuff seems to be over my head with tech speak.
Delete