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Thread: Any SQL specialists? (forum related)

  1. #1
    Administrator swanbourne's Avatar
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    Any SQL specialists? (forum related)

    I received a notification from my hosting service this morning

    Hello Eddie,
    We noticed your server had high loads due to your forum https://forum.tz-uk.com, after further investigation, I noticed that this came down to a specific script executing which resulted in your SQL loads going up:
    public_html/archive/index.php
    I have temporarily changed the permissions of the archive directory to not be executable. Since then the site itself has started to load without issue, however, it's worth noting this would need investigating as this now means your site archive area will not load until permissions are changed back.
    Please do let us know if you have any further queries or concerns
    I replied

    I don't understand what the implications of not running this script are, can you elaborate?
    They replied

    I couldn't directly tell you as I'm not familiar with your site script, at the time of the downtime I noticed your SQL loads had gone up and was impacting the rest of your service.
    This came down to the scripts in that directory specifically, I have blocked these from running, but ideally, you would need a developer to look over the script to see if it can be further optimised.
    In this case, I can't really suggest simply adding more server resources as I can't specify whether or not those resources would peak
    Any ideas what's going on and what that script does?

    Eddie
    Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".

  2. #2
    Master dickbrowne's Avatar
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    My first thought is that as it’s running from archive, it is not necessarily something used on the current forum. That said, something is invoking the script, so it is likely that it’s referenced by the current site, possibly.

    Two other thoughts. Firstly, all seems well without it, so keep an eye on functionality to see if anything breaks.

    Secondly, what is the your archive directory used for? Is it a repository for old code and resources or is it an area where a process on the site moves stuff to for, say, backup purposes?

    It may be useful to get the context of the script, or maybe some of the script which could give us an idea what it is for?

  3. #3
    Master mondie's Avatar
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    I have noticed since the weekend the forum was hanging or slow to load at times. It now seems to be back to normal, this may be related, or not.

  4. #4
    My initial thought was that the archive script is creating an archive from old posts. The SQL load would be generated by moving all the data into the archive area of the database. But I can only find one reference to "archive" in the vbulletin manual, and that doesn't really seem relevant. Under the "types of forum section".

    "Archive Forum – this forum was once a 'Normal Forum', but is now just used as an archive for old information."

    Unless you have created an "archive" forum?

    https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/onepage

    This thread (from 2014) mentions the path in your query, and suggests that it isn't really used for much these days.

    "It most likely won't work. It was designed to work with Apache. With today's modern search engines, the Archive doesn't provide much benefit. When it was created ten years ago, search engines weren't as intelligent."

    https://forum.vbulletin.com/forum/vb...pm#post4358114

    The vbulletin forum seems quite lively and is probably the place to ask the question, if you don't have dedicated support with someone at vbulletin directly. If you'd like me to ask the question on the forum on your behalf, PM me.

    But as dickbrowne says, if everything seems to be working, then it's probably ok.

  5. #5
    Administrator swanbourne's Avatar
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    I'm wondering if it was the script slowing the forum down, on checking the logs it was discovered that a Singaporean botnet was hammering the forum with multiple connects at the same time as the script was running. Last week it was a Hong Kong botnet with over 7000 simultaneous connects.

    Eddie
    Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".

  6. #6
    hmmm perhaps a maintenance script thats runnng too often moving stuff to the archive... ?

  7. #7
    Grand Master MartynJC (UK)'s Avatar
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    Eddie -

    If you can somehow sent me or post the SQL scripts that are running I can take a look at optimisation (maybe an index is needed or slight re-write). I would guess the backend database is MYSQL so follows standard ANSCII coding practises.

    It sounds though if this bot is running huge executions this generates excessive archive records that are being processed - so the better thing is to block the cause rather than fixing the effect?

    Martyn

  8. #8
    Grand Master oldoakknives's Avatar
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    Can’t help with the tech, but the forum is definitely loading quicker for me now. I thought I had a problem with t’internet this end tbh!
    Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.

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