How to Resolve High Server Load

If your server load is high (server loads that are <= the number of CPU Cores in your server are quite normal), you need to locate the bottleneck and make optimizations targeting it.

Most of the time, high server load is caused by PHP processes and MySQL, not by the LiteSpeed Web Server process itself. No matter how fast LiteSpeed runs, it has no control over how fast a PHP script can run, or how much memory a PHP script will consume. Hence, in general, troubleshooting server load issue is not a matter of LiteSpeed Web Server's configuration, and is beyond our support scope. (Analysis of your DDoS attack is beyond our support scope as well, unless you would like to engage us through paid hourly support.)

In the spirit of helpfulness, however, we are happy to provide the following troubleshooting tips for you to use when investigating high server load.

  top - 15:28:56 up 1 day, 17:58, 3 users, load average: 187.42, 143.52, 109.09
  PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
  25713 mysql 20 0 15.3g 784m 9.9m S 197.1 0.9 29:13.90 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --  datadir=/var/lib/mysql --plugin-
  30260 roan24pl 20 0 302m 103m 12m R 34.4 0.1 1:37.47 lsphp:/home/roan24pl/public_html/index.php
  30448 roan24pl 20 0 302m 103m 12m R 26.0 0.1 1:09.17 lsphp:/home/roan24pl/public_html/index.php
  30217 roan24pl 20 0 302m 102m 12m R 25.0 0.1 1:27.36 lsphp:/home/roan24pl/public_html/index.php
  28755 roan24pl 20 0 291m 92m 12m R 24.0 0.1 6:52.65 lsphp:/home/roan24pl/public_html/index.php

Addressing the above may lower your server load. However, your situation may vary greatly. We recommend ordering our LiteSpeed premium support service for a professional review, fine tuning, and installation/enabling of necessary elements to reduce your server load and maximize site performance.