nginx high i/o

[Maxim Dounin]

Hello!

On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 07:48:07PM +0100, Stefanita Rares Dumitrescu wrote:

>         fastcgi_buffers 64 64k;
>         fastcgi_buffer_size 64k;
> 
> 
> i made the following mods in the fastcgi section, and waiting for
> results. from what i understand:
> 
>         fastcgi_buffers 64 64k;
> 
> the first 64 is the number of buffers and the second is the buffer
> size,

Yes.  Note well - this numbers specify maximum number of buffers 
allocated *per request*.

> so on a server that takes around 500 hits per second should i
> increase it, or the value should be just fine ?

Request rate isn't relevant here.  It's the number of concurent 
requests that is relevant, including maximum allowed one.

With 64 64k buffers it is possible for request to eat up to 4M of 
memory.  With default settings (worker_connections 1024; 
worker_processes 1) this gives up to 4G (4M * 1 * 1024).  
Shouldn't be the problem for server with 16G of memory.

If you have more worker processes and/or more worker connections 
allowed you may consider lowering this value a bit to make sure 
your server can't be DoS'ed by eating all memory for buffers and 
forcing swap activity.

Maxim Dounin


> 
> 
> Maxim Dounin wrote:
> >Hello!
> >
> >On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 02:19:16PM +0100, Stefanita Rares Dumitrescu wrote:
> >
> >>        fastcgi_max_temp_file_size 0;
> >>This directive turns off fastcgi buffering according to the source code.
> >>
> >>i did this, and the buffer errors are gone. however, the pages load
> >>very very slow. take about 5-10 seconds to load the page.
> >
> >As I already said, switching off disk buffering has it's cost.
> >Without buffering backend processes will be busy for much longer
> >time.  There is no surprise that the same number of backend
> >processes is no longer enough.
> >
> >Maxim Dounin
> >
>