CPU exceeded... DOS attack?

[Raph]

On 1/24 and previous, I had virtually no reports of problems in my logs. I'd had some issues with slow SQL queries from time to time (I run a pretty popular WordPress blog), but nothing too dramatic.

On 1/25 and since, my cpu_exceeded_logs are full. Like, from 0k I have gone to

2007-01-25.log 85 k
2007-01-26.log 268 k
2007-01-27.log 50 k
2007-01-28.log 410 k
2007-01-29.log 317 k (this is just so far today!)

I added WP-Cache to my installs. I removed some plugins from my site. I upgraded to WP 2.1. None of it seems to have made any difference, really.

The result is constant unavailability of the site, as I trigger the CPU utilization suspension.

The cpu exceeded logs look like this:

Mon Jan 29 15:14:36 2007: used 0.05 seconds of cpu time for HTTP Request: www.raphkoster.com : GET /wp-content/plugins/live-comment-preview.php/commentPreview.js HTTP/1.1
Mon Jan 29 15:14:37 2007: used 0.07 seconds of cpu time for HTTP Request: www.raphkoster.com : GET /wp-content/plugins/flags/flag_de.gif HTTP/1.1
Mon Jan 29 15:14:37 2007: used 0.06 seconds of cpu time for HTTP Request: www.raphkoster.com : GET /images/widefill.jpg HTTP/1.1
Mon Jan 29 15:14:40 2007: used 0.39 seconds of cpu time for HTTP Request: www.raphkoster.com : GET /areae/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Business HTTP/1.1
Mon Jan 29 15:14:43 2007: used 0.38 seconds of cpu time for HTTP Request: www.raphkoster.com : GET /areae/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Potential+partners HTTP/1.1
Mon Jan 29 15:14:44 2007: used 0.51 seconds of cpu time for HTTP Request: www.raphkoster.com : GET /2005/12/12/the-future-of-content/feed/ HTTP/1.1
Mon Jan 29 15:14:44 2007: used 0.72 seconds of cpu time for HTTP Request: www.raphkoster.com : GET /2006/12/15/announcing-areae/ HTTP/1.1
Mon Jan 29 15:14:45 2007: used 0.04 seconds of cpu time for HTTP Request: www.raphkoster.com : GET / HTTP/1.1

I called support on Sunday, and was told that it just looked like the site has crossed some threshold and was just a bit too popular for the shared hosting.

For comparison, these are my daily stats reported by Webalizer. As you can see, the stats before and after the CPU load problems are pretty comparable -- in fact, they're higher earlier in the month.

Day Hits Files Pages Visits Sites KBytes
22 92532 3.83% 74636 3.75% 15196 3.17% 7792 3.67% 5557 7.43% 1429379 3.50%
23 161079 6.67% 137852 6.93% 20109 4.19% 10151 4.78% 7471 10.00% 2301545 5.63%
24 108496 4.49% 91006 4.57% 21032 4.38% 9159 4.31% 6387 8.55% 2073752 5.07%
25 86156 3.57% 71544 3.59% 17489 3.64% 8641 4.07% 5828 7.80% 1572410 3.85%
26 77583 3.21% 64505 3.24% 17359 3.62% 8346 3.93% 5642 7.55% 1416050 3.46%
27 66050 2.73% 55036 2.77% 15577 3.24% 7702 3.63% 5214 6.98% 1169107 2.86%
28 69142 2.86% 58317 2.93% 17648 3.68% 9230 4.35% 6789 9.08% 1309004 3.20%

So, does something look fishy? I don't see how I could have suddenly tipped over to such high load. One poster on my website suggested that perhaps it was a DDOS attack of some sort.

I apologize to everyone else on box 50, btw. I am sure this is frustrating them as much as me!

[borderline]

The cpu exceeded logs look like this:

where do you see the cpu logs? I can't find them

[Raph]

In cPanel, choose "File manager."

Then look in /tmp/cpu_exceeded_logs for the files.

[teddydov]

I have been having the same issues in the past week. My issues also started on the 25th and today they reached the point where they shut me off. I am not sure what triggered it but I am on Box 45 and don't have nearly as many visitors as you do (about 400-600 a day).

Does any one have any idea what is going on??

[Angelspit]

I have the very same problems since January 25th! I feel so much better knowing that I'm not alone.

I had CPU problems a couple of times in the past year, but there was always a bad script somewhere that was causing the issue. But since last Thursday, I had to disable my forums completely to keep my front page online, and I still get a couple of CPU Quota errors anyway.

Let's hope that BH figures out what is causing this.

[mrsam]

My site has previously exceeded the cpu quota every now and then because of heavy traffic!
But this problem has become persistent starting January 25th.
Since then, My site is going down many times per day eventhough I have installed a fresh copy of my PhpBB, and visitors have become much less because of the down time I spent refreshing and cleaning my scripts!!

Weird huh?

Maybe the CPU Quota was reduced on this date "Jan 25th"

I hope that bluehost has the right answer for our questions!!

[indy2kro]

Same thing happened for my site and as well starting from january 25th .. Bluehost support says everything's working fine, but then why is this happening to so many people?

[Angelspit]

I told tech support on the phone that it was strange that many people have been experiencing problems since the 25th. He replied that my site was not on the same box as the poster above, so the two issues were not connected. In my case, according to him, that's just my site getting too many request simultenously. However, my traffic has been decreasing from 11,000 unique visitors a day last June to less than 4,000 this week.

My guess is that they are enforcing more severe CPU limits. I'm very disappointed that they leave me with no other option than to move.

[ChgoBrad]

Was on a live chat with a tech for 2 hours. she was having a level 3 look at my site, as I was having empty logs so could not debug on my end...here is what she said:

lmoksha: k it looks like the admins just had to debug some script and the issue has been resolved so you should be fine in the future
Brad: so the issue want with the scripts on my account at all?
lmoksha: no it was something on here

[mrsam]

I spent a great time here with you guys!

20 great months of wonderful services and great support!!

Blue Host has been a legend!! But not anymore!!