A shared hosting server is available to various clients that allows sharing of the server. It has limitations too for each account on the server, however, to maintain the service’s security and stability. This guarantees that server resources are divided equally and all services operate without interruption.
What is the LVE Limit?
LVEs (Lightweight Virtualized Environments) are a core feature of CloudLinux OS that allows you to allocate and limit server resources for individual users or accounts. This ensures stability, security, and fairness in shared hosting environments.
Key concepts:
- Resource Limits: You can control the following resources for each LVE:
- CPU utilization (percentage of total CPU)
- Physical memory (RAM)
- Virtual memory (swap)
- Number of processes
- Number of entry processes (new processes created)
- Input/output (IO) operations per second
- IO bandwidth (bytes per second)
Why LVE limits is essential for server performance?
LVE limit is needed to ensure the stability and performance of a shared hosting server. By imposing the compulsory limit on individual users, CloudLinux protects one user from negatively impacting the performance of others. This reduces the risks associated with noisy neighbors, where one user’s excessive resource usage can slow down or crash the server. Many parameters are listed down:
Preventing Resource Monopolization:
- Problem: In traditional shared hosting, a single user’s resource-intensive website or application could consume excessive CPU, memory, or I/O, potentially slowing down or even crashing the entire server for all users.
- LVE Solution: LVEs create boundaries that prevent any single account from hogging resources. Each LVE has defined limits on CPU, memory, I/O, and processes, ensuring that all users have a fair share and preventing any one account from dominating.
- Ensuring Consistent Performance:
- Problem: Unpredictable spikes in resource usage from a single user could lead to sudden slowdowns or outages for other users, even if their websites weren’t experiencing high traffic.
- LVE Solution: By isolating resource usage within LVEs, CloudLinux ensures that each user’s website performance remains consistent, regardless of what other users are doing on the server. This provides a more reliable and predictable hosting experience.
- Mitigating “Noisy Neighbor” Issues:
- Problem: In shared hosting, a single resource-intensive account can negatively impact the performance of other accounts on the same server, even if they’re not directly competing for resources. This is often referred to as the “noisy neighbor” problem.
- LVE Solution: LVEs effectively isolate noisy neighbors, preventing their resource usage from affecting the performance of other accounts. This leads to a more stable and predictable hosting environment for everyone.
- Enhancing Server Stability:
- Problem: Uncontrolled resource usage can lead to server instability and crashes, requiring frequent reboots and maintenance.
- LVE Solution: LVEs help maintain server stability by preventing any single account from overwhelming the system, reducing the likelihood of crashes and unplanned downtime.
- Optimizing Resource Utilization:
- Problem: Without LVE limits, it’s difficult to predict and manage resource usage effectively, leading to suboptimal server performance.
- LVE Solution: LVEs allow fine-grained control over resource allocation, enabling administrators to optimize server utilization and ensure that resources are used efficiently.
How to Check Resource Usage
CPU Usage
The amount of given CPU resources that are currently being used is highlighted in CPU usage. The individual account receives a specific portion of the server’s resources. New processes will get suspended until running ones are finished if the CPU hits 100%. This shows CPU has utilized all the given resources decreasing the speed of the website and in the worst case causing time out also.
Entry Processes
The number of PHP scripts active at once is called an “Entry Process”. The number of PHP scripts running successfully on shared hosting is 20 depending on web hosting providers. A quantity process mentioned in the account is called an Entry Process. Moreover, it’s also known as “Apache concurrent connections,”. This number tells the number of PHP or CGI scripts that can be executed simultaneously.
For example, each PHP page that the user operates typically develops a single-entry process. This stat is not fixed as it gets changed frequently, and several visitors visit the website. Each visitor to the PHP page will indeed start an entry process, but this process often ends so quickly. 10 entry processes will start simultaneously and at the same time unless you have a sizeable number of visits to your website at once.
Physical Memory Usage
Physical Memory Usage (RAM) is the exact memory allocated to your account. Virtual memory is a file on a disk drive that the operating system uses to store information (swap-to-from) when the real memory becomes full, for example, the page (swap) file on a Linux system. Therefore, if you want to publish a big post, it might take all physical memory to do so, but afterward, it becomes normalized.
You might see PHP errors (if applicable) on your website if this amount exceeds the limit, or in extremely rare circumstances, you will face a CloudLinux error page. Once the limit is reduced by the user, this error lasts a short while before automatically clearing.
I/O Usage
Your account’s I/O usage (input/output) highlights how much disk activity or I/O it’s utilizing. I/O is utilized by any activity that accesses the server’s disk drive, such as when reading from or writing to the server. We set a maximum disk speed limit for individual accounts to prevent any one account from overloading the disk drives and lowering the performance of all users.
All processes will work slowly and will lead to delays in completion. Unless you carry on a disk–intensive task, like developing a sizable backup of your account, you most likely won’t notice the setting increase.
Number of Processes
The above-listed limit applies to particular PHP, SSH, or cron jobs, the number of processes limit applies to all processes generated by the account at once. In case of significant activity, this number is often relatively low due to non–PHP processes running and also finishing quickly.
Why are ‘Resource Limit is Reached’ errors?
Your website may work slowly or highlight a message like “Resource Limit Reached” whenever the user reaches the limit set by the web hosting account. Based on the account’s resource limit, an error may vary. When input processes are extended their cap, an error 508 is generated.
When the limit is reached, mod hosting limits will return error code 508 and be unable to put Apache processes into LVE. This diverts the heavily trafficked website to 508 problems without harming other server users.
Yet, if the website is limited by CPU or I/O – it will start responding slower. If the website is limited by memory or number of processes limits – the user will see 500 or 503 errors that the server is not able to run the script.
Whatever you do on your website, from uploading files and installing plugins to having visitors, using server resources, etc. The most frequent causes of resource overuse are:
- Spike in website traffic: If your website receives high traffic or a high number of visitors, the error will be shown until the number of visitors decreases or the resource limits are increased.
- Backend scripts or cron jobs: scripts running in the background, including automatic backups and demanding cron jobs, can develop a notable load, that in addition to normal traffic, can affect the website performance and cause over–usage.
- Your website gets indexed quickly.
- Not updated written scripts: outdated scripts and plugins lead to loops. Even a few concurrent requests to such scripts decrease the resource limits.
- DDOS: Denial of service attack overloads the server, making it unavailable for normal usage.
Final Words
Even though you’re aware of optimization upgrading the path is the solution to your limits. Shared hosting is suitable for those websites that have low to moderate traffic, but it’s not developed to support heavily trafficked websites or remarkable online storefronts. You can contact your web hosting provider to navigate your upgrade options.