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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-20T20:53:52+00:00

Recently we changed app server of our rails website from mongrel to passenger [with

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Recently we changed app server of our rails website from mongrel to passenger [with REE and Rails 2.3.8]. The production setup has 6 machines pointing to a single mysql server and a memcache server. Before each machine had 5 mongrel instance. Now we have 45 passenger instance as the RAM in each machine is 16GB with 2, 4 core cpu. Once we deployed this passenger set up in production. the Website became so slow. and all the request starting to queue up. And eventually we had to roll back.

Now we suspect that the cause should be the increased load to the Mysql server. As before there where only 30 mysql connection and now we have 275 connection. The mysql server has the similar set up as our website machine. bUt all the configs were left to the defaul limit. The buffer_pool_size is only 8 mb though we have 16GB ram. and number of Concurrent threads is 8.

Will this increased simultaneous connection to mysql would have caused mysql to respond slowly than when we had only 30 connections? If so, how can we make mysql perform better with 275 simultaneous connection in place.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

UPDATE:

More information on the mysql server:

RAM : 16GB CPU: two processors each having 4 cores

Tables are innoDB. with only default innodb config values.

Thanks

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    An idle MySQL connection uses up a stack and a network buffer on the server. That is worth about 200 KB of memory and zero CPU.

    In a database using InnoDB only, you should edit /etc/sysctl.conf to include vm.swappiness = 0 to delay swapping out processes as long as possible. You should then increase innodb_buffer_pool_size to about 80% of the systems memory assuming a dedicated database server machine. Make sure the box does not swap, that is, VSIZE should not exceed system RAM.

    innodb_thread_concurrency can be set to 0 (unlimited) or 32 to 64, if you are a bit paranoid, assuming MySQL 5.5. The limit is lower in 5.1, and around 4-8 in MySQL 5.0. It is not recommended to use such outdated versions of MySQL in a machine with 8 or 16 cores, there are huge improvements wrt to concurrency in MySQL 5.5 with InnoDB 1.1.

    The variable thread_concurrency has no meaning inside a current Linux. It is used to call pthread_setconcurrency() in Linux, which does nothing. It used to have a function in older Solaris/SunOS.

    Without further information, the cause for your performance problems cannot be determined with any security, but the above general advice may help. More general advice geared at my limited experience with Ruby can be found in http://mysqldump.azundris.com/archives/72-Rubyisms.html That article is the summary of a consulting job I once did for an early version of a very popular Facebook application.

    UPDATE:

    According to http://pastebin.com/pT3r6A9q , you are running 5.0.45-community-log, which is awfully old and does not perform well under concurrent load. Use a current 5.5 build, it should perform way better than what you have there.

    Also, fix the innodb_buffer_pool_size. You are going nowhere with only 8M of pool here.

    While you are at it, innodb_file_per_table should be ON.

    Do not switch on innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 2 without understanding what that means, but it may help you temporarily, depending on your persistence requirements. It is not a permanent solution to your problems in any way, though.

    If you have any substantial kind of writes going on, you need to review the innodb_log_file_size and innodb_log_buffer_size as well.

    If that installation is earning money, you dearly need professional help. I am no longer doing this as a profession, but I can recommend people. Contact me outside of Stack Overflow if you want.

    UPDATE:

    According to your processlist, you have very many queries in state Sending data. MySQL is in this state when a query is being executed, that is, the main interior Join Loop/Query Execution loop is busy. SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS\G will show you something like

    ...
--------------
ROW OPERATIONS
--------------
3 queries inside InnoDB, 0 queries in queue
...

    If that number is larger than say 4-8 (inside InnoDB), 5.0.x is going to have trouble. 5.5.x will perform a lot better here.

    Regarding the my.cnf: See my previous comments on your InnoDB. See also my comments on thread_concurrency (without innodb_ prefix):

     # On Linux, this does exactly nothing.
 thread_concurrency = 8

    You are missing all innodb configuration at all. Assuming that you ARE using innodb tables, you are not performing well, no matter what you do.

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