[server-admins] Firebird Server pegging

[Chris Little]

On 11/12/2013 11:22 AM, Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
> Dear Server Admins :)
>
> There is something happening on the server which pegs fbserver and
> freezes our main website (and other sites oddly).
>
> I see this when our system on the NTVMR here in Münster stops pulling a
> gadget from the swordweb web application which is on a totally unrelated
> tomcat instance from anything to do with firebird.

I've been watching this for a few months. Restarting Tomcat tends to fix 
it rapidly, without disabling the news or forums.

> When this happens, I can't even hit http://crosswire.org.  As soon as I
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/firebird-superserver stop then everything comes back.

Could you restart the database because the news, forums, and anything 
else using the database is currently dead.

> I have no idea how this can happen.  I guess I've copied the webapp
> information between all the instances and so they may each have a
> firebird jdbc driver setup, but the swordweb server certainly isn't
> using it for anything.  Nor is the main site, to my knowledge-- Well,
> unless we are displaying news on the main site now.

My theory has been that it's caused by spammers on the forums and bad 
forum software in general. I typically mass delete spammer accounts a 
couple times a week, which seems to cure the issue temporarily. And if I 
notice that the site is unresponsive, I restart Tomcat & follow up with 
deleting spammer accounts.

> Anyway, if you have any ideas, I'm open.  I'm also open to switching
> database servers to mysql if anyone wants to do the work.

I still advocate what was discussed briefly on sword-devel:
switching to modern and maintained forum software, then making the 
current mvnForums forums static by disabling posting & new logins.

--Chris