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In my experience this is due to an Apache default configuration that probably seemed reasonable when introduced but in practice can really screw you. Basically
by brazzledazzle 10y ago
In my experience this is due to an Apache default configuration that probably seemed reasonable when introduced but in practice can really screw you. Basically it caches and serves only the 503 for something like 3s to prevent the application it's proxying from getting kicked while it's down/flapping/starting. So the end result is that even if your app is only occasionally returning 503s for a small subset of users everyone gets to enjoy them for several seconds every time one is encountered. Fun stuff.
- andris9 10y agoIt's a really small box (512mb) that runs everyting and on a normal day it does not have any issues but when the requests from HN started coming in Apache used up all the RAM. I stopped Apache and started Mailtrain from command line in a screen session to listen directly on the web ports (so once it's out from the HN frontpage I can reboot the VPS and everything gets back to normal settings). So far it has been running smoothly with the server RAM usage in a constant 50%, no fluctuations https://cloudup.com/cokRbDpMIuw https://cloudup.com/cokRbDpMIuw
- brazzledazzle 10y agoYeah that's a pretty tight fit. Can't say I have much experience doing that all on one small box outside of local dev stuff.