My WP webserver is getting lots of hits - overloaded - hence slow

[yowan]

Hi guys,

My website is instant getting overloaded, hence throwing "Error establishing connection with Database".
I was hosting on A2, they couldn't stop it, even after I added the website to cloudflare and activated wordfence plugin. Here is A2 support recommendation "Your website is having lots of hits and seems internet bots are trying to post on it. I would suggest you enable the captcha and configure the robtos.txt under the domain doc root would help to avoid this situation in the future."

The issue kept repeating so I shifted to my existing server on Godaddy. After a week, the issue is back again, Getting 'Error establishing DB connection".
I'm running the latest version of wp, under cloudflare and Wordfence is active.

Thank you for your your advice on how to bock these excessive hits.

 

[Bang Combat]

it's best not to use that security because from my experience several years ago my website became heavy because of these plugins... indeed the website is proven to be safe from all attacks but it makes our website work harder, especially in the field of hosting or our own web server...
everyone visits our website and before our website opens the page... security scans the user so it requires very high resources...
Try removing the plugins first

 

[Bendo]

Hi guys,

My website is instant getting overloaded, hence throwing "Error establishing connection with Database".
I was hosting on A2, they couldn't stop it, even after I added the website to cloudflare and activated wordfence plugin. Here is A2 support recommendation "Your website is having lots of hits and seems internet bots are trying to post on it. I would suggest you enable the captcha and configure the robtos.txt under the domain doc root would help to avoid this situation in the future."

The issue kept repeating so I shifted to my existing server on Godaddy. After a week, the issue is back again, Getting 'Error establishing DB connection".
I'm running the latest version of wp, under cloudflare and Wordfence is active.

Thank you for your your advice on how to bock these excessive hits.

it's best not to use that security because from my experience several years ago my website became heavy because of these plugins... indeed the website is proven to be safe from all attacks but it makes our website work harder, especially in the field of hosting or our own web server...
everyone visits our website and before our website opens the page... security scans the user so it requires very high resources...
Try removing the plugins first

Exactly what Bang says is correct.

These plugins are as much good as they are bad.

You should have max 5 plugins and lightweight ones.

I have had no positive experience with wordfence, malcare, sucuri or other similar plugins even the caching ones which cloudflare does a fine job with.

To think people pay for this stuff is laughable.

 

[Bendo]

Each plugin creates much bloat on your database and file system, which should be removed immediately once that plugin in particular is uninstalled. None of them remove this bloat for you automatically even if you are paying monies, you will have to go in and manually remove this bloat.

All the things these plugins offer can be done manually, lazy webmasters will get nowhere.

 

[Bendo]

Each plugin creates much bloat on your database and file system, which should be removed immediately once that plugin in particular is uninstalled. None of them remove this bloat for you automatically even if you are paying monies, you will have to go in and manually remove this bloat.

All the things these plugins offer can be done manually, lazy webmasters will get nowhere.

I have 4 plugins and one is called "Unbloater" which removes all WordPress default bloat.

 

[Bendo]

Your issue is caused by what I stated above. You need to optimize your database and file system once done correctly your issue will disappear.

 

[yowan]

Thanks for your replies but It's a full website being used, I can't just delete some of the plugins with a click.
I will need time for that. For the moment, I have to stop the high load.

 

[Tuton]

Thanks for your replies but It's a full website being used, I can't just delete some of the plugins with a click.
I will need time for that. For the moment, I have to stop the high load.

You need to create custom rules to stop bots on Cloudflare. Just adding them won't work.

Stay away from hosting providers like Godaddy and A2 because they do not provide good resources.

 

[yowan]

After double checking(whatismyipaddress), I can see that the ips hitting the most are from cloudflare, is this normal?

 

[DEBAKID]

Hi guys,

My website is instant getting overloaded, hence throwing "Error establishing connection with Database".
I was hosting on A2, they couldn't stop it, even after I added the website to cloudflare and activated wordfence plugin. Here is A2 support recommendation "Your website is having lots of hits and seems internet bots are trying to post on it. I would suggest you enable the captcha and configure the robtos.txt under the domain doc root would help to avoid this situation in the future."

The issue kept repeating so I shifted to my existing server on Godaddy. After a week, the issue is back again, Getting 'Error establishing DB connection".
I'm running the latest version of wp, under cloudflare and Wordfence is active.

Thank you for your your advice on how to bock these excessive hits.

How many plugins do you have? Do you have DDOS protections? Any null plugins ?

 

[yowan]

11 plugins.
Yes, wordfence from here.

 

[DarKMaSk]

Hi guys,

My website is instant getting overloaded, hence throwing "Error establishing connection with Database".
I was hosting on A2, they couldn't stop it, even after I added the website to cloudflare and activated wordfence plugin. Here is A2 support recommendation "Your website is having lots of hits and seems internet bots are trying to post on it. I would suggest you enable the captcha and configure the robtos.txt under the domain doc root would help to avoid this situation in the future."

The issue kept repeating so I shifted to my existing server on Godaddy. After a week, the issue is back again, Getting 'Error establishing DB connection".
I'm running the latest version of wp, under cloudflare and Wordfence is active.

Thank you for your your advice on how to bock these excessive hits.

I think, you have a contact form. In its settings, place a simple QUIZ like 1+45-7/13=?. Follow the below example:

<label> Your name
    [text* your-name autocomplete:name] </label>

<label> Your email
    [email* your-email autocomplete:email] </label>

<label> Subject
    [text* your-subject] </label>

<label> Your message (optional)
    [textarea your-message] </label>
    
[quiz capital-quiz "1+45-7/3=?|13"]

[submit "Submit"]

Change the numbers in quiz field as you wish. This will stop bots without applying captcha.

 

[DarKMaSk]

The issue kept repeating so I shifted to my existing server on Godaddy. After a week, the issue is back again, Getting 'Error establishing DB connection".
I'm running the latest version of wp, under cloudflare and Wordfence is active.

You should remove 'Cloudflare' and 'Wordfence' immediately as they do more harm than good because they consume more server resources than other plugins. Then change your server to Namecheap. I am using their server for over 6 years and they never let me down for once. Most of the support staffs are very helpful. If you be nice with them, they will give you a tremendous service. You know, there is nothing to be ashamed on saying, "Please help"... right?

 

[BonJoe]

Wow so much dangerous wrong information here...

Start with using an object cache like memcache or redis. Cloudflare makes no sense at all if you do not hide your backend IP which causes attackers to be able to attack your site directly, bypassing Cloudflare.

Also reduce the number of plugins you use, try to use SSD hosting instead of HDD (preferably NVME). Use fast RAM and a fast CPU, Wordpress is ressourcehungry, especially with lots of plugins. And now the most important part:

Optimize your configuration. Start optimizing your PHP ini, adjust input vars, adjust execution time, if you are experienced enough you should also change the www pool.d config, which allows you to change PM to dynamic and increase the max_spare_servers and child processes to really use the specs your server has. People need to start noticing that most of their ressources are wasted if they do not optimize their server config.

 

[samit]

I think upper mentioned solution will solve your problem. If still face same problem. Try to host your site in another server for testing. i have server space if you need (money not required) .

 

[DarKMaSk]

Wow so much dangerous wrong information here...

Start with using an object cache like memcache or redis. Cloudflare makes no sense at all if you do not hide your backend IP which causes attackers to be able to attack your site directly, bypassing Cloudflare.

Also reduce the number of plugins you use, try to use SSD hosting instead of HDD (preferably NVME). Use fast RAM and a fast CPU, Wordpress is ressourcehungry, especially with lots of plugins. And now the most important part:

Optimize your configuration. Start optimizing your PHP ini, adjust input vars, adjust execution time, if you are experienced enough you should also change the www pool.d config, which allows you to change PM to dynamic and increase the max_spare_servers and child processes to really use the specs your server has. People need to start noticing that most of their ressources are wasted if they do not optimize their server config.

May I know what "so much DANGEROUS wrong information" you see here? Please explain in detail so that we may learn something from you also. Please, be kind to us.

To others who have replied to this thread: Friends, have you ever able to access the pool.d config file in a shared hosting server?! I couldn't !!! When @yowan mentioned he shifted to GoDaddy, he probably rented a shared hosting. If he would go for a VPS or Dedicated server, then I think he would mention that.

 

[BonJoe]

May I know what "so much DANGEROUS wrong information" you see here? Please explain in detail so that we may learn something from you also. Please, be kind to us.

a good example is removing plugins without knowing the main cause of the problem - which is most likely the configuration of the server.

Moving your hosting provider - especially to namecheap - is also a really really bad advice. It is also a bad advice to not research yourself on what to do and let others help you, because you will get solutions but wont ever know what they are for. A deep understanding is always the best solution.

 

[DarKMaSk]

a good example is removing plugins without knowing the main cause of the problem - which is most likely the configuration of the server.

Moving your hosting provider - especially to namecheap - is also a really really bad advice. It is also a bad advice to not research yourself on what to do and let others help you, because you will get solutions but wont ever know what they are for. A deep understanding is always the best solution.

And how will you intend to know the main cause of the problem and how do you know that when bots are attacking the site, it is caused for "the configuration of the server"? And in a SHARED HOSTING ENVIRONMENT how can you access the PHP.INI??!! As per my knowledge, if the MAIN PHP.INI be changed, it will affect all the websites hosted in that server. Am I wrong? If you got the access to the MAIN PHP.INI of the server, then the host must be your very close one.

And regarding Namecheap, I think you might have some bad experience because in general, people think that the staffs of the hosting company are their slaves and that's why I advised @yowan to be polite because most of us forget that when we are talking to someone, that other person is the mirror of us. Just like a mirror, that person (here support executive) will show us the same face as we will show them. If we behave badly, we will get back the same. I have my hosting with Namecheap for more than 6 years but I never faced any bad behaviour from them because I never behaved like that. But I understand, people are different and so that their behaviour.

 

[BonJoe]

And how will you intend to know the main cause of the problem and how do you know that when bots are attacking the site, it is caused for "the configuration of the server"? And in a SHARED HOSTING ENVIRONMENT how can you access the PHP.INI??!! As per my knowledge, if the MAIN PHP.INI be changed, it will affect all the websites hosted in that server. Am I wrong? If you got the access to the MAIN PHP.INI of the server, then the host must be your very close one.

And regarding Namecheap, I think you might have some bad experience because in general, people think that the staffs of the hosting company are their slaves and that's why I advised @yowan to be polite because most of us forget that when we are talking to someone, that other person is the mirror of us. Just like a mirror, that person (here support executive) will show us the same face as we will show them. If we behave badly, we will get back the same. I have my hosting with Namecheap for more than 6 years but I never faced any bad behaviour from them because I never behaved like that. But I understand, people are different and so that their behaviour.

Quite simple:

OP uses Cloudflare. Cloudflare did not go down the last 2 weeks as far as I know. If he configured his backend to only accept connections from Cloudflare IPs that would have not been possible -> Simple as that, server configuration.

If you change the "main PHP.ini" it will definitely affect all sites, but why would that be bad? If you got access to the "main php.ini" it simply means you do not use cheap shared hosting, but a VPS/Cloudserver/VDS/Dedicated Server.

About Namecheap: it is a proven fact, based on benchmark and experience of several professionals, that Namecheaps servers are just not as capable as those of good hosting providers like Hetzner for example. It is all about the basic knowledge of stuff like this, that is why I say it is dangerous to listen to recommendations regarding that if there is a lack of such knowledge. It does more harm than it helps.

 

[yowan]

Hi guys,

Thanks thanks for all your contributions.
For more clarification, it's a company I contracted for. So what happened is that their website ran smoothly under A2 managed vps hosting for one year(no maintenance). Some few months back, the contacted me for the website updates, which I deed. Like a month after, they received a Server Overload notice from A2 and just a day after, the website started becoming unstable(db connection errors and time-outs). I got in tough with A2 support and they said, we were experiencing request peaks. They provided the top ips for me to block, which I did. But the issue kept repeating itself, so the recommended I should go with cloudflare and switch on 'under attack'. For like 2 days, the website was a little stable and then it went up again, cloudflare under attacked wasn't doing enough. A2 support couldn't do much, they said the load was afecting the whole server node, that it may be a DDoS, the recommended to desactivate the wp crons and went on silent for more than a day. Actually I had never delt with such a case, I tried to use wordfence rate limiting, country blocking but nothing, the website was still unstable. I hosting a copy of the website on the business' close domain on Godaddy, the owner's existing godaddy shared hosting (24GB RAM, cpu unkown) and created a redirection from the website's htaccess(on A2) to it copy on godaddy as a live website was urgent. After 2 days plus I didn't find a perfect solution and the website was fine when it was redirected to the domain on godaddy. So I moved the main domain to same godaddy server and removed the redirect.

On godaddy, all seemed okay for 6 days, then the same issues started back, excessive requests shutting the server down. I created cloudflare rules to challeng access from other countries, blocked some suspicious ANS and ips. But all these were not lasting for than minutes or hours. So I went for cloudflare pro, where I added more blocking rules and bot limitation but yet.
At least I could have more statistics and it happens the current request peaks (1,8k to 2k requests per minutes )is the ip of my godaddy's server, which is confusing me more. Actually the ip is not not my dedicated ip seen from godaddy's cpanel but wordfence diagnostic tool mentions that ip as part of my server's ips(plus the one I see from cpanel). So why is my server ip requestion soo much that it's taking my website down.
Currently I have activated the redirection again for 2 days now which has brough some stability, while bith website's are on the same godaddy server.

As I'm texting this, I think I should also proxy(another cloudflare A record) the other server ip creating causing the load.

As of now, they issue is not solved. The business owner is at the look of a professional security company to take over.

Thanks soo much for your contribution guys and please any suggestion is welcome.