What can slow a server down and what to do?

[zeus]

Im on a dedicated server, but sometimes the server is down and sometimes the SQL dont work, thats how I deliver banners on the site.

I got this message from support
Dear customer
I could login your server. LA were >100. I restarted httpd and mysql services. After all server is working stable. support today

Im not that into server systems, but aint there a way I can restart this myself so I will not have this down time, its about every month its down or SQL dont work.

I get about 30.000 unique visits a day, so there is some action on the site, but it must could handle that.

I think a good idea could be something like a window washer or deleting of temp files like on a normal computer, if that is possible.

zeus

[gergoe]

It could be because of numerous reasons; coding issues (memory leaks) in the scripted pages, stuck transactions in the sql server (if mysql supports it at all; I don't know it for sure), overload of the server, outdated software, corrupted installation of the OS, webserver or the application server, and some more I might not have in mind right now. The best thing you can do is to investigate the problem when it happens (when it needs to be restarted), check the logs (apache, application server, OS), the processor/memory usage data, the bandwidth usage, the status of the apache (mod_status) and try to make a conclusion. Try to check these information sources regularly, to see does it happen just like that, or it is slowly happening. If you have gathered all the available information from these sources, you should be able to make a clear conclusion on what's happening on the machine.
By the way, the dedicated means that this is the only website which is running on it, or is there any other website on it which uses the same resources? Is any other software using the same resources (sql for example) on the server?

[zeus]

there are 12 domains on the server and slit over 5 IP every site has there own sql.

The dumm thing is just that, servers are not my speciality, so I dont think I will ever get down to the buttom of this.

thanks,

zeus