What is a vps?

I'm so new, I don't even know...

[webwhat]

HELP! The truth is, we have one. We're about to launch our new site on it. We were conducting a very important test when our site went completely down! The vps is still "online" but apparently this user test we did caused our site to not work. I called our vps provider people and they said that as long as the vps was "up" there was nothing that they were doing wrong and therefore nothing they could do about our problem.

My programmer has no idea what happened. ANY advice or help or suggestion on where to go with this very general question of mine would be MUCH appreciated!

Thanks, ya'll!

[pageoneresults]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld webwhat!

What is a VPS?

Virtual Private Server

We were conducting a very important test when our site went completely down!

Well, what the heck did you do? ;)

The vps is still "online" but apparently this user test we did caused our site to not work.

What doesn't work?

I called our vps provider people and they said that as long as the vps was "up" there was nothing that they were doing wrong and therefore nothing they could do about our problem.

Then we can assume that you have an IT person standing by to investigate?

My programmer has no idea what happened. ANY advice or help or suggestion on where to go with this very general question of mine would be MUCH appreciated!

Where's the Server Admin?

[webwhat]

I just wanted to reply back and say thanks for trying! Yes, unfortunately I am the only one who can talk to the people on the phone, but I am (quite clearly) not the IT person. Nor do I know even the basics. (Hence my username, here.) Nevertheless, I'm at a very small company, so I have to conduct the investigation.

Turns out, I was able to figure out how to go into our log files and we discovered a massive memory error that occured during our user traffic test. Basically, we went from happy "green light" to deadly "black zone."

I think we need some more memory. Currently our vps deal has 256mb RAM. But if there is another reason for us falling into "black zone", I'd love to hear about it!

[jdMorgan]

You may also need to ask your programmer to look into why your server ran out of memory. This is not to say that he/she did a bad job, but some techniques are more memory-intensive that others, and programming errors can cause 'memory leaks' where memory needed temporarily to do some job is (mistakenly) not released for re-use after that job is completed.

Jim

[webwhat]

Interesting.

I'll have them look into that as well. Sounds very plausible.

Thanks!

[GaryK]

Jim, could it be that 256MB of RAM really isn't enough to run a website?

Disclaimer: I'm not a server admin but I play one on the web. :)

[jdMorgan]

I'm assuming that the test described in the OP with the phrase "user test" was a traffic load test.

Jim

[jtara]

I think we need some more memory.

As suggested in a previous post, what you need is a Server Admin. You apparently don't have one. For a VPS, you need one.

While you have a "slice" of a server, it acts just as if you have your own server. It is generally YOUR responsibility with a VPS to install any needed software (not included in the initial installation), update software as needed, monitor server operation, etc. It is not much different from maintaining a dedicated server.

You need somebody on staff (or at least part-time) who can do this. Your programmer may lack the knowledge and experience to do this.

[dolfantimmy]

I wouldn't assume right off that the problem is memory capacity. Without knowing more about what your "test" is doing, it's difficult to say for sure. Also, I assume your host is LINUX or some flavor of Unix, and not Windows (unlikely with 256MB). I run several web sites on a 256MB CentOS (linux) VPS, with very little problems.

Do you shell access to your server (most VPS's do provide this). If so, I can help you out determining what the problem might be.

What is the management interface, Webmin, Plesk, Cpanel?

Remember that the more detail you provide, the easier it is to help.