# Mod\_rails on 256meg slicehost vps crashing often **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [June 30, 2008, 4:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mod-rails-on-256meg-slicehost-vps-crashing-often/141721 "2008-06-30T04:55:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 4:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mod-rails-on-256meg-slicehost-vps-crashing-often/141721/1 "2008-06-30T04:55:51Z")
I’m running ubuntu hardy 8.04 with mod\_rails on a site that gets about 1000 hits a day. the site runs perfectly fine if there are only a handful of users making request. but when the site gets busy i run out of memory because of too many passenger processes. i have 256MB RAM and 512 swap. i have tuned down some of the apache settings: Timeout 300 KeepAlive On MaxKeepAliveRequests 100 KeepAliveTimeout 5 StartServers 3 MinSpareServers 3 MaxSpareServers 3 MaxClients 50 MaxRequestsPerChild 0 StartServers 3 MaxClients 50 MinSpareThreads 3 MaxSpareThreads 3 ThreadsPerChild 10 i’m not sure what i should do next. maybe i should switch to a mongrel cluster? are there any settings in in passenger i should be looking at to optimize this configuration? i don’t mind if the site slows down a little bit i just don’t want it crashing everyday! please help! ---
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 5:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mod-rails-on-256meg-slicehost-vps-crashing-often/141721/2 "2008-06-30T05:14:45Z")
reading through the mod\_rails help i see i can change a few parameters #define DEFAULT\_LOG\_LEVEL 0 #define DEFAULT\_MAX\_POOL\_SIZE 2 #define DEFAULT\_POOL\_IDLE\_TIME 300 #define DEFAULT\_MAX\_INSTANCES\_PER\_APP 0 i found these located in Configuration.cpp. do i need to recompile passenger? or can i just set this as a global value somewhere like in the virtual host declaration? ---
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 9:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mod-rails-on-256meg-slicehost-vps-crashing-often/141721/3 "2008-06-30T09:22:12Z")
On 30 Jun 2008, at 05:14, Scott K. wrote: > reading through the mod\_rails help i see i can change a few parameters > > #define DEFAULT\_LOG\_LEVEL 0 > #define DEFAULT\_MAX\_POOL\_SIZE 2 > #define DEFAULT\_POOL\_IDLE\_TIME 300 > #define DEFAULT\_MAX\_INSTANCES\_PER\_APP 0 > > i found these located in Configuration.cpp. do i need to recompile > passenger? or can i just set this as a global value somewhere like in > the virtual host declaration? [http://www.modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide.html#\_resource\_control\_and\_optimization\_options](http://www.modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide.html#_resource_control_and_optimization_options) And yes, it’s in the vhost config. Best regards Peter De Berdt ---
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 2:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mod-rails-on-256meg-slicehost-vps-crashing-often/141721/4 "2008-06-30T14:54:18Z")
> [Phusion Passenger users guide index](http://www.modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide.html#_resource_control_and_optimization_options) > > And yes, it’s in the vhost config. > > Best regards > > Peter De Berdt ok thanks. i found out that i need to set PassengerMaxPoolSize to 2. I have tried setting this in apache2.conf and in my virtual host. \ SetEnv RAILS\_ENV production SetEnv PassengerMaxPoolSize 2 ServerName [domain.com](http://domain.com) ServerAlias [www.domain.com](http://www.domain.com) DocumentRoot /u1/app/domain/public ServerAdmin removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid ErrorLog /u1/app/domain/log/error\_log CustomLog /u1/app/domain/log/access\_log common and restarting apache but my max is still set to 6: ----------- General information ----------- max = 6 count = 2 active = 0 inactive = 2 any other ideas? ---
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 7:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mod-rails-on-256meg-slicehost-vps-crashing-often/141721/5 "2008-08-05T07:01:57Z")
how were you able to report the PassengerMaxPoolSize for the vhost? I’ve set mine properly in my vhost but ‘sudo passenger-status’ tells me the global setting I think, and not the setting for the vhost i am checking on. thoughts? On Jun 30, 12:18 pm, Scott K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2008, 6:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/mod-rails-on-256meg-slicehost-vps-crashing-often/141721/6 "2008-06-30T18:18:56Z")
i got it. i had to do the following: PassengerMaxPoolSize 2 since it was not an environment variable.