# Nginx + PHP = VERY High CPU Usage **URL:** \ **Category:** NGINX\ **Created:** [December 10, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-php-very-high-cpu-usage/200407 "2010-12-10T20:06:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dobai-Pataky\_BSSSSl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/77aa72/32.png) [@Dobai-Pataky\_BSSSSl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Dobai-Pataky_BSSSSl)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-php-very-high-cpu-usage/200407/1 "2010-12-10T20:06:26Z")
Hello All, I was using APACHE and I decided to migrate to nginx. I researched and nginx is supposed to have a completely superior performance for webpages that have lot of simultaneous requests, such as real time pages sending AJAX requests every second. My application is based on MYSQL + PHP + AJAX + JAVASCRIPT. After I installed the NGINX, I started testing it, and noticed that something is strange due the HIGH-CPU usage of PHP-CGI process. The curious is that with around 6-8 Tabs open on Firefox, I can reach around 80% of CPU usage. that is completely high, even with this test machine that have a cpu of only 1.8ghz. But talking about only 8 web pages open, reach this amount of CPU usage, I think that something is wrong. Anyone can please advise me? [size=x-small]last pid: 39019; load averages: 0.98, 0.22, 0.08 up 4+16:53:45 17:03:29 51 processes: 2 running, 49 sleeping CPU: 84.8% user, 0.0% nice, 14.4% system, 0.4% interrupt, 0.4% idle Mem: 46M Active, 204M Inact, 83M Wired, 128K Cache, 60M Buf, 157M Free Swap: 991M Total, 991M Free PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU COMMAND 39017 www 1 70 0 18908K 10932K accept 0:04 17.09% php-cgi 39009 www 1 72 0 18908K 11396K accept 0:05 16.26% php-cgi 39008 www 1 68 0 18908K 11428K accept 0:05 15.67% php-cgi 39019 www 1 66 0 18908K 10932K accept 0:03 15.48% php-cgi 39018 www 1 64 0 21980K 13100K RUN 0:03 13.96% php-cgi 954 mysql 14 44 0 63332K 30672K sbwait 5:55 0.00% mysqld 1150 daemon 6 44 0 13460K 6716K ucond 0:34 0.00% memcached 1617 nobody 1 44 0 5348K 4180K kqread 0:12 0.00% nginx 1009 root 1 44 0 6080K 3476K select 0:11 0.00% sendmail 1020 root 1 44 0 3376K 1372K nanslp 0:04 0.00% cron 1001 root 1 44 0 6704K 3744K select 0:02 0.00% sshd 642 root 1 44 0 3348K 1336K select 0:02 0.00% syslogd 38189 rafael 1 44 0 9428K 4552K select 0:01 0.00% sshd 1013 smmsp 1 44 0 6080K 3332K pause 0:00 0.00% sendmail 783 www 1 73 0 17884K 8412K wait 0:00 0.00% php-cgi 812 nobody 1 44 0 3292K 1296K select 0:00 0.00% noip2 38186 root 1 44 0 9428K 4488K sbwait 0:00 0.00% sshd 1487 root 1 44 0 5348K 3636K pause 0:00 0.00% nginx 38193 root 1 44 0 4564K 2404K wait 0:00 0.00% bash 39016 root 1 44 0 3684K 1956K RUN 0:00 0.00% top 823 root 1 76 0 3628K 1504K wait 0:00 0.00% sh 38192 rafael 1 44 0 3808K 1724K wait 0:00 0.00% su 38190 rafael 1 45 0 3628K 1612K wait 0:00 0.00% sh 1084 root 1 76 0 3348K 1156K ttyin 0:00 0.00% getty 508 root 1 44 0 1888K 584K select 0:00 0.00% devd 1086 root 1 76 0 3348K 1156K ttyin 0:00 0.00% getty 1085 root 1 76 0 3348K 1156K ttyin 0:00 0.00% getty 1089 root 1 76 0 3348K 1156K ttyin 0:00 0.00% getty 1087 root 1 76 0 3348K 1156K ttyin 0:00 0.00% getty 1090 root 1 76 0 3348K 1156K ttyin 0:00 0.00% getty 1091 root 1 76 0 3348K 1156K ttyin 0:00 0.00% getty 1088 root 1 76 0 3348K 1156K ttyin 0:00 0.00% getty 120 root 1 76 0 1540K 844K pause 0:00 0.00% adjkerntz[/size] Posted at Nginx Forum: > **[Nginx + PHP = VERY High CPU Usage](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,157575,157575#msg-157575)** > > Hello All, I was using APACHE and I decided to migrate to nginx. I researched and nginx is supposed to have a completely superior performance for webpages that have lot of simultaneous requests, such as real time pages sending AJAX requests every... ---
**Author:** ![hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/898d66/32.png) [@hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hasson)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-php-very-high-cpu-usage/200407/2 "2010-12-10T20:13:58Z")
Are you using APC cache? You may need to adjust the APC config to get it to work under php-cgi? Just a guess… ---
**Author:** ![hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/898d66/32.png) [@hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hasson)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 8:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-php-very-high-cpu-usage/200407/3 "2010-12-10T20:36:02Z")
I’m not using APC because I’m using PHP-MEMCACHE. Do you think that would be necessary the APC? By the way this is my configure [size=x-small]Configure Command ‘./configure’ ‘–with-gdbm’ ‘–with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql/’ ‘–with-mcrypt=/usr/ports/security/mcrypt’ ‘–with-gd=/usr/ports/graphics/gd/work/gd-2.0.35/’ ‘–with-png-dir=/usr’ ‘–with-zlib-dir=/usr’ ‘–with-xpm-dir=/usr’ ‘–with-freetype-dir=/usr’ ‘–with-jpeg-dir=/usr’ ‘–with-layout=GNU’ ‘–localstatedir=/var’ ‘–with-config-file-scan-dir=/usr/local/etc/php’ ‘–enable-libxml’ ‘–with-libxml-dir=/usr/local’ ‘–with-pcre-regex=/usr/local’ ‘–with-zlib-dir=/usr’ ‘–with-regex=php’ ‘–with-zend-vm=CALL’ ‘–prefix=/usr/local’ ‘–mandir=/usr/local/man’ ‘–infodir=/usr/local/info/’ ‘–build=i386-portbld-freebsd8.1’ ‘–enable-mbstring’ ‘–enable-fastcgi’ ‘–enable-soap’ ‘–with-curl’ ‘–with-mcrypt’ ‘–enable-zip’ ‘–with-bz2’ Server API CGI/FastCGI[/size] On apache the production server is running nice, with mod\_fastcgi. Looking forward to figure out that =) Thanks for your reply! Posted at Nginx Forum: > **[Re: Nginx + PHP = VERY High CPU Usage](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,157575,157589#msg-157589)** > > Hello All, I was using APACHE and I decided to migrate to nginx. I researched and nginx is supposed to have a completely superior performance for webpages that have lot of simultaneous requests, such as real time pages sending AJAX requests every... ---
**Author:** ![hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/898d66/32.png) [@hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hasson)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-php-very-high-cpu-usage/200407/4 "2010-12-10T20:44:11Z")
On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 11:35 AM, hasson [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’m not using APC because I’m using PHP-MEMCACHE. > > Do you think that would be necessary the APC? APC will complement memcache. You can cache your application data in memcache and cache your PHP op code in APC. > ‘–with-libxml-dir=/usr/local’ ‘–with-pcre-regex=/usr/local’ > ‘–with-zlib-dir=/usr’ ‘–with-regex=php’ ‘–with-zend-vm=CALL’ > ‘–prefix=/usr/local’ ‘–mandir=/usr/local/man’ > ‘–infodir=/usr/local/info/’ ‘–build=i386-portbld-freebsd8.1’ > ‘–enable-mbstring’ ‘–enable-fastcgi’ ‘–enable-soap’ ‘–with-curl’ > ‘–with-mcrypt’ ‘–enable-zip’ ‘–with-bz2’ > Server API CGI/FastCGI[/size] > > On apache the production server is running nice, with mod\_fastcgi. Weird. There must be something different about the way the php-cgi daemons are spawned. > Looking forward to figure out that =) Maybe you can try running strace on the php-cgi process and see what it’s doing. ---
**Author:** ![hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/898d66/32.png) [@hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hasson)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-php-very-high-cpu-usage/200407/5 "2010-12-10T20:46:04Z")
On 12/10/2010 08:35 PM, hasson wrote: > I’m not using APC because I’m using PHP-MEMCACHE. Memcache doesn’t replace the opcode caching functions of APC. > Do you think that would be necessary the APC? Without APC your scripts always have to be compiled for every request which is almost never what you want. Using APC isn’t “necessary” per se but very strongly recommended. Regards, Dennis ---
**Author:** ![hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/898d66/32.png) [@hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hasson)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 11:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-php-very-high-cpu-usage/200407/6 "2010-12-10T23:36:46Z")
On Fri, 2010-12-10 at 14:05 -0500, hasson wrote: > Hello All, Hi hasson > I was using APACHE and I decided to migrate to nginx. > I researched and nginx is supposed to have a completely superior > performance for webpages that have lot of simultaneous requests, such as > real time pages sending AJAX requests every second. nginx will have better performance mostly on static content > wrong. > > Anyone can please advise me? try eaccelerator – Maxime Ducharme Systems Architect ---
**Author:** ![hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/898d66/32.png) [@hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hasson)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-php-very-high-cpu-usage/200407/7 "2010-12-12T18:01:12Z")
Hello all! I’m very happy to post that APC module REALLY make the difference!!! Now the CPU usage is as supposed to be 🙂 If you are using nginx+php you SHOULD use APC! Thanks for the TIP =D Posted at Nginx Forum: > **[Re: Nginx + PHP = VERY High CPU Usage](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,157575,157978#msg-157978)** > > Hello All, I was using APACHE and I decided to migrate to nginx. I researched and nginx is supposed to have a completely superior performance for webpages that have lot of simultaneous requests, such as real time pages sending AJAX requests every... ---
**Author:** ![hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/898d66/32.png) [@hasson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hasson)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 12:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/nginx-php-very-high-cpu-usage/200407/8 "2010-12-17T00:33:55Z")
You should also use php-fpm.