The service “httpd” appears to be down

Hello,

In the last few days, the httpd service has been going down a lot (7-15 times a day). The server has been up for months without issue so not sure what has caused it. And having a lot of ecommerce clients on there means it's a problem that needs to be solved asap.

Since this error is new to me and a quick Google shows each time is a different solution, I was hoping to get some help diagnosing this one.

I have csf installed but nothing has changed in the settings for months, so not sure if that's it. I've attached a copy of one of the emails which shows some details of the logs and this is what I've noticed:

- Primary IP: This IP is unusual to me. Is it something misconfigured or is it some internal IP used by WHM?
- In just about all the emails, a specific website has been always been in the "Top Processes" on more than one process. They say "php-fpm: pool website_com_au" but the CPU and Memory don't seem high enough to crash the httpd service. So is this normal? or should I look in to this account?
- This link seems to have a similar issue and it was solved but semaphores are new to me so not sure if this relates to me.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

Code:

Server    ns1.myserver.com.au
Primary IP Address    10.1.0.5
Service Name    httpd
Service Status    failed ⛔
Notification    The service “httpd” appears to be down.
Service Check Method    The system failed to connect to this service’s TCP/IP port.
Reason    Service check failed to complete
Timeout while trying to get data from service: Died
Number of Restart Attempts    7
Startup Log    Mar 16 14:14:37 ns1.myserver.com.au systemd[1]: Starting Apache web server managed by cPanel EasyApache...
Mar 16 14:14:38 ns1.myserver.com.au systemd[1]: PID file /run/apache2/httpd.pid not readable (yet?) after start.
Mar 16 14:14:38 ns1.myserver.com.au systemd[1]: Started Apache web server managed by cPanel EasyApache.
Log Messages    [Fri Mar 16 15:26:18.230147 2018] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 1017] AH00163: Apache/2.4.29 (cPanel) OpenSSL/1.0.2n mod_bwlimited/1.4 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 16 15:21:17.117012 2018] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 1017] AH00163: Apache/2.4.29 (cPanel) OpenSSL/1.0.2n mod_bwlimited/1.4 configured -- resuming normal operations
[Fri Mar 16 15:16:15.799539 2018] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 1017] AH00163: Apache/2.4.29 (cPanel) OpenSSL/1.0.2n mod_bwlimited/1.4 configured -- resuming normal operations
Memory Information    Used    3.45 GB
Available    10.23 GB
Installed    13.69 GB

Load Information    0.88 0.92 0.98
Uptime    1 hour, 16 minutes, and 48 seconds
IOStat Information    avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle 28.84 0.02 1.14 0.14 0.00 69.86 Device: tps kB_read/s kB_wrtn/s kB_read kB_wrtn fd0 0.00 0.00 0.00 4 0 sda 20.08 607.39 65.85 2798665 303435 sdb 0.06 1.93 0.01 8885 52
Top Processes    PID    Owner    CPU %    Memory %    Command
7104    c150502a    30.31    0.46    php-fpm: pool domainA_com_au
7807    c160101a    24.24    0.15    php-fpm: pool domainB_com_au
7063    c150502a    23.91    0.46    php-fpm: pool domainA_com_au
7804    root    20.51    0.08    /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/perl /usr/local/cpanel/bin/leechprotect
6285    c150502a    17.55    0.51    php-fpm: pool domainA_com_au

 

The problem seems to have stopped by itself so I will keep an eye on it to see how it develops and if it happens again, I will open a ticket. Thank you.

 

The error occurred again. I will open a support ticket.

 

The ticket number is 9401513.

The issue seems to be a server overload because of search engine bots' excessive crawling. This is just a guess and has not been confirmed but seems to fit in with what we're seeing in the logs.

I have added a robot.txt file and will see if the bots (specifically, the MJ12Bot) will obey. If not, I will block its IP completely.

I'll update this thread in a week or so when I've had a chance to see if the issue re-occurs.