php5.6-fpm high cpu usage

Question

I am currently running a Wordpress website using php-fpm and nginx and have it using extremely high cpu rates.

Here is my www.conf file:

[www] user = www-data group = www-data listen = 127.0.0.1:9000 listen.owner = www-data listen.group = www-data pm = ondemand pm.max_children = 10 pm.start_servers = 20 pm.min_spare_servers = 10 pm.max_spare_servers = 30 pm.process_idle_timeout = 10s ping.path = /ping pm.status_path = /status pm.max_requests = 30 request_terminate_timeout = 20 

I am using wp total cache and fastcgi. Any files you know I can find I can show.

My website gets around 800 views a day and it having content added around 5-6 times a day.

Answer 1

Wordpress uses a lot of CPU on a busy website. Using the CPU isn't a problem - I don't see a problem here. If you're getting very few visitors that CPU may be excessive, but you haven't given us that information.

Caching plugins reduce CPU a little, but you still have to call PHP to render the page. Caching at the web server layer (Nginx) is much faster, for anonymous users, and it can generate pages live for logged in users.

Nginx page caching for anonymous users can significantly reduce CPU usage. I have a tutorial on that here, and there's an Nginx tutorial here. If your site changes frequently you can look at microcaching.

Answer 2

Check the contents of your Wordpress PHP files, make sure some nasty code hasn't been inserted in them after a compromise. Attackers usually insert the code in all PHP files, so you should only need to check a few random ones in the base directory.