max of 70 listeners until problems

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Lane
Posts: 154
Joined: Mon May 09, 2005 4:16 pm

max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Lane »

Hi Jay,

Running steamcast on a centos 5 virtual server. We're finding we get up to 69 listeners without any issues on a relay mount. Above 69, the stream no longer feeds steadily. I have a program that shows the level of the buffer, and it starts dropping. Eventually, it empties, and rebuffers.

For our test, we're relaying a popular station as listed in the shoutcast dir.

We're also running a sc_serv on the same server, different port, same relay, and no problems with up to 300 listeners.

cpu is 98% idle. and we also increased the threadpool to see if it factored, but did not observe any changes.

I'm wondering if you have any suggestions as to why it seems to be hitting a wall above 70 listeners.

Good work! Thanks Jay!

p.s. our conf

; Steamcast Configuration File
; ================================

; Server Configuration
; ====================

PortBase=8000
; MaxUser=300
; MaxBandwidth=0
; IPMaxUser=0
LogFile=steamcast.log
MimeFile=mime.types
BanFile=steamcast.ban
VipFile=steamcast.vip
ScreenLog=Yes
RealtimeLog=Yes
YPLog=Yes
PidFile=steamcast.pid
NameLookups=No
ShowLastSongs=20
ClientTimeout=30

; User Configuration
; ==================

AdminUser=xxxx

AdminPass=xxxx

; Source Configuration
SourceMount=/live
SourceUser=xxxx
SourcePass=xxxx
SourceUserMax=300
SourceRelay=69.80.225.46:8030
; SourceDisconnectWait=10
; SourceDirectory=./content
; SourceGateway=/intro.%s
; SourceBackup=/live_back
; SourceAvgBitrateLimit=128
SourceIsSC=Yes
; SourceNameFormat=%s powered by Steamcast
SourceIsDefault=Yes
; SourceIP=123.45.67.89
; SourceAuth=No
; SourceAuthMax=0
; SourceListenerTimer=0
; SourcePublic=Default
; SourcePublicRelays=Yes
; SourceRawKey=rawdata
SourceBuffUtil=2

; Directory Configuration
; =======================
Directory=http://www.steamcast.com/sbin/yp.php
Directory=http://dir.xiph.org/cgi-bin/yp-cgi

; Advanced Configuration
; ======================
; ServIP=ANY
; SrcIP=ANY
ThreadPool=10
Lane
Posts: 154
Joined: Mon May 09, 2005 4:16 pm

Re: max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Lane »

Actually, before you say it, I'll say. :) We'll do a test with a larger SourceBuffUtil value. We're going for interactive though, so want as long as possible a value. Do you think this is a factor here?
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Jay
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Re: max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Jay »

it could but I have seen steamcast run 400 listeners in the real world before. Is this a dual core machine and does the VPS see the dual cores?
- Jay
Lane
Posts: 154
Joined: Mon May 09, 2005 4:16 pm

Re: max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Lane »

This is the /proc/cpuinfo

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 23
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
stepping : 6
cpu MHz : 2992.812
cache size : 6144 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 1
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm syscall lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips : 7498.47
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

So you can see it's a Core2Duo from the above. Bu I'm not sure how to tell what it has access to. I see where it says cpu cores 1, which makes me think it's only seeing one. And if I run top, and hit "1" to show cores, it only shows Cpu0. So I guess it's only seeing one core.
Lane
Posts: 154
Joined: Mon May 09, 2005 4:16 pm

Re: max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Lane »

quick update. tested with the buff set to 100. no change in behaviour. get above 70, and it no longer keeps the buffer full in the player, and rebuffers start happening.
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Jay
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Re: max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Jay »

interesting, is the OS 64bit?
- Jay
Lane
Posts: 154
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Re: max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Lane »

yep. looks like.

# uname -a
Linux joshdnix 2.6.18-92.1.13.el5xen #1 SMP Wed Sep 24 20:01:15 EDT 2008 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
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Jay
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Re: max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Jay »

ok that is likely the culprit. It seems weird but I will probably just rewrite the server for 1.0. I have also come to the conclusion that I cannot support this on my own anymore so likely the base server is going to be open source.
- Jay
Lane
Posts: 154
Joined: Mon May 09, 2005 4:16 pm

Re: max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Lane »

hmm, rewrite sounds kinda like it will be a looooong wait for that one. :)

I remember you had concerns keeping it closed source in order to maintain it's integrity for shoutcast directory listing. Would having the base server open source impact on that?
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Jay
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Re: max of 70 listeners until problems

Post by Jay »

nah I could keep that source code closed and open source the basic server. Yea it might take a little while but I will continue releasing updates for this version, so don't worry. I just haven't got much experience with 64bit virtualization.
- Jay
Salvis
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Location: Riga, Latvia

New version - when?

Post by Salvis »

Hey, Jay.
When we can wait for next (stable?) version?
Open source sounds great :)
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