Tried disabling APF with no success, still the same issue.
Stopped mysqld service (didnt think would make a difference but thought I better try) and again, no difference.
Stopped httpd service, and voila, no more ping problems. So it def seems like its the number of connections coming from Apache that are causing the issue.
Im going to look into apache optimization for now but if you have any quick tips I would apreciate it!
Also see my top output
Code:
top - 14:06:23 up 38 days, 13:18, 1 user, load average: 1.48, 1.89, 1.46
Tasks: 154 total, 1 running, 153 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 31.9%us, 10.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 49.5%id, 3.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 5.3%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 1994020k total, 1562692k used, 431328k free, 110104k buffers
Swap: 2031608k total, 96k used, 2031512k free, 1040928k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
10388 mysql 15 0 563m 91m 4076 S 12.3 4.7 0:58.58 mysqld
10419 root 25 0 291m 9728 5288 S 1.0 0.5 0:00.58 httpd
11534 apache 15 0 292m 8756 3180 S 1.0 0.4 0:00.04 httpd
11543 apache 15 0 292m 8692 3180 S 1.0 0.4 0:00.04 httpd
11118 apache 15 0 294m 12m 5808 S 0.7 0.7 0:00.51 httpd
11126 apache 16 0 294m 13m 6332 S 0.7 0.7 0:00.56 httpd
11129 apache 15 0 292m 9024 3400 S 0.7 0.5 0:00.45 httpd
11172 apache 15 0 293m 11m 5416 S 0.7 0.6 0:00.24 httpd
11176 apache 15 0 293m 9140 3396 D 0.7 0.5 0:00.23 httpd
11185 apache 15 0 292m 9212 3528 S 0.7 0.5 0:00.25 httpd
11193 apache 15 0 294m 13m 6380 S 0.7 0.7 0:00.29 httpd
11197 apache 15 0 294m 12m 5716 S 0.7 0.7 0:00.29 httpd
11198 apache 15 0 294m 13m 6332 S 0.7 0.7 0:00.30 httpd
11217 apache 15 0 292m 8908 3260 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.24 httpd
11221 apache 15 0 292m 8904 3312 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.24 httpd
11527 apache 15 0 292m 8764 3180 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.06 httpd
11530 apache 15 0 292m 8736 3180 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.04 httpd
11533 apache 15 0 292m 8720 3172 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.05 httpd
11536 apache 15 0 292m 8712 3164 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.05 httpd
11538 apache 15 0 292m 8784 3164 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.03 httpd
11541 apache 15 0 292m 8720 3164 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.05 httpd
11544 apache 15 0 292m 8740 3188 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.02 httpd
11547 apache 16 0 292m 8708 3164 D 0.7 0.4 0:00.02 httpd
11548 apache 15 0 292m 8700 3164 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.02 httpd
11553 apache 15 0 292m 8664 3164 S 0.7 0.4 0:00.02 httpd
11092 root 15 0 12716 1104 788 R 0.3 0.1 0:00.54 top
11158 apache 15 0 294m 13m 6380 S 0.3 0.7 0:00.50 httpd
11186 apache 15 0 292m 8896 3232 S 0.3 0.4 0:00.25 httpd
11187 apache 15 0 292m 9488 3700 S 0.3 0.5 0:00.26 httpd
11205 apache 15 0 292m 8896 3220 S 0.3 0.4 0:00.23 httpd
11229 apache 15 0 294m 13m 5896 S 0.3 0.7 0:00.28 httpd
11528 apache 16 0 292m 8784 3196 S 0.3 0.4 0:00.03 httpd
11531 apache 15 0 292m 8712 3212 S 0.3 0.4 0:00.02 httpd
11535 apache 15 0 292m 8740 3176 S 0.3 0.4 0:00.04 httpd
11537 apache 15 0 294m 12m 5260 S 0.3 0.6 0:00.06 httpd
11540 apache 15 0 292m 8732 3180 S 0.3 0.4 0:00.03 httpd
The number of httpd connections can vary dramatically from 1 to all that you can see above, which shoots up the amount of processor being used.
Should this be happening?