Issue high CPU-usage ("/usr/bin/apach" "php-cgi" "php-fpm")

[Goodfred]

Server operating system version

Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS

Plesk version and microupdate number

Version 18.0.57 Update #5, zuletzt aktualisiert: 27. Dez. 2023 11:20:16

Hello again everyone!

We have a high-CPU-usage on a server since a long time.
I've only found out that the processes "/usr/bin/apach" "php-cgi" "php-fpm" are the reason for the high-CPU-usage, but I dont know why.

Can you help me to fix this?

P.S.: Mostly "/usr/bin/apach" ist on ~80%~ and sometimes there are several processes with that name

And by that: I wish all of you a good new year!

Following screenshots:
2 x of command "top"
2 x Plesk CPU usage
1 x vCenter CPU usage

P.S.: Its a Plesk hosting machine with some websites. But the CPU should not be that high I think/I'm sure

 

[Peter Debik]

This is normally caused by website traffic, especially bad bots and hacker attacks. You will need to check which domain is causing the issue (e.g. by running ps aux | grep php-fpm) and check their access_ssl_log what requests are found. Many times you'll see break-in attempts like frequent requests against xmlrpc.php or attempts to read authentication files, bad bots trying to index all kinds of files etc. Is your Fail2Ban Bad Bot jail active?