sofaking21

So, what you’ll do is upload a phpinfo.php file to /home/santanam/public_html/. The content of this file should be:
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
Once the file is in place, you should be able to navigate to http://santanamaria.com/phpinfo.php and see how the server is configured. Print out the results and then remove the phpinfo.php file. There is a ton of information contained within this configuration printout that can help diagnose the problem. I’m leaning towards the fact that their PHP processes are tanking on one or more load-balanced servers. The reason why I say that is becasue I had the exact same issues on my servers a few months back. I would shoot the hosts helpdesk an email or a phone call.

Let me start with my preferred method: virtual server. If you don’t have experience with Linux this may not be the quickest, but this has been by far the most stable environment I’ve ever used.

So, here’s what we do. Install a virtualizaiton product of your choice (VirtualBox is free). Install a flavor of Linux in your virtual environment (my preferred flavor: Ubuntu 10.10 Server). During the isntall, you can chose to install the LAMP stack and I would also suggest installing BIND (useful for quick and easy subdomain multisite). Install Webmin on your Linux box. While it’s not necessary, Webmin can make administration tasks quite a bit easier. Give your Linux box a static IP. Set up an Apache virtualhost with widlcard subdomains and a wildcard DNS entry (if you’re going to do a subdomain multisite). Install a Microsoft Loopback Adapter and assign a private IP address to the adapter and set up the DNS to your local DNS server. This is helpful if you’re on a laptop that may not always have an internet connection. With all this, you can set up a subdomain mutlisite WP install. I’ve found this easiest to work with mutliple sites though the set up takes a bit longer. I’m typically doing development on no less than 4 sites at any given time. Having separate subdomains helps me make sure I’m working on the proper site.