# Worker process is more than defined?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Tags:** unsupported-install, hosting
**Created:** [April 2, 2019, 1:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230 "2019-04-02T13:57:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Vencent](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Vencent)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 1:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/1 "2019-04-02T13:57:51Z")
I use discourse\_docker to generate Docker image, then deploy to kubernetes. In my `container/web_only.yml`:
```yaml
env:
UNICORN_WORKERS: 2
```
However, if I execute `top` in the container, I can see 4 workers:
Is it out of control, or did I missed something?
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 2:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/2 "2019-04-02T14:15:26Z")
That controle the number of unicorn workers but that isn’t the only thing in the container. We also run sidekiq, nginx, etc. Sidekiq also shows as Ruby in `top` until you press c
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### Author:  [@Vencent](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Vencent)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/3 "2019-04-02T15:17:37Z")
Thank you. I see. So is this the minimum configuration for a low-traffic site? I set a maximum memory usage of 1GB to the container and it got OOM a few times.
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### Author:  [@schleifer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/schleifer)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/4 "2019-04-02T15:22:14Z")
Our recommended configuration is at least 2G of RAM + 2G of swap.
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### Author:  [@Vencent](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Vencent)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/5 "2019-04-02T15:26:54Z")
Yeah, I understand. The “recommended” configuration, I guess, is for a real “community”. My instance, however, is only a support forum for my personal project with really low traffic (really). I know bigger RAM can always solve the problem, but it would be great if I can get some ideas on RAM optimization so I don’t have to upgrade my server with actually no need:)
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 3:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/6 "2019-04-02T15:43:27Z")
The minimum is 1GB Ram with 2GB Swap. And if you follow the [official install](https://meta.discourse.org/t/142537?silent=true) guide we automatically set swap for you. Did you get OOM with swap?
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### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 3:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/7 "2019-04-02T15:58:35Z")
> [@Vencent](#):
>
> some ideas on RAM optimization
You could probably get away with one unicorn (you have two now) and one sidekiq.
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### Author:  [@Vencent](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Vencent)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 4:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/8 "2019-04-02T16:04:26Z")
> [@RGJ](#):
>
> You could probably get away with one unicorn (you have two now) and one sidekiq.
That is what I’m thinking. Does that mean my whole site will block if a single request is doing I/O (i.e. database read)? I’m not really familiar with the tech details in Discourse but it seems likely to happen.
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### Author:  [@Vencent](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Vencent)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 4:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/9 "2019-04-02T16:10:36Z")
> [@Falco](#):
>
> Did you get OOM with swap?
No, I disabled swap because my cloud service provider suggests me to. I also heard it’s better to disable swap on a Kubernetes node. Maybe I should try to loose the RAM limit for Discourse and see what happens.
---
### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 4:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/10 "2019-04-02T16:11:48Z")
> [@Vencent](#):
>
> No, I disabled swap because my cloud service provider suggests me to.
Well, so that is an unsupported configuration. Good luck with the experiments, but that is not a setup we support.
---
### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/11 "2019-04-02T16:16:17Z")
> [@Vencent](#):
>
> I also heard it’s better to disable swap on a Kubernetes node.
Yes, but that’s in the same league as “it’s better to have more RAM” .
And if you don’t have more RAM then you should have swap as a fallback.
> [@Vencent](#):
>
> my whole site will block if a single request is doing I/O (i.e. database read)?
No, it won’t be THAT bad.
But you said you had really low traffic…
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### Author:  [@Vencent](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Vencent)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/12 "2019-04-02T16:22:41Z")
> [@RGJ](#):
>
> No, it won’t be THAT bad.
> But you said you had really low traffic…
I’m not a Ruby developer but this is what seems to happen when there is only one thread in one process and the code has no async I/O support.
Yeah, I do have really low traffic. Just asking for curiosity 😁
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### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 4:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/13 "2019-04-02T16:31:20Z")
> [@Vencent](#):
>
> code has no async I/O support
I’m not sure about Unicorn, I know `thin` has an eventmachine that deals with this.
---
### Author:  [@Corsterix](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Corsterix)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/worker-process-is-more-than-defined/113230/14 "2019-04-02T16:49:44Z")
Disabling swap is an extremely bad idea, I suggest you ignore your cloud service provider and get yourself some swap.