bash: running cURLs in parallel slower than one after another - bash

Question

We have to cache quite a big database of data after each upload, so we created a bash script that should handle it for us. The script should start 4 paralel curls to the site and once they're done, start the next one from the URL list we store in the file.
In theory everything works ok, and the concept works if we run the run 4 processes from our local machines to the target site.
If i set the MAX_NPROC=1 the curl takes as long as it would if the browser hits the URL
i.e. 20s
If I set the MAX_NPROC=2 the time request took, triples.
Am I missing something? Is that an apache setting that is slowing us down? or is this a secret cURL setting that I'm missing?
Any help will be appreciated. Please find the bash script below
#!/bin/bash
if [[ -z $2 ]]; then
MAX_NPROC=4 # default
else
MAX_NPROC=$2
fi
if [[ -z $1 ]]; then
echo "File with URLs is missing"
exit
fi;
NUM=0
QUEUE=""
DATA=""
URL=""
declare -a URL_ARRAY
declare -a TIME_ARRAY
ERROR_LOG=""
function queue {
QUEUE="$QUEUE $1"
NUM=$(($NUM+1))
}
function regeneratequeue {
OLDREQUEUE=$QUEUE
echo "OLDREQUEUE:$OLDREQUEUE"
QUEUE=""
NUM=0
for PID in $OLDREQUEUE
do
process_count=`ps ax | awk '{print $1 }' | grep -c "^${PID}$"`
if [ $process_count -eq 1 ] ; then
QUEUE="$QUEUE $PID"
NUM=$(($NUM+1))
fi
done
}
function checkqueue {
OLDCHQUEUE=$QUEUE
for PID in $OLDCHQUEUE
do
process_count=`ps ax | awk '{print $1 }' | grep -c "^${PID}$"`
if [ $process_count -eq 0 ] ; then
wait $PID
my_status=$?
if [[ $my_status -ne 0 ]]
then
echo "`date` $my_status ${URL_ARRAY[$PID]}" >> $ERROR_LOG
fi
current_time=`date +%s`
old_time=${TIME_ARRAY[$PID]}
time_difference=$(expr $current_time - $old_time)
echo "`date` ${URL_ARRAY[$PID]} END ($time_difference seconds)" >> $REVERSE_LOG
#unset TIME_ARRAY[$PID]
#unset URL_ARRAY[$PID]
regeneratequeue # at least one PID has finished
break
fi
done
}
REVERSE_LOG="$1.rvrs"
ERROR_LOG="$1.error"
echo "Cache STARTED at `date`" > $REVERSE_LOG
echo "" > ERROR_LOG
while read line; do
# create the command to be run
DATA="username=user#server.com&password=password"
URL=$line
CMD=$(curl --data "${DATA}" -s -o /dev/null --url "${URL}")
echo "Command: ${CMD}"
# Run the command
$CMD &
# Get PID for process
PID=$!
queue $PID;
URL_ARRAY[$PID]=$URL;
TIME_ARRAY[$PID]=`date +%s`
while [ $NUM -ge $MAX_NPROC ]; do
checkqueue
sleep 0.4
done
done < $1
echo "Cache FINISHED at `date`" >> $REVERSE_LOG
exit

Answer 1

The network is almost always the bottleneck. Spawning more connections usually makes it slower.
You can try to see if parallel'izing it will do you any good by spawning several
time curl ...... &