“Process Taser” … Awesome little thing!

Posted on October 28, 2007
Filed Under Random Stuff |

Over the years, one of the most daunting tasks was to keep the server load to a reasonable level to keep services like apache, mysql, crons running. It’s very difficult to know exactly what people are doing with scripts on their hosting account and when they’ll do it. When an insecure script does get executed it usually shoots the load up to a point where services become locked up — causing slow downs, downtime, etc.

I spoke to our elite bash coder Ed, who then whipped up a little tool which we like to call the “Process Taser”.

Let me explain to you how it works and let’s use the above image to make it easier to explain!

When loads go up, it’s usually because of a customer executing an insecure script, or a script that is not behaving as it should (The student in the blue shirt) causing processes such as Apache to consume the resources of the server; causing the slow down/interruption (the class that was being lectured). The process taser (the fine people with the taser) locates the service that is being hammered, stuns it and restarts the service, causing the load to stay at reasonable load average (often after people are tased, they are in check and behaving as they should).

We have deployed the “Process Taser” on a few of our servers which experience higher loads about two weeks ago as a part of our effort to maintain a stable uptime guarantee for our customers. So far it has worked out to be flawless “knock on wood”. We’re continuing to refine the tool to be better than it already is!

This is not obviously the solution, but this is a tool to enable us to keep the server up while we find, locate and deal with the offending script. Hopefully I did a good job at explaining what I thought was an interesting little tool to increase the performance of our services.

Kaumil Patel
President, Vistapages, Inc.

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