[kwlug-disc] tracking down a rampant script

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

You say "compiled" so I am not sure what language the script is in.

But there is a way to prevent a script from running more than a certain
number of seconds. For example PHP provides a parameter for exactly
that, and you can change it depending on your needs.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/info.configuration.php#ini.max-execution-time
Or even doing it programatically (if you have the permission).

http://php.net/manual/en/function.set-time-limit.php

For shell scripts, you can do that like so:

#!/bin/sh
yourprogram -options &
CMD_PID=$!
sleep 300
kill $CMD_PID

This will prevent "yourprogram" from running more than 5 minutes per
invocation.

For C programs, you can use signal(SIGALRM, ...) and alarm(300) to make the
program terminate after a while.

int main(void) {
  signal(SIGALRM, shutdown);

  alarm(300);
}

void shutdown() {
  exit();
}

But you say it is compiled and it is called from web pages.

Please provide more specifics and I/we will try to see what more can be
done.

On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 4:13 PM, Insurance Squared Inc. <
gcooke at insurancesquared.com> wrote:

> I've got a compiled script running on my webserver that runs alot, called
> by various webpages.
>
> Once in a while it seems like the script doesn't stop running; it keeps on
> running and chewing up huge amounts of cpu.  So after a couple of days, I
> end up with 2 or 3 instances of that script running on the server
> continually.  running 'top' will show 0% idle cpu, with all the cpu being
> consumed by that script (with an owner of apache).  Kill the pids,
> everything performs nice again...for a little while.
>
> Meantime, thousands of other executions of the script perform properly -
> they execute for a brief second, spit out their numbers, then die
> gracefully.
>
> How would one diagnose or stop this sporadic rogue behavior?
>
>
>
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-- 
Khalid M. Baheyeldin
2bits.com, Inc.
http://2bits.com
Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci
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