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Re: [LUG] Poorly penguins



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Neil Williams wrote:
> what would cause a previously working system to try to run
THIRTY copies of
> cron and thirty copies of python -S /var/lib/mailman/qrunner,
leading the
> load average to hit 47!

Okay cron spawns cron to do things, so 30 copies with 30 copies
of qrunner is probably qrunner not finishing fast enough.

> It all started with that Mozilla spell-check error and ever
since, whether
> mozilla is running or not, I suddenly find that the machine
won't respond to
> the mouse, keyboard or network for upto TWENTY minutes at a time.

What error?

Sounds like typical excess load, I assume you could drop
priority of cron jobs, perhaps limit resources to any
problematic programs - users.

> WHAT is wrong with it?

I get nasty problems if Demon serve up too much spam all at
once, as it spools too many Python jobs to sort the wheat from
the chaff. Can you wrap qrunner not to run if it is already running?

i.e. Something like - and I haven't tested it.
mv qrunner qrunner.real

vi qrunner
RUNNING =`ps -ef | grep qrunner.real | grep -v grep | wc -l`
if [[ RUNNING -eq 0 ]]
then
 qrunner.real
fi

> I've tried stopping crond before starting any work, but now
even KPPP causes
> the system to loop. I'm beginning to think it's the linmodem
driver.

Possible hardware issues as well - but the cron thing sounds
just like overwork.

Did you change any hardware or kernel settings?

> BTW. Does anyone know what 'No carrier' really means in terms
of the level of
> line noise?

Too much noise to work - how much more detail do you need ;-(

BT can measure line gain issues automatically from the exchange
- - some voodoo in modern exchanges. If it is intermittent I'd
start with cabling your end, and try a different modem (or check
if you have too many phones/answer phones plugged in - that kind
of stuff).

BT can be good on modems, but I think you are only garanteed
9600 baud under the USO.
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