Livecode server, timeout and processes

[Richard Gaskin]

jbv wrote:

 > A few days ago I ran into a severe problem with livecode server.
 > A subtil and unexpected change in the way one of my clients inputs
 > data via his app caused an endless loop to appear in one of the LC
 > scripts on the server, which lead to a 504 Gateway Timeout error.
 > As this script is called during a login procedure, it triggered
 > pretty quickly a kind of chain reaction with many side effects :
 > - many 504 Gateway Timeout errors in browsers
 > - many 500 Internal server errors
 > - huge slow down of the server
 > - emails not sent/nor received in webmails
 > - several other services unavailable due to server slowdown...
 >
 > All these problems were caused by the accumulation of livecode
 > server processes on the server that kept running even if timeout
 > errors were issued.
 > As the source of the problem took a few hours to track down and
 > to fix, we (on-rev support and I) had to kill dozens of processes
 > manually to avoid any server crash.
 >
 > I know this might sound amateuristic to most of you, but nevertheless
 > I was wondering if there is any way to prevent something like that,
 > like for instance having all timedout processes to be killed
 > automatically, or even better : avoiding any endless loop in the first
 > place...

Without seeing the code it won't be possible to offer suggestions on 
prevention.

As for remedies, SSH is a must for server management.  I believe on-rev 
offers SSH access on request. Once you have direct access to the machine 
you can monitor processes and kill any errant ones.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com