DonationCoder.com Software > ProcessTamer
New Feature: Process Time Watcher and Killer.
cyberglobe:
I am talking about CLAMSCAN.EXE from www.clamwin.com. This is a command line executable that is most probably a 32-bit program.
When Clamscan.exe ends up locking up (no clue why cause it is executed via a shell command from our mail server and is not interactive) it ends up sucking up CPU usage.
This is why I would like to see 2 more columns to monitor CPU Time of a process and if it exceeds this time to issue a forced kill command. I currently have it run at lowest priority but still it ends up overwhelming the system.
Otherwise, I try to remotely log into the server (which never works cause the CPU is nailed to 100%) and have to travel to my outsourced co-location facility which charges me per visit when it is off peak hours (Free during peak hours). This is why I would like to see Process tamer to monitor the CPU Time as well since you need to tame that as well for a process and kill it if it ends up being a rogue process, which in this case it is acting like one.
f0dder:
Ugh, that sounds pretty nasty!
Yes, clamscan should be a 32bit console app, so it would be possible to track normally - but that's a job for mouser to implement :)
It sounds weird that it pegs down the CPU even if you run the task as low priority, are you sure that the priority setting works, that clamscam doesn't increase it's own priority manually, and that it doesn't start any child process with normal/higher priority?
cyberglobe:
It sounds weird that it pegs down the CPU even if you run the task as low priority, are you sure that the priority setting works, that clamscam doesn't increase it's own priority manually, and that it doesn't start any child process with normal/higher priority?
--- End quote ---
Clamscan starts off with normal priority then Process tamer sends it to low priority and it does not spawn any additional child processes. What eventually happens is the Memory gets chewed up, then the server runs 1000 times slower cause it is now paging to the hard drive. For each instance of Clamscan, it has to read the virus database, then scan through the file to be scanned. When you got 30-50 of these processes, you can see how it can snowball.
Could it be possible that process tamer did not have enough time to capture the process and switch the priority?
f0dder:
Hmm, if you get heavy disk I/O, process priority doesn't matter that much, because the disk I/O itself will be killing you. You say you have 30-50 clamav processes running concurrently? That sounds wrong! :-s
If the memory problem is that one process is leaking, you might be able to fix it with some NT quota stuff, but if it's because you get multiple processes where you shouldn't, then I dunno if it's as easy to fix. And I'm not sure how you set those quotas anyway, just that it should be possible :)
cyberglobe:
Well, the issue is that under normal traffic, I get around 5-15 clamscans running at same time. Then when one of the instances of clamscan messes up, the clamscans stack up and goes to 30-up to 180 one time I saw.
I know it won't help with the I/O that much but by being able to watch to see if there is a rogue process, then this would curb the heavy I/O.
I am trying to avoid the purchase of their anti-virus plugin but it seems that I won't be able to avoid it unless Process Tamer incorporates the CPU time watcher too.
The Clamscan randomly bogs up. There is no pattern to when it bogs up. Sometimes it works for days, sometimes just a few hours. Right now, I have it set to no more than 30 scan sessions yet if clamscan ends up in that endless loop, my mailserver self crashes itself and resets after 1 minute. However, the clamscan process is still running in the background at 100% CPU along with other dead clamscans from the previous mail server crash.
Now you see why this is necessary to monitor the CPU Time.
It is a security measure to ensure that my server does not become unresponsive.
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