Author Topic: perl.exe (Read 37900 times)

benwylie · « **on:** April 11, 2005, 05:50 AM »

Process tamer doesn't appear to change the priority of perl.exe when it runs. However, i can't do it manually either. Does anyone know why i can't do it at the moment, and whether there is some way to enable processtamer to successfully change the priority of perl.exe.

Thanks
Ben

mouser · « **Reply #1 on:** April 11, 2005, 06:04 AM »

its possible that the process automatically resets its priority so that it can't be changed; i dont think there's anything that can be done about it in this case.

can you change priorities of other processes?
are you logged in as an administrator account?
you're using win2k or winxp?

benwylie · « **Reply #2 on:** April 11, 2005, 06:14 AM »

I can change the priority of most processes, but with some it gives me this error when i try:
---------------------------
Unable to Change Priority
---------------------------
The operation could not be completed.

Access is denied.

I am using win 2k3 and logged on as administrator.

I get the same error when trying to change php.exe

Thanks
Ben

mouser · « **Reply #3 on:** April 11, 2005, 01:25 PM »

i'll try to look into this and report back.

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** April 14, 2005, 12:44 PM »

ben,

im having no trouble changing the process of my perl.exe on winXpPro.

so i'm not sure if its a win 2k3 issue or something else.
i was running perl through commandline, maybe you are running it as a service of some sort?

anyone else have any ideas?

if you try changing the priority from the process tamer 2 gui, what happens?

benwylie · « **Reply #5 on:** April 16, 2005, 06:44 AM »

I've done a bit of testing, and it doen't do it all the time, and it can change the priority of perl.exe sometimes. I run a mail, web, and lots of other things on a low end server (stupid, i know!) and i'm using process tamer to stabilise it a bit, and it's doing a good job - thanks!

The mailserver is using spamassassin to filter out spam and at midnight every day, it learns the days spam and genuine emails to its bayes database. This is done using perl, and i am unable the change the priority of this process and this is what Process Tamer also seems unable to do.

I only have the free version at the moment, so no gui, but i guess that it will also fail.

There must be something in the perl script which causes it to happen, but as i didn't write the script, i don't know!

Oh well, thanks for a nice program.

Ben

mouser · « **Reply #6 on:** April 16, 2005, 07:12 AM »

benny just email me and ill be happy to send you the link for ProcessTamer2. it probably wont make a difference but there's no reason you shouldnt have the latest version.

people, the point of making the latest version available only to "members" (donators) is only to encourage people to donate. if you know you are not going to donate, for whatever reason, then just email me and tell me so and ill send you the latest version.

benwylie · « **Reply #7 on:** April 16, 2005, 08:18 AM »

Cheers. As it is a nice piece of software and it make my personal server more stable, i've made a donation. My paypal email isn't the same as my donation coder one, but hopefully you'll be able to match up the domain name. When my account has been memberised i'll download and try PT2.

Cheers,
Ben

mouser · « **Reply #8 on:** April 16, 2005, 08:22 AM »

cheers ben, it's appreciated!

benwylie · « **Reply #9 on:** April 16, 2005, 10:01 AM »

I haven't been able to test perl.exe, but php.exe when in the Task Manager and i try to change the priority it says i can't as i described at the beginning of this post. In the Process Tamer GUI it doesn't appear at all.

I don't really know anything about how this works so don't know what this could mean...

Ben

mouser · « **Reply #10 on:** April 16, 2005, 10:04 AM »

the process tamer tray list by default only shows processes using more than 1% of the cpu;
uncheck the hide 1% box to show all processes.

benwylie · « **Reply #11 on:** April 16, 2005, 10:09 AM »

Yes i realise that - php is running on at least 40% so it should be in there anyway. Both with the 1% box ticked and not, php.exe is in Task Manager, but not in the Process Tamer GUI...

Who knows what's going on ;-) ?

Ben

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** April 16, 2005, 10:18 AM »

ill have to try my php - it sounds like process tamer is detecting that it can't get sufficient permission to alter php.exe and so isnt even listing it, but i'm definitely going to have to look into it. i have php and perl installed on my winxp box so i'll take a look in the next day or two..

benwylie · « **Reply #13 on:** April 16, 2005, 10:42 AM »

I've taken screen shots of TaskManager and ProcessTamer in the same window. I've also got a second image showing the error message i get when trying to reduce the priority manually.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y141/bigbumben/php.jpg

perl.exe

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y141/bigbumben/php2.jpg

perl.exe

It's not actually using 40% at the time, in fact the second image shows four different processes using a fairly low cpu, but either way, ProcessTamer doesn't seem to access it.

Thanks,
Ben

benwylie · « **Reply #14 on:** April 16, 2005, 11:49 AM »

Perhaps it is an issue of what user it is running as.

php.exe seems to be running as INET_USR because ... it's a website, perl is running as SYSTEM because it is being triggered by my mailserver running as system. I'm logged on as administrator. Does the Administrator not get to change the priority of those applications being run by another user? Perhaps that will help you work out why it's not working for these things.

Thanks
Ben

mouser · « **Reply #15 on:** April 16, 2005, 03:45 PM »

that's surely it
now the only question is, could the problem be solved by either running PT2 as a system service or by forcing perl to run as a different user..

mouser · « **Reply #16 on:** April 16, 2005, 03:58 PM »

ben,

what i'm more concerned about at the moment is the high cpu usage of ProcessTamerTray.exe in your screenshots(!).

te ProcessTamerConfigurator.exe is the gui configuration utility that only runs when you configuring it, and its not very efficient, so it can show some pretty high cpu when your using it and that doesn't matter.

but ProcessTamerTray.exe should *never* show such high cpu usage. On my machine its pegged at 0% cpu except maybe for the brief instant when it tames something and reports it, in which case it might hit 1% briefly.

im thinking it might be trying to change the priority of php.exe or perl.exe and is constantly failing and retrying..
there is code in process tamer to mark a process as "unchangeable" when it fails to change its priority but it may not be working in this case. can you do a little investigating to see if that ProcessTamerTray.exe cpu usage goes back to 0 if you set the explicit rule for perl and php to blank (ie remove it), and do a little experimenting to see what settings make your ProcessTamerTray.exe go above 0 cpu usage.

to reiterate:
if ProcessTamerTray.exe should stay steady at 0% except for brief instants when it tames an app. anything sustained over 0% means something is wrong that i need to fix. (ProcessTamerConfigurator.exe is something different and may use high cpu for periods of time).

benwylie · « **Reply #17 on:** April 16, 2005, 07:59 PM »

The setup i am running is basically an awful lot for the hardware i have and perhaps this might be causing the high cpu usage. This is only a 450 MHz machine running many processes. I don't know how PT works, but if it is running a lot of processes presumably it will use a lot of cpu and as the total cpu available is small, the total amount it will use is likely to be larger in proportion.

Normally it is pretty stable at 0 or 1%, sometimes going to 2%. The times when i have seen it go higher are when someone is viewing a php page and there is a lot of work for it to do. PT cpu usage goes high, even if i have set a specific rule to ignore php.exe as far as i can see.

Running PT as a service does solve the perl.exe problem, as it can now change the priority of processes running as SYSTEM or Administrator. It still fails to change php.exe running under IUSR_SERVER, but i wouldn't know where to begin to find out how i might overcome this, except by changing the user which is used for people viewing web pages, which for security reasons i wouldn't do.

Thanks again for your help,

Ben

mouser · « **Reply #18 on:** April 16, 2005, 08:21 PM »

PT2 should not go high cpu usage regardless of what php is doing, people reading pages, etc.
I'm going to look into this tonight after i finish today's review. there is no excuse for ProcessTamer cpu usage to ever get as high as it was showing. if you set rules for php/perl to IGNORE, do you still see the high cpu usage for ProcessTamerTray.exe?

benwylie · « **Reply #19 on:** April 16, 2005, 09:03 PM »

Here you go - you can see php.exe set to ignore, and CPU usage by PT up to 6%

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y141/bigbumben/php3.jpg

perl.exe

mouser · « **Reply #20 on:** April 16, 2005, 09:29 PM »

thanks ben, ok im going to look into this tonight.. hopefully i'll be able to figure out what is going on.

there is one case i can think of where cpu use of PT could rise above normal, and that is if a ton of processes are being created and destroyed in some short period of time. i wonder if its possible that this could be happening.. if you look in processes list do you see new processes being born and dying over and over again in rapid succession?

im guessing that that's not it, and that it instead is a bug relating to processes that PT does is not handling right.

i think you said that some instances of php show up in normal windows task manager but not in Process Tamer process list, is that right? i'm guessing that could be a clue.

benwylie · « **Reply #21 on:** April 17, 2005, 08:12 AM »

I think this might be what is happening, when a php page is viewed it seems to open up a lot of php processes which could cause this. The high cpu of PT is not sustained.

The php.exe doesn't show up in PT as it is being run by IUSR_SERVER which i don't think PT seems able to control.

Cheers,
Ben

mouser · « **Reply #22 on:** April 17, 2005, 08:14 AM »

.. that could definitely be it...

seems like a very inefficient approach on the part of php..

i will still try to see if i can find a way to optimize it further for this scenario.

benwylie · « **Reply #23 on:** April 17, 2005, 09:17 AM »

At what stage is the "Force xxx" meant to kick in? If i run it, it will force everything to be as set, but if it is already running and a program is launced, it doesn't seem to force it to be any particular priority as far as i can tell.

Ben

mouser · « **Reply #24 on:** April 17, 2005, 09:25 AM »

it should force the process priority every time a new matching process launches, and on any applications it finds running when it starts. If it's not, then its missing it.

Keep in mind that the current match is case sensitive (im going to fix this), so the names have to match exactly.
Let me know if you find its not working and I will look into it.