[Zope] - Authenication problems when on webhost?

Phillip J. Eby pje@telecommunity.com
Tue, 08 Dec 1998 20:34:04 -0500


At 04:00 PM 12/8/98 -0600, Michel Pelletier wrote:
>Yes, I can understand the paranoia though.
>
>import os
>while 1:
>	os.fork()
>
>A trivial fork bomb, but there are a million others.  Please don't mistake my
>comment as a request to start a discussion on hack techniques.
>

FWIW, the code above won't work (for long) on a Hiway/RapidSite server.
The system watchdog processes will kill off every process associated with
your user ID long before you reach a number of processes that would make
the box hiccup.

One of the reasons I've been interested in LRP architectures and
programming environments (like ZOPE) which encourage their use, is that
memory usage is one of the main bottlenecks in loading up servers with
webhosting accounts that have any kind of applications running.  Fewer
processes = less VM overhead = more customers/box = less capital and
overhead costs = more profit.

That's the theory, anyway.  The practice of actually getting there is
fraught with such things as the need for processes to die off when not in
use, fair-share CPU slicing, and so on.  Ugh.