[Zope] Putting Zope into a tailspin can kill a whole Linux Server

[Dieter Maurer]

BZ writes:
 > This is the second time I have done this and I just thought the list should know.
 > 
 > Once in awhile (every six months or so) I send Zope a request that it just cannot handle. At that point (after waiting for a good five minutes) I 
 > cancel the request by stopping the browser. This has twice resulted in Zope spinning out of control (taking up more and more CPU) untill it kills 
 > the entire server box.
 > 
 > How does it kill a Linux box you say?
 > 
 > Well, it kills off Apache, kills off SSH (no more remote access), kills off FTP. They all just become unresponsive. 
Seems as if Zope eats all network resources...

 > Here are the two times it has happened:
 > 
 > - Zope 2.3.2, on RH Linux 7.0 384 MB Ram, 650 MHz Pentium: I tried packing the database, stopped it and tried repacking it. 
 > 
 > - Zope 2.4.2 (same hardware): I tried creating a VERY LARGE Poll graph (10,000) and stopped it while it got going.
 > 
 > I don't know if this is a bug or whatever, but it could be a problem. Zope can certainly be sent into a tailspin.
Usually, you can not stop a Zope request...
You can stop your browser waiting for the response, but Zope will usually
continue to work on this response to throw it away when it is computed.

But nevertheless, this is not a reason to eat all resources...

Dieter