After a day of trying to figure out why one of my web servers was locking up, I found that it was using a bit too much memory. But I had no idea how much, and Linux memory reporting is a bit arcane at best. Especially with something like apache + PHP using shared memory pools. So after some analysis, I came up with the following script:

apachemem.pl

It had the following output:

Total memory available: 3.21G
Total used by apache2 (451 instances): 3.80G
Total used by other processes: 0.12G

Average memory used per apache2 process: 8.63M
Recommended number of processes based on Average: 381
Needed memory for 500 processes based on Average: 4.21G

Max memory used for apache2 process: 17.61M
Recommended number of processes based on Max: 186
Needed memory for 500 processes based on Max: 8.60G

Mean plus two Standard Deviations (bulk of usage under max): 11.28M
Recommended number of processes based on Mean + 2*Stdev: 291
Needed memory for 500 processes based on Mean + 2*Stdev: 5.51G

At the time I ran it, I had 450 instances out of a configured max of 700 active. Come to find out I only had the ram to support about 380 of those at best. :(

Hopefully some other people find this useful, as it's pretty hard to get a straight answer on "How many processes can I support?" Now if only php and the standard modules would officially work with the worker MPM.

So, for the web servers at work, we had disabled Apache's KeepAlive settings due to possible denial of service. As part of some performance tuning I had turned it back on with a low timeout (4 seconds) to see how it held up. Here's the results:



The drop on the right is where KeepAlive was turned on. We did need to increase our MaxServers a bit for when load got high, but overall it's resulted in a huge speedup for the servers and less thrashing in general.

Xkcd is amazing. Best webcomic ever.

So, I'm poking around some programming related documentation and come across an article about using Perl for statistics.

I start reading it, and almost immediately, Pandora started playing a song by a band called Statistics.

GET OUT OF MY HEAD INTERNET.

I snagged a bag of chocolate covered Espresso beans fro Starbucks today. The serving size is 28 beans. I think I'm going to eat them all and see if I can either explode, or start vibrating so fast I fall through the floor.

Click this link. (nothing bad will happen)

Just came across this rather old news article concerning IGE CEO Brock Pierce.

I thought promoting Chinese gold farming sweatshops and being a festering boil on the side of the MMO gaming community was bad enough(Not to mention advertisements on the back cover of every major gaming magazines for over a year now). Turns out he was (ALLEGEDLY) a pedophile as well.

From Vnunet:

---

The founders of flopcom Digital Entertainment Network (DEN) are still languishing in a Spanish jail, and investigators in the US are stepping up efforts to bring them home to face sex offence charges.

DEN co-founders Marc Collins-Rector, Chad Shackley and Brock Pierce were arrested in June on an international warrant after being indicted in New Jersey on five counts of transporting a minor across state lines for the purpose of engaging in sexual acts.

The company raised $75m through an Initial Public Offer, but collapsed as allegations of its founders' conduct hit the media. DEN's assets were sold at auction for $105,000 this summer.

The men fled to Spain where they were arrested by Spanish police who found "enormous amounts of child porn" at their villa.

All three are likely to face Spanish charges, but US police have stated that Spain will let the US charge them first, according to the New York Post.

Collins-Rector, Shackley and Pierce already face a $4.5m default judgement over offences with teenaged boys in the Beverly Hills and west Los Angeles area dating back to the early 1990s, after losing a civil court case brought by victims.

---

I probably should have mentioned it when it launched last week, but The Escapist launched last Tuesday. It's a magazine put out by the people I work with that deals with the Gaming Industry via a different topic each week. There's a new issue every Tuesday, with a supplement every Friday.

I personally was never much for writing, so mainly I just babysit and maintain the server and software behind the site. Note to self: Apache does NOT like being restarted when there's a few thousand connections to the web server. Trying to rotate logs to address an internal issue caused a chain of events simultaneously with a double Slashdotting. But the actual traffic it handled well once it was back up. *whistles innocently*

This week deals with mobile gaming. Check it out.

This marks the day when I finally got off my ass and finished moving stuff to the new server up in the Canadian datacenter. Same Host, just on an MCI net and at a slightyl more convienient location for them. Also, more RAM! Woo! Now just to compile a shiny new kernel...

Heading out to E3 in LA for my first time. Not sure exactly what I'll be doing yet, but should be an interesting experience. Especially since I'm going as Press. Free Loot!

This is what you get when you're trapped in an office with a Canadian and a Mac user for too long.
End of days.

Mal'Ganis more like Mal'GOONis am i rite

Wow. Just wow.

A co-worker brought in a compilation of the Transmetropolitan comic series. It's not exactly new, but I never really read comics seriously, and never any of the newer more serious ones. Just old comics like Fantastic Four, Green Lantern, Ghost Rider, etc. Not only is it gloriously violent, and in a future worthy of Gibson, but the story just sucks you in.

For the uninitiated, it centers in the fairly distant future around a Journalist named Spider Jerusalem. He's antisocial, xenophobic, hates dogs, and has probably done every drug he could get his hands on. He gets pulled back into the "City" due to a prior overdue book-deal contract made when years before the main storyline. It centers around him doing investigative journalism on Police corruption, corrupt Presidents, and just going around and pissing off people in general.

The real fun comes in the world this all takes place in, with cameras everywhere (microscopic even), hyper violent kid's shows (Sex Puppets being a popular one as well), new religions being founded hourly, people genetically blending themselves with "Grey" style aliens, machines getting high on drug attachments, park benches that turn red hot or release deadly virii between 10pm and 6am, and more. Oh yeah, the art is really well done as well, there's quite a few extremely detailed panorama shots.

Now I need to go and pick up all the issues for myself to read it again.

Wow.

This guy could be an Olympic-calibre Gymnast if he wanted I'm sure.

This is the new Truffle Shuffle.

I need to find a way to make this my screensaver.

Bunny Suicides!

I especially enjoy the Noah's Ark and Terminator ones.

I got 13 santas, hows about you?
http://www.liquidgeneration.com/sabotage/frost_sabotage.asp

A while ago I wrote a whitepaper to fill a personal need, and linked it on a couple forums. It recieved quite a bit of attention, but seeing as I had hosted it on Sourceforge, I never really had an idea as to how much traffic it got and where from. So, I threw up a redirect and moved it here. It's still quite old, but meh.

Remote Linux to Debian Conversion (Formerly here)

Meh, I've been out of the loop to not have seen this ages ago. Oh to be a kiddie again.

http://www.thebroken.org/

Edit: Another site along the same lines: http://www.exitframe.org/