Thank you both for the quick replies!
Arthur,
Apache2::SizeLimit is no solution for my problem as I'm looking for a way to
limit the size each requests take, the fact that I can scrub the process after
the request is done (or drop the requests if the process reaches some limit,
although my understanding is that Apache2::SizeLimit does its job after the
requests is done) does not help me.
William,
Let me make I'm understanding this right - I'm not using any buffers myself,
all I do is sysread() from a unix socked and print(), its just that I need to
print a large amount of data for each request. Are you saying that there is no
way to free the memory after I've done print() and rflush()?
BTW thanks for the other suggestions, switching to cgi seems like the only
reasonable thing for me, I just want to make sure that this is how mod_perl
operates and it is not me who is doing something wrong.
Thanks,
Pavel
On Mar 16, 2010, at 11:18 AM, ARTHUR GOLDBERG wrote:
> You could use Apache2::SizeLimit ("because size does matter") which evaluates
> the size of Apache httpd processes when they complete HTTP Requests, and
> kills those that grow too large. (Note that Apache2::SizeLimit can only be
> used for non-threaded MPMs, such as prefork.) Since it operates at the end of
> a Request, SizeLimit has the advantage that it doesn't interrupt Request
> processing and the disadvantage that it won't prevent a process from becoming
> oversized while processing a Request. To reduce the regular load of
> Apache2::SizeLimit it can be configured to check the size intermittently by
> setting the parameter CHECK_EVERY_N_REQUESTS. These parameters can be
> configured in a <Perl> section in httpd.conf, or a Perl start-up file.
>
> That way, if your script allocates too much memory the process will be killed
> when it finishes handling the request. The MPM will eventually start another
> process if necessary.
>
> BR
> A
>
> On Mar 16, 2010, at 9:30 AM, William T wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 11:26 PM, Pavel Georgiev <pa...@3tera.com> wrote:
>>> I have a perl script running in mod_perl that needs to write a large amount
>>> of data to the client, possibly over a long period. The behavior that I
>>> observe is that once I print and flush something, the buffer memory is not
>>> reclaimed even though I rflush (I know this cant be reclaimed back by the
>>> OS).
>>>
>>> Is that how mod_perl operates and is there a way that I can force it to
>>> periodically free the buffer memory, so that I can use that for new buffers
>>> instead of taking more from the OS?
>>
>> That is how Perl operates. Mod_Perl is just Perl embedded in the
>> Apache Process.
>>
>> You have a few options:
>> * Buy more memory. :)
>> * Delegate resource intensive work to a different process (I would
>> NOT suggest a forking a child in Apache).
>> * Tie the buffer to a file on disk, or db object, that can be
>> explicitly reclaimed
>> * Create a buffer object of a fixed size and loop.
>> * Use compression on the data stream that you read into a buffer.
>>
>> You could also architect your system to mitigate resource usage if the
>> large data serve is not a common operation:
>> * Proxy those requests to a different server which is optimized to
>> handle large data serves.
>> * Execute the large data serves with CGI rather than Mod_Perl.
>>
>> I'm sure there are probably other options as well.
>>
>> -wjt
>>
>
> Arthur P. Goldberg, PhD
>
> Research Scientist in Bioinformatics
> Plant Systems Biology Laboratory
> www.virtualplant.org
>
> Visiting Academic
> Computer Science Department
> Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
> www.cs.nyu.edu/artg
>
> a...@cs.nyu.edu
> New York University
> 212 995-4918
> Coruzzi Lab
> 8th Floor Silver Building
> 1009 Silver Center
> 100 Washington Sq East
> New York NY 10003-6688
>
>
>
