On Wed, 4 Aug 2004, Paul G wrote:
the second cpu buys you time - it is unlikely you're going to be able to react in time on a busy single cpu box with a runaway process (it launches into a death sprial almost immediately), but you would usually have 10-15 mins on a dual cpu box at a minimum or maybe infinity if you enforce cpu affinity for apps that tend to misbehave.
Why do you have 10-15 mins? If the application is multi-threaded and has a reasonable workload, there are plenty of types of bugs that will result in one spinning thread after the other, you need far more than just 2 CPUs! Or maybe your application vendor has "at least 10minutes between hitting bugs!" on it's feature list? ;)
Really, what you to need do is (in the face of such buggy apps) is to set per-task CPU time resource limits appropriate to how much cpu-time a task needs and how much you can afford - be it a 1, 2 or n CPU system.
paul
regards, -- Paul Jakma [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Key ID: 64A2FF6A Fortune: I came to MIT to get an education for myself and a diploma for my mother.
