We often, using ps, find runaway (if that's the right term) netscape
processes. By runaway, I mean the user is either not logged in (the
easiest case to detect) or there are several netscape processes but some
no longer have onscreen windows (detected by killing the oldest and
noting that nothing happens on the screen). These seem to appear after
netscape crashes, but I can't reliably force the condition.
The ps output shows either a single process that uses 99% of cpu time, or
several of them using equal amounts of time that add up to 99%. The
<cputime> field of ps often shows large values: hours, even days.
These two clues seem to be the only way these can be detected. I've
tried looking at the status field, but that doesn't seem to distinguish
runaways from actives.
I'd like to write a shell script to be run by crontab every so often
to find these rogues and clobber them. I have seen the %cpu values
during normal execution exceed the values in the case of multiple
runaways, so it looks like using some cutoff value against the %cpu field
would not be quite the right thing to do. So, my thought is to use the
<cputime> field. I got this far:
PID=`/bin/ps -e -o pid,cputime,command | awk -v pp=$PROC -v qq=$LIMIT \
'{ if (($3 ~ pp) && ($2 > qq)) print $1 }'`
with the intent to run a for loop to kill the collected pid's,
but the comparison of cputimes is wrong and I can't seem to find how to do
it. I notice that the cputime field varies in output:
0:00.49
6:47:52
2-3:16:08
Is there a supplied function that will take these time strings and do the
comparison, or must I write my own? If I write my own, how do I get awk
to use it -- or is there an easier way to record the pids with cputimes
exceeding a limit for use in a for loop?
Is there a reliable way to force a "runaway" netscape to help in the
debugging?
Is there perhaps an easier way to detect and kill these runaways, such as
a utility to detect whether or not a netscape window or icon is still
onscreen? (checking the tty field of ps doesn't help - it's often a <??>).
Or: heh, heh: or does anyone have such a script they'd be willing to
share?
Received on Mon Aug 07 2000 - 20:23:54 NZST