[CentOS] Re: command to ensure other command does last longer than5 seconds

[Rodrigo Barbosa]

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On Sat, Apr 07, 2007 at 03:21:45PM -0400, William L. Maltby wrote:
> On Sat, 2007-04-07 at 15:37 -0300, Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
> > Your solution would have a precision of 5 to 10 seconds, I estimate.
> > If that is good enough, it is a simple way to do it. That should give
> > higher than 95% precision, usually higher than 98%. Not bad for a
> > small script.
> 
> 5 - 10 seconds =:-O  I think it would be better than that... If we have
> the right "trigger". Knowing, for instance, that the last "setup" issue
> would be some distinct event (like opening a new output file, probably
> not /var/pid because that should be early) would then allow us to
> consider all remaining activities to be "processing". Then, if wall
> clock was the only criteria, we s/b pretty accurate. Naturally, on
> heavily loaded servers, some other mile-marker, like user CPU time,
> would be better. But on single-user workstations, the simple remedies we
> have touched on will certainly do better than and 8 to ten second
> window. That's betting user doesn't run the stuff during his nightly
> full-copy-backup operation.

My chief worry are other processes generation I/O, not the target itself.
That is why I assign that kind of precision.


> > It IS overkill :) I'm just considering a generic implementation, not
> > the need of OP. Actually, I'm considering creating a small GPLed
> > program to do this, so I have to cover as many situations as possible.
> > 
> > I think you misunderstood me, when you say the target has to have this
> > facility. I was talking about a callibration child, not the exec() one.
> 
> Yes, I misunderstood. But along that vein, it seems to me than that the
> calibration should be a concurrent process so that it can determine in
> "real time" when enough "wall clock" time has passed. As long as wall
> clock is the criteria, we get stuck with using any pre-acquired
> benchmarks as reference data only. The current processing
> environment/load would need to be blended in *throughout* the life of
> the target application and the "calibrator" when then decide in real-
> time that mayhem was due.

The idea is the callibrator to get a general feeling of the
machine load, before starting the target. The process I meant to keep
open is the one that dlopen()s for preloading.

> If we get to that point, it *seems* to me that the only reliable metric
> becomes the user CPU time and/or I/O completions, depending on the
> applications profile.

And the general system state.

> And that would tend to indicate that relatively high-precision (I hope
> my understanding of your concept of that is "good enough") can only be
> approached (ignoring real-time acquisition of the target's accounting,
> I/O, CPU, ...) by the calibrator running concurrently and seeing the
> current deviation from the database of captured test runs of the past.

That would be the ideal case. And couple with the pre-callibration I
proposed earlier, would wield even more precise results.

> > > I enjoy this sort of stuff. Don't get to do it often enough. And in the
> > > last upmteen years, haven't kept my shell/C skills up-to-snuff.
> > > Essentially retired from the race after enough decades of it.
> > 
> > I second that. Since I started my own company, the business side of
> > it is taking so much time I'm getting really rusty on shell/C skills.
> 
> Ditto when I had my own biz. Plus, I found I didn't like "managing"
> others. They weren't enough like me! =:O

TELL ME ABOUT IT :) ehehehehe

[]s

- -- 
Rodrigo Barbosa
"Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur"
"Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns)

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