Account suspended 2

[DomainDog]

The inability to know when one is in or approaching violation is one reason why this questions keeps coming back and staying alive.

Imagine this scenario:

Cop: "Don't break the speed limit!"
You: "What's the speed limit"
Cop: "When you're going too fast!"
You: "How will I know when I'm going too fast?"
Cop: "When I give you a ticket!"

Not very helpful!

Personally, I respect Andrew's concern for customers on a particular server, and agree that if someone's are nearly crashing it, they need a swift kick. But it's important to remember the person accidentally breaking the "speed limit" is a customer too, deserving respect and customer service.

Andrew, I think most everying is perfectly willing to respect the limits. The problem seems to be, no one can tell us exactly where those limits are, and how to watch them.

Is there a script, a person or a place where all who sincerely want to obey the "speed limit" can learn how to "self-monitor" so this might never happen again?

I doubt any of this was caused by maliciousness, only ignorance.

[KyleC]

KyleC himself said that he's been noticing our site for a "Long time." We could have gotten a warning then instead of just cutting us off one night at 5:00 in the morning. I just wonder why you do what you do ... if it's for the customer's sake, why don't you try listening to what they want?

I noticed your site cause i monitor the server when i notice slow downs, frankly i was going to report it to Andrew cause it was putting a load on the server. But i decided not to be a tattle tale...

[AndrewT]

There is no "speed limit" here. In this type of business/environment nothing can be said for certain, there are far too many variables involved for us to do this. It is even far too complicated to explain entirely, it's just something that you have to understand. There is no line that can be drawn, it is one big grey area.

BUT, none of that has anything to do with this. This instance was a blatant violation of acceptable usage as a lot of them tend to be.

[samsam]

Technical solutions ... ?

My 2.5c worth, again. Trying to be helpful

Has anyone looked at stuff/tools like, for eg,

Application: Autonice

Autonice is a simple perl-script intended for use on multiuser-systems. The script regurlarly surveys any cpu-consuming processes on the system, and if any proces has been using more than a given amount of cpu-time (ie. half an hour) the process is reniced, and a mail is sent to the user. Autonice is known to run on Red Hat 4.1 and 5.x systems, both Intel and Alpha. As the script is quite simple it should run on any system using a crontab file and the /proc file-system and having perl installed.

Homepage http://www.nbi.dk/~kenand/autonice/autonice.html
Download ftp://alf.nbi.dk/pub/kenand/autonice/autonice-1.0.tar

Author K. H. Andersen <kenand_AT_nbi_DOT_dk>
Version 1.0
Licence freely distributable
Source Yes
Environment Console
Status Stable

OR

Application: bgcheck

bgcheck is a process monitor for Linux written in perl that can be a very useful tool for administrators used to limit the amount of background processes that each user can run.

Homepage
Download http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/sys...eck-0.5.tar.gz

Author blue <blue_AT_blue_DOT_dhs.O.R.G>
Version 0.5
Licence freely distributable
Source Yes
Environment Console
Status Stable

(both listings from www.linux.org)

No doubt there are other tools that perform similarly.

Sam

[Buddha]

Dathorn loses customers when their sites get suspended, existing customers on servers that host runaway processes get lousy performance, and people developing or hosting applications on Dathorn can't really do so with any confidence, as no-one can really tell with 100% certainty if the app they are installing or the site they are building will get nuked for some reason, because it is hard for anyone to predict what the risk thresholds are.

You should not be developing applications on a shared server! You can setup your own server to do that. If you can't setup a server than maybe you shouldn't be trying to develop an application?

I love the idea of open source software, however much of it is CRAP! Half of it seems to be designed as though PHP isn't even an interpreted language. Just because you can auto install a script doesn't mean you should.

Nothing in life is ever 100% certain, so I suggest you plan for the worse. Dathorn resource policy isn't unique and it's common to almost all shared hosting. It's there to protect the customers. If you worry about it constantly then ask yourself why? I don't.

Don't forget don't trust those lying little green lights! They are totally inaccurate.

[samsam]

Application: Autonice

Autonice is a simple perl-script intended for use on multiuser-systems. The script regurlarly surveys any cpu-consuming processes on the system, and if any proces has been using more than a given amount of cpu-time (ie. half an hour) the process is reniced, and a mail is sent to the user.

Autonice is available as a RPM for Fedora, as well as RH7-9 too:

see:

http://atrpms.physik.fu-berlin.de/name/autonice/

Sam

[DomainDog]

I noticed your site cause i monitor the server when i notice slow downs, frankly i was going to report it to Andrew cause it was putting a load on the server. But i decided not to be a tattle tale...

Kyle, if you ever notice any site on my account doing that, please, please- tattle away!

And samsam- I assume that perl script would have to be installed by Dathorn at the root to monitor all processes? Man, if it worked, that would be very cool!

[bhills]

For my sites I much prefer the present policy which is being used. No way do I want my sites to run slower in order to accomodate a more resource intensive site which is hogging the server. Speed is of the essence. When the speed drops, even a bit, the result is that visitors to my sites don't stay as long, go to fewer pages, and in the end I lose money. If a site is hogging resources, the solution is not for everyone else to suffer a temporary slowdown. The solution is for the resource heavy site to make other arrangements for hosting.

[Pedja]

There is no "speed limit" here. In this type of business/environment nothing can be said for certain, there are far too many variables involved for us to do this. It is even far too complicated to explain entirely, it's just something that you have to understand. There is no line that can be drawn, it is one big grey area.

I believe this is just misunderstanding isue here. I am sure we all understand your point, as you repeadet it so many times. Your point is correct, we do agree, you have to shut down account that annoys other users on server. There is no discussion about that.

Point is, that if some site becomes so popular to start taking so much resources, this does not happen overnight. That is likely stream ing curve of taking up much and much resources. Such site should take attention some time before it realy becames problem. Why would be hart to let owner know that. Simple "Hey, we noticed your site started using way to much resources and we are concerned that it will compromise server, so try to cool it down" will be much more effective that when one finds out that his account is suddenly shot down when it is most needed.

And when iste is shot down it is shot down for good and in total. If owner cannot even access data. Why not allowing him to access site and investigate problem? In most cases as far as I could see, problem was somekind of fourm and too much users. It is easy for owner to fix this by limiting number of logged users on forum. I am pretty sure that most of us will prefer radilcal limiting number of users on forum than having whole site down.

I agree that sharedhosting is not for haevy visited sites, but must it be that people learn in hard way that their sites became heavy? I am certain that there isno site that becames heavy overnight.

There are wef tools recomended to help avoiding such situatins. I would be happy to see them running. It would help us all, especialy if they can warn us in situations that our sites might take too much resources.

[AndrewT]

I believe this is just misunderstanding isue here. I am sure we all understand your point, as you repeadet it so many times. Your point is correct, we do agree, you have to shut down account that annoys other users on server. There is no discussion about that.

Point is, that if some site becomes so popular to start taking so much resources, this does not happen overnight. That is likely stream ing curve of taking up much and much resources. Such site should take attention some time before it realy becames problem. Why would be hart to let owner know that. Simple "Hey, we noticed your site started using way to much resources and we are concerned that it will compromise server, so try to cool it down" will be much more effective that when one finds out that his account is suddenly shot down when it is most needed.

And when iste is shot down it is shot down for good and in total. If owner cannot even access data. Why not allowing him to access site and investigate problem? In most cases as far as I could see, problem was somekind of fourm and too much users. It is easy for owner to fix this by limiting number of logged users on forum. I am pretty sure that most of us will prefer radilcal limiting number of users on forum than having whole site down.

I agree that sharedhosting is not for haevy visited sites, but must it be that people learn in hard way that their sites became heavy? I am certain that there isno site that becames heavy overnight.

There are wef tools recomended to help avoiding such situatins. I would be happy to see them running. It would help us all, especialy if they can warn us in situations that our sites might take too much resources.

Contrary to what you seem to believe, the vast majority of these problems do arise VERY quickly, there is not time to warn for this even as we only see when there are problems, other than that we don't go around checking everyone's domain - that's YOUR responsibility.

Having a script patrol the server and nice 800 processes caused by any domain is not going to help the situation at all. There is no substitute for monitoring your own usage. What you do with your account has always been and will always be your responsibility regardless of what may happen and why.

[Pedja]

There is no substitute for monitoring your own usage. What you do with your account has always been and will always be your responsibility regardless of what may happen and why.

But we have no men to know when we are taking up too much resources. As you said there is no rules what is too much.

Reason I am not resseling in usual way (giving user full access to cpanel, or even myslserver, is just because I cannot control what will user do. Best policy I could thionk of is to keep users away of site administration. But, I cannot monitor all the time all of my user's accounts. If some of them want to have forums on their sites they expect me to allow them, but I am concerned if it is wise. l at first such forums are not visited much, and most never became popular. But what if some do? Do I really have to check such sites several times a day just to be sure they do not have too much users and messages?

Would not it be easier if there is tool to warn us (even falsely) when something may go wrong?

About how fast trouble arises. I am sure you are right about that. I am taking coclusions from what I heard from people complaining that they were shut down for no reason. They do not know why they were shut down, what caused their sites to use to much resources and have no means to find out. I am pretty sure those who know why they were shut down do not complain.

What is common to them is that they want to know what happened to fix it. I am sure if i get suspended I would like the same, enough room to see what went wrong and fix it, or painlesly move to other host.

Once I was in situation that my accnount got suspended. I got frustrated at once since I was sure that there is noway that acount could violate eny of the rules. it was releafe when You said it was cpanel's quirk, false alarm and it was fixed expressly. But I am stil fearing, what if next time it does not go that way. How hould I prevent it?

[DomainDog]

There is no substitute for monitoring your own usage. What you do with your account has always been and will always be your responsibility regardless of what may happen and why.

I think everyone understands that, and for the most part agrees, because it is essentially for the common good.

But may I pose a hypothetical?

Suppose (hypothetically) that when Grinch (who started this l-o-n-g thread) overloaded the server, the administration at The Planet told you "That's it. Your account is suspended", and they closed your account, and you lost access to all your servers, and in one minute Dathorn was out of business.

Speaking hypothetically, would you apply the exact same logic to that situation? That they were 100% justified because you did not "control" Grinch?

I think what people are saying is- we are all human beings, and as such are subject to mistakes, mis-steps and unintentional errors of omission.

Should not such cases be given at least the chance to "redeem" themselves? And would not some kind of warning system also be for the common good?

Andrew, I seriously doubt anyone wants to violate the TOS or AUP. But few of us.... in fact few people in the world know as much about server technology as you, Andrew. In a sense, we are your children. Help us learn, don't just spank us.

[DkAir_ss]

Yea, it's not saying much when you are not allowed 60 visitors to your site. You get what you pay for.

[AndrewT]

Yea, it's not saying much when you are not allowed 60 visitors to your site. You get what you pay for.

Wow, that's a bit of an exageration.

There's nothing to "redeem" anyone of in this situation. The site was legitimately taken offline and legitimately has far too much traffic to be in a shared hosting environment. This large spike in traffic was due to a new announcement or something along those lines (I don't remember exactly what I was told). We allowed the user access to retrieve the data AND gave him access to limit his forums accordingly once a ticket was finally submitted. I really don't see why this is an issue. You are all commenting on a situation that you know very little about. Each situation is entirely unique and we will handle it however we feel is necessary.

We don't monitor sites for usage 24/7. A site is either causing problems or it isn't. When it is, we take care of it accordingly. There is no magic software that can sit here and say that one thing is acceptable and another is not. It is a huge grey area. This is why YOU must monitor your own accounts or face the simple fact that if you start causing problems on the server then your domain(s) will likely end up suspended at one point or another.

[reviewum.com]

We allowed the user access to retrieve the data AND gave him access to limit his forums accordingly once a ticket was finally submitted.

I applaud Andrew for this action (giving access once the account has been suspended). I believe he is running his business to the best of his ability and genuinely wants us to be successful. I think overall he is doing a fine job. I've been with 14 or so hosts and have been on Dathorn longer than all of them (about 15 months). I have noticed that relative to what we are paying.... we are getting a great deal!

After reading 5 pages of postings, the only things I would like to see are:

1) IF an admin, support person, Andrew, etc. does see (during occational inspection) that a site is getting close to the breaking point, a friendly warning email would be great!

2) Since it is NOT Andrew's job to monitor our sites, scripts, usage, etc. until there is a problem, can someone... anyone PLEASE post in an FAQ type of thread how users can monitor their resource usage?

I had started a thread on the old forums where I was gathering data on how to do TOP commands, etc. to see what resources were used... but alas... it is gone.

I think this would be a great time for Andrew (or other masters-of-the-servers) to "teach us how to fish vs. giving us a fish".

Can we be taught how to read the TOP commands, server logs, etc. etc. etc. to know if / when our sites are causing problems and using too many resources? What tools are available to determine server / resource usage per hosting / reseller account?

I know exactly what Andrew is saying, and really admire his ability to not mention specifics. 3,000 active users on a static site is WAY different than 2 users on a DB intensive dynamic site with poorly written code.

The Statement: We need to monitor our OWN resource usage.

The Question: How do we do this????

I await your resource monitoring answers and thank you in advance!