RE: nastygram from xxx.lanl.gov

Rob Hartill (robh@imdb.com)
Tue, 9 Jul 1996 21:56:40 -0600 (MDT)


bolav@skiinfo.no wrote:

>> 459 HEAD requests produce 459 server child-forks. Many of the requests
>> will operate in papallel. If the server has an upper limit in forking maybe
>> the site will be saved, else the paging volume will be full.
>
>With a two minute delay between each HEAD?
>I don't think so.

Think again.

At 2 minute intervals xxx.lanl.gov can become overloaded.

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THESE URLs DO. DON'T MAKE IGNORANT ASSUMPTIONS.

The HEAD requests at 2 minute intervals to xxx.lanl.gov cause scripts
to run which take more than 2 minutes to finish. Pile them up and the
thing melts down.

This is why there is an eloborate system to protect xxx.lanl.gov. Too
many ignorant idiots have let their dumb robots run riot at this site
and have been given a taste of their own medicine.

Recently my site (us.imdb.com) got hit by a dumb robot causing serious
trouble. The owner of that one has been told to expect a bill in the
mail for time wasted dealing with the problem as well as lost advertising
revenue while the server melted under the 20 CGI request/s load that this
particular piece of net-junk-code inflicted.

rob