Re: Running batch octave jobs via webserver?

[Francesco Potortì]

>Has anyone had call to set up a system for running batch jobs with user
>submitted form data?  Any advice?

Have a look at <http://wnet.isti.cnr.it/software/damatfrc/>.

>I am thinking of hacking together a queuing system using cgi (for simplicity) 
>to
>create a "load/ save" compatible input file, but I was hoping either to find a
>solution implemented by someone else, or at least not make the same mistakes as
>other people.

I used a quick hack that works for very low loads.  Temporary files are
created with the process number of the cgi.  When the cgi starts, it
deletes temporary files that are older than 2 minutes.  Ulimit and
timeout are used as a guard against excessive resource consumption.

Adding one more check at the beginning of the cgi that bails out if the
load average is too high would make it more robust.  A limit on the
number of concurrent cgi issues would complete it (maybe Apache
implicitely provides it).  I implemented none of these, but it would be
simple to do.

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