In an attempt to keep things moderately under control on en, I've
installed mod_throttle onto larousse's apache:
http://www.snert.com/Software/mod_throttle/
It's still slow, but load has dropped from 20-60 range to 2ish-5ish,
which is rather more comfortable: when I try to do something on the
server, I don't have to wait several minutes for it to finish processing
my ssh login!
The docs for mod_throttle are very vague and short on real-world
examples, so this could be the worst configuration ever. I'm open to
suggestions if anyone's got more of a clue than me...
[brion@larousse conf]$ cat throttle.conf
<IfModule mod_throttle.c>
# 'Idle' should delay connections rather than refuse them.
# It's not clear how it reacts to images etc.
# 5-second minimum within 60-second period?
ThrottleClientIP 1024 Idle 5 60
ThrottleMaxDelay 20
# 'Document' theoretically ignores images, stylesheets,
# and such. If more than the max # of requests is grabbed
# within the cutoff period, you're denied with a 503 until
# the time period runs out.
# This isn't very elegant, but it may work...
# 10 requests per minute?
#ThrottleClientIP 1024 Document 10 60
# 10 requests per minute, sustained for two minutes?
#ThrottleClientIP 1024 Document 20 120
</IfModule>
Status info:
http://larousse.wikipedia.org/throttle-status
http://larousse.wikipedia.org/throttle-client-ip (doesn't work)
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)