# Monitor fcgi? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 2, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/monitor-fcgi/101002 "2006-08-02T17:21:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/john_old)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/monitor-fcgi/101002/1 "2006-08-02T17:21:57Z")
Im trying to get a new app up on dreamhost. What fun 😕 Id like to try out the ‘frao\_handler’ which just keeps dreamhost from automatically killing my fcgi processes. But Im also worried about things getting out of hand. I seem to remember that captures in views can cause problems with fcgi (I might just be making that up???), and I do have few in my app. And well Im just not real fit with this stuff yet despite lots of reading and googling. I read a lot of things talking about zombie fcgi processes. Well how does one monitor something like that? Is there a command I can run to monitor fcgi? I hope someone can help. thanks, john ---
**Author:** ![john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/john_old)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/monitor-fcgi/101002/2 "2006-08-02T18:30:22Z")
john wrote: > Well how > does one monitor something like that? Is there a command I can run to > monitor fcgi? You can use my fcgi\_watch command. I wrote it especially to monitor fcgi processes on Dreamhost:-) [http://www.alevans.com/dl/fcgi\_watch-0.3.1.tgz](http://www.alevans.com/dl/fcgi_watch-0.3.1.tgz) –Al Evans ---
**Author:** ![john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/john_old)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 7:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/monitor-fcgi/101002/3 "2006-08-02T19:15:34Z")
Wow thanks Al, I just read through the readme real quick. Sounds fantastic. I admit that I didn’t really understand everything exactly but I just need to try it out I guess. Thanks again!!! Al Evans wrote: > john wrote: > > > Well how > > does one monitor something like that? Is there a command I can run to > > monitor fcgi? > > You can use my fcgi\_watch command. I wrote it especially to monitor fcgi > processes on Dreamhost:-) > > [http://www.alevans.com/dl/fcgi\_watch-0.3.1.tgz](http://www.alevans.com/dl/fcgi_watch-0.3.1.tgz) > > –Al Evans ---
**Author:** ![john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/john_old)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/monitor-fcgi/101002/4 "2006-08-02T20:09:33Z")
hehe, hey Al, can I ask you some questions about fcgi\_watch? I tried it out on my local (osx) machine and I get “-bash: script/fcgi\_watch: Permission denied” when I try to run it. I’ll just put it up on dreamhost though I guess and try it there because that’s the kind of cowboy I am. But I have other questions (all super noob stuff). 1. So I should use the “frao\_handler” in my dispatch.fcgi file to keep dreamhost fcgi killers out of there and then put your fcgi\_watch in my scripts directory? 2. Is that it? I realize that I can get a list of processes if I run fcgi\_watch manually and that I can restart my app with ‘restart’ and it will just kill processes related to that app. But do I need to activate it or anything to take over for the rails reaper. Sorry if Ive totally missed the point. Any extra help would be great if you get a moment. Thanks again, john Al Evans wrote: > john wrote: > > > Well how > > does one monitor something like that? Is there a command I can run to > > monitor fcgi? > > You can use my fcgi\_watch command. I wrote it especially to monitor fcgi > processes on Dreamhost:-) > > [http://www.alevans.com/dl/fcgi\_watch-0.3.1.tgz](http://www.alevans.com/dl/fcgi_watch-0.3.1.tgz) > > –Al Evans ---
**Author:** ![john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/john_old)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2006, 1:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/monitor-fcgi/101002/5 "2006-08-03T01:08:17Z")
john wrote: > hehe, > hey Al, can I ask you some questions about fcgi\_watch? I tried it out > on my local (osx) machine and I get “-bash: script/fcgi\_watch: > Permission denied” when I try to run it. Hmm – my guess would be that for some reason, it doesn’t have executable permissions. chmod 755 script/fcgi\_watch should make it work. > I’ll just put it up on > dreamhost though I guess and try it there because that’s the kind of > cowboy I am. The same thing might be required there. > 1. So I should use the “frao\_handler” in my dispatch.fcgi file to keep > dreamhost fcgi killers out of there and then put your fcgi\_watch in my > scripts directory? I don’t use the ‘frao\_handler’. When I first started with DH, it seemed to make things worse, rather than better. My impression was that it _did_ restart the FCGI dispatchers, but they were never actually used again. Other people seem to have gotten different results. My advice would be to try it, and see if you have to kill -9 large numbers of dispatchers on a regular basis. If not, you’re cool I do, however, run a pinger script on my local machine. It just submits a request to some controller in each of my DH Rails apps every ten minutes. This seems to keep them responsive, without making them spawn bunches of FCGI dispatchers. If it’s unsuccessful, it shows me the error it got. The past couple of weeks, this has been depressing:-) > 1. Is that it? I realize that I can get a list of processes if I run > fcgi\_watch manually and that I can restart my app with ‘restart’ and it > will just kill processes related to that app. But do I need to activate > it or anything to take over for the rails reaper. No, you just use it instead of the reaper. The reaper doesn’t do anything unless it’s called, manually or from a script. If you have scripts that call it, you might want to substitute calls to fcgi\_watch instead. –Al Evans ---
**Author:** ![john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/9f8e36/32.png) [@john\_old](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/john_old)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2006, 9:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/monitor-fcgi/101002/6 "2006-08-03T09:03:36Z")
Al Evans wrote: > No, you just use it instead of the reaper. The reaper doesn’t do > anything unless it’s called, manually or from a script. If you have > scripts that call it, you might want to substitute calls to fcgi\_watch > instead. > > –Al Evans I get it. Great! I had never used the reaper before. So this is exactly what I was looking for when I first posted. Fantastic. Man… From my logs it seems like my site is responding better on my laptop running webbrick than it is on dreamhost! And of course I don’t get these errors all the time locally either. nuts. Anyway thanks for all your help, john