1) Process list dumped to log on resize (date, used memory, suggested memory, and cache memory are all listed as well)
2) Ability to send email on resize request
3) Ability to tweet (uses oauth) on resize request

Check out the readme file for information on installation, upgrades, and configuration.

As always please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need help or have any questions!

What does that mean to you?

Chances are you’re using this memory manager to help figure out where your memory is going and keep your services up and running. Having a snapshot of your processes, taken when the script sees the need for a resize, will tell you where your memory is actually being used. Very soon you’ll be able to review your logs and click on the “process log” link. I’ll be posting an update to the news you see within the memory manager when the newest version is ready.

More screenshots after the jump:

Is this not awesome?

Stay tuned, I’m hoping to get this pushed out as soon as the design is implemented on the remaining pages, which may take some time but should be out within the coming week.

1. Creates a .pearrc file in your home directory.
2. Sets the download_dir, cache_dir, and temp_dir to folders within your /home/user/pear directory
3. Sets the PHP_PEAR_PHP_BIN variables by adding “export PHP_PEAR_PHP_BIN=/usr/local/php5/bin/php” to your .bash_profile
4. Modifies your PATH variable by adding “export PATH=/home/user/pear:/usr/local/php5/bin:$PATH” to your .bash_profile. This change also sets the PHP5 binary as the default for your shell.

Next time you call pear you’ll be using your custom settings and when you attempt to install any modules it will be done within your home directory. Now in order to use these PEAR modules in your application you will need to add the following to your app:

$pear_user_config = '/home/user/.pearrc';
set_include_path('.' . PATH_SEPERATOR . '/home/user/pear/php' . PATH_SEPERATOR . get_include_path());

Make sure to update “user” in the path to the actual user you are using and you’ll be set.

Download and Execute the Script

Just execute the following in a shell session:

wget http://files.gimmesoda.com/dreamhost/install_pear.sh; chmod 0744 install_pear.sh; ./install_pear.sh;

You can download and review the shell script from here, just open it up in a text editor of your choice.

Goal One: Save Money

Many people seem to have a belief that just because the site/s are on a VPS, even with memory set as low as possible (300MB of RAM assigned to a machine in the case of a DreamHost VPS), they will have perfect or near perfect uptime. Sadly, this is not the case and often times this misunderstanding/confusion can lead to serious downtime and frustration. Ideally, for people who are trying to have the lowest amount of memory usage possible, a memory management application would realize that there is a need for more memory, calculate an estimated amount of memory needed to handle the increased usage, resize the VPS as closely as possible to that need, then downsize as soon as the memory is no longer needed.

There is one major issue with this scenario:

Creating estimates regarding the amount of memory needed in an environment where usage is constantly changing, is a massive challenge. To be more specific; since the ability to resize a VPS tends to take some time (anywhere from 1-5 minutes), it is possible for memory requirements to have increased during the time that the need was detected and the memory estimate was created. This could create a resize on a VPS with too little memory, causing problems for the website/s on the VPS, as the machine is given too little memory to handle the increased need.

Goal Two: Keep Services Running

If you are on a VPS, chances are you’ve outgrown shared hosting or are looking for more stability and control over the environment your applications run on. If you’ve got a decent understanding of servers, applications, and websites, you may also understand that you need to have enough memory to run all the processes and handle the requests to your sites. Often times simply setting your service to the lowest amount of memory possible is going to be asking for failed script executions and the dreaded 500 error being displayed on your site.

So with this understanding, some people go to the extreme and max out their VPS resources. At DreamHost that means $200 a month for services (4GB worth of RAM) which may not be fully utilized (and most likely are not). So the question here becomes how to balance cost and the need for memory, in order to keep services running without paying the maximum amount at all times.

A Hybrid Memory Manager Focused on Uptime

With these two potential goals in mind, I had decided to mainly focus my attentions on goal two. While I do understand the need to keep price as low as possible, it is my personal belief, gleaned from experience, that a downed website is more damaging to the bottom line than a slightly larger payment for hosting services. So with this in mind, the memory manager was created to focus on uptime, while still saving time and money for those who manually resize throughout the day, and potentially over-allocate memory for their site/s.

All this being said, I am quite excited to be releasing this software soon. The status of this release is currently closed beta. However, if you are interested in testing this on your DreamHost VPS, please contact me. I am looking to increase the pool of Beta testers before the official release.

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While there are ways to getting this fixed on the server side, where I do agree it should be fixed, an application should be able to handle running in as many possible environments as possible. With that in mind I’ve found a way to ‘fake’ the information in PATH_INFO when it isn’t being set through the use of the argv array.

$path = (substr($_SERVER[argv][0], 0, 1) == "/") ? $_SERVER['argv'][0] : false;

This has been useful in my current patch for Concrete5 and should be useful for any app that depends on PATH_INFO.

Enjoy.

http://files.gimmesoda.com/dreamhost/nginx/nginx_stream.php

I use this particular script in conjunction with the rather popular JW Player:

http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-flv-player/

However, at this point it looks like the newest versions of their player no longer recommends the use of streaming through a script and provides this functionality directly. This script is more for people like myself who don’t feel like upgrading to their branded versions of the player. The plugin functionality sure does tempt me but at a price of $89 for a video player to be used on a single site, I think I’ll stick to my current version, at least for now.