Any way to limit server load when running backups in cpanel?

[Thoreau]

One of my users has noticed that every time he runs a backup using the cpanel interface, the server load shoots up, and gzip sucks up the CPU nearly 100% until it's completed. I ran top while he did a backup a few minutes ago and noticed that the process is not niced at all, it just sits at 0. Is there any way to force cpanel-initiated backups to nice the gzip process in order to keep the server running smoothly?

[kris1351]

http://www.rfxnetworks.com

Download SPRI and limite gzip and cpbackup in the program. This will help keep the processes from eating the whole machine up.

[inteltechs]

try incremental backup. It basically does cp only instead of doing cp and gzip.

[anand]

Originally posted by kris1351
http://www.rfxnetworks.com

Download SPRI and limite gzip and cpbackup in the program. This will help keep the processes from eating the whole machine up.

looks nice. Though i m still not able to benefit from it, mailscanner with only 3 child processes talking 60%+ cpu.

[anand]

hmm the script doesn't work when load is 3+, ne ideas if it will be of any harm if i modify it and force it to work ?? Even though i ran the script i still don't c ne significant improvement in load.

[anand]

by the time the script tries to get hold of the instances of MailScanner, clam, they are already gone....

[anand]

By default spri runs every 45mins, reducing this looks promising. For the time being i have loaded this on a box with loads between 3-8 with mailscanner running. Though the cpu usage of mailscanner is still very high even though its put in med section.

[kris1351]

We run it every 15 minutes. Mailscanner processes should drop very quickly since they are only spawned when messages come in. You will have to ad cpbackup and gzip to the med or low file manually to make them work.

[anand]

Originally posted by kris1351
We run it every 15 minutes. Mailscanner processes should drop very quickly since they are only spawned when messages come in. You will have to ad cpbackup and gzip to the med or low file manually to make them work.

I figured that out. As i said earlier things look promising, but would monitor the box for a while.