Posts tagged host system
Your Server – The Boot Process
Dec 9th
You want to isolate all your server features into background process. You don’t want any server features to be dependent on graphical or client side applications. I previously had my mail server dependent on the client side filtering capabilities of Thunderbird. This was a no no because it required me to maintain a desktop session. This was not optimal because during the day the desktop session was swapped to the hard drive and this caused substantial system lag when coming back to use the desktop. Now with VBoxTool, the web server is automatically booted with the host system, and all functions on the server are consolidated to background processes; there is no more dependency on client side filtering. The MythTV server also boots with the host, and the first screen the host encounters is the GDM login. Now the system is secure. Passwords are required to enter the system as a user.
How Nice are Your Running Processes – Renice Them
Oct 25th
The command to set the importance of a running process is called “nice”. The nice rating of a program determine how quicky and the priority in which running processes are handled by the CPU. If a process has a nice value of 19 it will essentially allow any other process to be handled by the CPU before itself. If a process has a nice value of -19 it will take control of the processor at any time. System processes mostly have a nice value of -5. Init and other processes are set at 0. User processeses are also given a 0. I set my virtual machine to the same as regular system processeses, -5. This is because the virtual machine is essential just as important as host system processeses and contain system processeses itself. For my MythTV server I set it at +10; I don’t want it getting in the way of my web server or the host system itself, in any way whatsoever. Even higher I set the Myth frontend to +19 and throw it on another viewport. I use the Myth frontend to schedule recording, not necessarily to watch videos; thats what my Mac mini is for connected to my HD TV 
If you want to change the nice value of a process use renice. An example of this is: sudo renice -n 19 -p 16151 for -p you must put in the PID of the running process. You can use “ps” to determine the PID of a process. For example use: ps aux | grep mythfrontend.real You can also use “top”. Which gives you an updating realtime list of running processes.
