Problem with www/mod_cband

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 11:47:38AM -0700, mdh wrote:
> It seems possible, however, that mod_cband's functionality could be
> replicated by a simple script that watches the access log files and
> makes an update to a .htaccess file for the virtualhost when the
> virtualhost in question exceeds a given bandwidth limit which would be
> configured in the script.

Well, that's assuming you want to use the "maximum aggregate bandwidth
per site every month" concept.  I, for one, do not, because all it takes
is one prick wget -r'ing the site and pow, the site is down for
everyone.  You could block based on IP, but believe me, they'll find or
get another.  (I've personally seen this with Italian users, where
they'd switch to another IP to get around pf(4) blocks I put in place.)

I personally prefer to just bandwidth limit sites, only permitting
XXX Kbyte/sec across *all visitors*.  It's the only "safe" way to deal
with 95th-percentile billing in co-locations.

Also, don't forget that Apache only writes an entry to the log file
*after* the transfer is finished, not when the request is submit.  :-)

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |