Run a script when load is too high
This is a small script that can check if server load is too high and start another script.
It is NOT best practice to fix a problem like this but it can get you trough the nights while developers work on the code problem.
I called my script /usr/local/bin/damnnastycheck.sh
it runs every minute from /etc/crontab yhe only requirement is BashCalc (bc)
#!/bin/bash
high=8.1
if [ $(echo $(cat /proc/loadavg | awk '{print $1}')'>'$high | bc -l) == "1" ]; then
echo "high load, running fix"
/usr/local/bin/damnnastyfix.sh
fi
In the damnnastyfix you could place something like:
#!/bin/bash
killall -9 httpd
service httpd restart