Apache/Browser Time out?

[hyperlink1uk]

Hi just need some advice,

I have a perl CGI application, which runs away and generates some hidden markov models. Every time it completes a model it sends some html back to the calling browser for display. My problem is that the browser/server seems to end the model generation after about 30 minutes. The software seems to be working fine, does this sound like a http time-out error or something else.

Thanks for any help
David

[hyperlink1uk]

Some more info,

Times out after ~300 seconds, just so happens to be the network.http.keep-alive setting for firefox.

Changing the value in firefox does seem to change the timeout?

[hyperlink1uk]

Sorry bit more googling and think I have found the answer and a very obvious one at that.

apache.conf
->TimeOut 300 default

[rocknbil]

Welcome aboard hyperlink, but something to think about - those timeouts are there for a reason. If your process is taking more than 30 minutes to complete, you have a serious problem and it may be sucking up all the server resources, not allowing anyone else to access your site. Sorry if you've already considered this, but that seems like a very BIG problem.

[hyperlink1uk]

Hi,

Its not a problem at all, the server will be setup to run the software exclusively and will be under a very low web traffic load. As for the time it takes, thats just how long multiple sequence alignments take.

I do have another question though, I can't get apache/perl to flush it's STDOUT buffer. It flushes on every function returning but not during function execution. Any ideas?

[texmex]

hyperlink1uk
I haven't a clue what a markov model is, but wouldn't it be more user friendly, to do something like the following:

Get input details from user.

Thank user for input and advise that they will be notified when the results are ready.

Build the "model" (whatever that is) and store in a file.

Send an eMail to the user including a link to the newly generated file.

30 minutes does seem like an aweful long time to hold up someones browser.

[hyperlink1uk]

Starting to wish I never asked.......

I have to build 50+ Hidden Markov Models, which involves the following.

MySQL Sequence Retrieval
->
Sequence.fasta
->Multiple Sequence Alignment
Sequence.msa
->Hidden Markov Model

Ok so to follow this long process a table indicates success at each step for each model.

And me and only me will ever be interested in this webpage and me and only me will be able to access this part of the website.

As for sending emails, yes very obvious solution and at the moment it does both.

Thanks for all the help
If I made what I was doing more clear we could have avoided the obvious responses. So sorry for that

[texmex]

Sorry, it wasn't my intention to deride what you are doing. Just trying to offer constructive suggestions. It's your application and your browser, so you do it any way that you feel happy.

Another (appologies in advance if it's unwanted) suggestion.

If you are create a new entry in a table (for every step of the process), could you not just build a page that queries this table? Once you set the ball rolling, you could then be redirected to this page.

To check on it later, you could then just click Ctrl + F5. Your browser wouldn't be waiting around for each update, it would simply show the current state of play.