10.4.2. Automated Gear Idling

Combine the oo-last-access and oo-auto-idler commands in a cron job to automatically idle inactive gears. The oo-last-access command compiles the last time each gear was accessed from the web front-end logs, excluding any access originating from the same node on which the gear is located. The oo-auto-idler command idles any gears when the associated URL has not been accessed, or the associated Git repository has not been updated, in the specified number of hours.
As root user, create a cron job, for example /etc/cron.hourly/auto-idler, containing the following contents, specifying the desired hourly interval:
(
/usr/sbin/oo-last-access
/usr/sbin/oo-auto-idler idle --interval 24
) >> /var/log/openshift/node/auto-idler.log 2>&1
Then, make the file executable:
# chmod +x /etc/cron.hourly/auto-idler
The created job will run hourly to idle any gears that have been inactive for the designated amount of hours. However, the following exceptions apply:
  • Gears that have no web end point. For example, a custom message bus cartridge.
  • Non-primary gears in a scaled application.
  • Any gear with a UUID listed in /etc/openshift/node/idler_ignorelist.conf

Note

If you use the kickstart or bash script, the configure_idler_on_node function performs this step.