Linux Remote Server Workspace is too busy and nonresponsive?

Question

I have access to a remote server linux workspace, which is currently overloaded with jobs from many users and thus is not responding to any ssh request,

currently we do not have any IT personnel to take care of that thingy and we do the administering ourselves, so we do not have any other way other than to hit a manual restart.

I did a bit of googling and found things like telnet but those are what need to be preinstalled on the server itself and they arent currently, I have an option of going to the server location on short notice but that will be my option tomorrow if required.

It would be really helpful if someone can suggest some sort of solution to this problem like remotely logging in with another protocol other than ssh which comes as a default package in linux distros.

I know to many it would seem as a non-productive and too localized question but i found that this question has not been clearly addressed anywhere on the internet.

1. Is there another remote-login protocol that I can use which would work in this scenario?
2. Is there an alternative to turning off the main power switch? i.e. we do have a display there so we do try that beforehand.
3. Is it possible to prevent this from happening? with some kind of linux software?

Answer 1

This is NOT an ssh issue.

The problem is that you should keep one of your ssh sessions open 24 x 7 so you are always connected in case of a problem. The top command will show you what processes are eating the box.

If you have root access you can try the renice command to lower priority of those processes. You have to be root to do this.

You problem has nothing to do with ssh, if the box is overloaded, no other protocol protocol like telnet is going to be able to respond well.