Winston High CPU Usage

As part of my home seismometer network, I set up an installation of Winston Wave Server. It was far easier to set up and get my data (from homemade seismometers) into than Earthworm. However, I noticed that it was running on the hot side. Even when idle, it was using 99% CPU. I thought that was strange, but it wasn’t causing any problems, so I didn’t feel like trying to fix it.

Until today, when I expanded my network to a second node and found that it couldn’t keep up with the data.

Now, I know that people run Winston with a large number of stations and channels. It seemed very odd that two stations and seven total channels was making Winston chug along for me. Sure, I have it on a box that’s not super high-spec, but it should be enough to handle more than seven channels. The docs even say something about running 200-300 stations before needing to optimize.

So clearly, something was wrong.

I reviewed all the config settings. Nothing.

Then I found a “no input” flag, -i. I was running Winston as a service on Linux, so it didn’t need direct input, so I decided to give that flag a try.

Instantly, CPU went from maxed out to barely doing anything.

Not quite sure what the interactive input mode was trying to do when there wasn’t any input for it, but clearly, it wasn’t anything good. Now my server is happily handling seven channels without a complaint, and the server no longer feels like it’s going to burst into flames.