branch-rewrite.py uses too much RAM on developer machines

[Julian Edwards]

 1693 root 20 0 537m 185m 9920 S 0 5.0 0:13.77 branch-rewrite. py

Also, it runs as root which is terrible.

We should be able to start this service on demand.

[Michael Hudson-Doyle (mwhudson)]

I imagine the ram usage comes from importing launchpad and setting up the zcml and so on. If one was willing to write some raw sql and not worry about code reuse, it could probably be much reduced.

For the root thing, a wrapper than dropped privileges and exec-ed would be appropriate (it's what happens in production I think)

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

Why does it need privileges to start?

If it's just to listen on a port it might be simpler/safer to have
some other process start it there.

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

its started by apache - its a mod-rewrite helper. I suspect the
privilieges are to setuid to the developers account.