blocking process execution manager

Are there any libraries or programs which block further process execution depending on a current execution limit?

I want to give users the ability to run a script which is intensive but i dont want to bring down my server if 1000's of instances are run at once.

 

Maybe monit can do what you're looking for: http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/

 

PAM is capable of doing just that, and PAM ships with almost every linux distro out there look at the file

Code:

/etc/security/limits.conf

to see how it is configured