From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri May 9 17:37:45 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E59BD1065674 for ; Fri, 9 May 2008 17:37:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from mail-out4.apple.com (mail-out4.apple.com [17.254.13.23]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CDFA38FC12 for ; Fri, 9 May 2008 17:37:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from relay12.apple.com (relay12.apple.com [17.128.113.53]) by mail-out4.apple.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 79BC82C6E120; Fri, 9 May 2008 10:37:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from relay12.apple.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by relay12.apple.com (Symantec Mail Security) with ESMTP id 61E7A464002; Fri, 9 May 2008 10:37:45 -0700 (PDT) X-AuditID: 11807135-ab9bfbb000000d04-e0-48248be9249e Received: from cswiger1.apple.com (cswiger1.apple.com [17.214.13.96]) by relay12.apple.com (Apple SCV relay) with ESMTP id 42A45420003; Fri, 9 May 2008 10:37:45 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: From: Chuck Swiger To: DAve In-Reply-To: <482473B7.7070707@pixelhammer.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v919.2) Date: Fri, 9 May 2008 10:37:45 -0700 References: <482473B7.7070707@pixelhammer.com> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.919.2) X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== Cc: 'User Questions' Subject: Re: FBSD 6.2 Xeon 2.4ghz CPU and high load X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 09 May 2008 17:37:46 -0000 On May 9, 2008, at 8:54 AM, DAve wrote: > The issue I am seeing is that my server load, under the same traffic > load, has increased 4 times or more. Where previously we saw a high > load on the servers of 5 to 8, we are now seeing 14 to 17. Since the > upgrade Sendmail has begun to timeout connections. You should look more into the status of the various processes, and how long it takes your mail scanning to process a message compared to previously. It might be the case that the config under 6.2 is allowing more instances to run at once and is just barely nudging the system into excessive paging. Once that happens, performance drops and the system load increases significantly. Do a couple of "ps aux | head -20" every 5 minutes or so, and put that data somewhere on a website, the process states will help give a better picture of what's going on. [ ... ] > bash-2.05b# top > last pid: 85205; load averages: 12.89, 13.78, > 14.66 > up 47+15:51:31 15:20:01 > 126 processes: 12 running, 79 sleeping, 35 zombie > CPU states: 43.8% user, 0.0% nice, 6.3% system, 0.0% interrupt, > 50.0% idle > Mem: 1008M Active, 582M Inact, 211M Wired, 78M Cache, 112M Buf, 122M > Free > Swap: 4096M Total, 304M Used, 3792M Free, 7% Inuse > > I am suspicious of the kernel being the culprit because the system > looks as if it is not working very hard, CPU load never shows above > 50% idle. I found one thread which mentions that as an issue and > offers a patch. > > http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-bugs/2007-February/022526.html > > Currently I am running the SMP-GENERIC kernel and sysctl shows the > following. > > hw.model: Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz > machdep.hlt_logical_cpus: 0 > machdep.hyperthreading_allowed: 0 > kern.smp.cpus: 4 > I see dev.cpu.0 through dev.cpu.3 > > Can anyone offer a solution? Is this a known issue I can easily > correct? At this point I am left with either rolling back to 4.11 or > trying another OS. It might be reasonable to try hyperthreading enabled, as your type of load might be improved by it on.... -- -Chuck