Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 14:38:14 -0800 From: "Scott Hess" <scott@avantgo.com> To: "Michael Beckmann" <petzi@apfel.de> Cc: <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Limitations in FreeBSD Message-ID: <199801bf23f0$9e4af920$1e80000a@avantgo.com> References: <19991029011348.B2757@apfel.de> <199910282253.PAA02302@dingo.cdrom.com> <19991029020253.A3005@apfel.de> <15f901bf219e$20df55c0$1e80000a@avantgo.com> <19991029024742.B3005@apfel.de>
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Michael Beckmann <petzi@apfel.de> wrote: > On Thu, Oct 28, 1999 at 04:42:42PM -0700, Scott Hess wrote: > > Urk! I don't mean to be insulting, but the notion that you would roll > > _any_ solution out for a problem of this size based on word of mouth freaks > > the crap out of me. > > Hey ! You guys seem to have pretty strict opinions about how to solve problems. > Right now I am just investigating the options and asking for the properties of > this FreeBSD OS (where news is not the only reason for finding out about them). Well, I didn't mean that to come off as a "Don't bother me until you've done your homework" response. Let's put my point another way. There are certainly sites out there running full newsfeeds on Intel-based hardware. I have zero concerns about FreeBSD being in any way a limiting factor at that point. [Likewise, I have zero concerns about Linux being the limiting factor.] INN isn't being developed for ultra-high-end systems, after all. You might easily be able to configure up a system where you can use more file descriptors than FreeBSD can handle well, or more mbufs, or more of some other resource, but after inspection it will turn out that there are other configurations which give the same performance without tickling the same problems (you can read that as a general thing, on the order of "Just because 100 file descriptors is better than 25 doesn't mean that 10,000 is better than 100"). Besides, there have got to be hundreds of people out there running big newsfeeds on FreeBSD. Unfortunately, you'll probably get more responses with specific questions about a problem you're having than you will with general questions about problems you might or might not have. > > and enough users that mmap'ed I/O in nntp is needed and the number of file > > descriptors is going to be a problem, and you're willing to change > > I would like to know if that number of file descriptors is going to be a > problem, could someone tell me please ? It appears that 2^17 are settable > through sysctl, but will I actually be able to use that many ? (Yes, I could > write a tool to find it out, but I am willing to rely on word of mouth here). I, personally, would never configure a system that required 100k file descriptors, regardless of whether that many filedescriptors appeared to work or not. On the other hand, 10k file descriptors doesn't scare me (though I'd be uncomfortable with the notion of that being an _average_ rather than a maximum), and I would be quite surprised if you had problems with periodic forays out to 100k. Unfortunately, I'm well into arm-waving at that point, because I don't actually _know_, because as I mentioned, I wouldn't feel comfortable out there... Good luck, scott To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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