Date: 31 Oct 1997 11:21:11 +0100 From: Wolfram Schneider <wosch@cs.tu-berlin.de> To: "Bryn Wm. Moslow" <bryn@nwlink.com> Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Password file builds Message-ID: <p1isotimdwn.fsf@panke.panke.de> In-Reply-To: "Bryn Wm. Moslow"'s message of Thu, 30 Oct 1997 14:00:31 -0800 (PST) References: <Pine.BSF.3.96.971030131812.20446B-100000@wingnut.spacemonster.org>
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"Bryn Wm. Moslow" <bryn@nwlink.com> writes:
> nice. I only have one rather annoying problem: Password file rebuilds just
> absolutely HAMMER the system. Whenever pwd_mkdb is running the whole box
> literally comes to a standstill (things still work - just VERY slowly.)
> This happens every 15 minutes if there has been a change to the
> master.passwd file I'm building from. The spwd.db and pwd.db are nearly
> 5MB and I'm using DES as I have several other boxes (Non-FreeBSD) that I
> have to stay compatible with for passwords. Someday they'll all be FreeBSD
> and no problem =).
try the option -u user.
-u username
Only update the record for the specified user. Utilities that op-
erate on a single user can use this option to avoid the overhead of
rebuilding the entire database.
> I've been running the password build under a nice value of '15' but if I'm
> watching top almost everything else on the box is in one of four STATEs:
> ufslk, getblk, wait, sbwait. The waits I get but I can't find anything on
> ufslk or getblk in the man pages or handbook. Maybe I'm on the wrong track
> but I'm thinking I've got disk I/O blockage. The disk is running furiously
> while pwd_mkdb is running but the system load actually DROPS while this is
> going on (presumably because everything is waiting) and then spikes way up
> for a minute as soon as it's finished and all the popper and sendmail
> processes get their time on the silicon and platters.
pwd_mkdb does often calls lseek(2) and read(2). You may build
your password databases in a memory file system (mfs(8)).
I runs pwd_mkdb for 13800 users and it took me 1 1/2 minutes
on a 386DX40.
87.03 real 28.13 user 21.82 sys
--
Wolfram Schneider <wosch@apfel.de> http://www.apfel.de/~wosch/
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