From owner-freebsd-isp Fri Oct 31 04:32:37 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id EAA01947 for isp-outgoing; Fri, 31 Oct 1997 04:32:37 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-isp) Received: from mail.cs.tu-berlin.de (root@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de [130.149.17.13]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id EAA01940 for ; Fri, 31 Oct 1997 04:32:30 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from wosch@cs.tu-berlin.de) Received: from panke.panke.de (anonymous214.ppp.cs.tu-berlin.de [130.149.17.214]) by mail.cs.tu-berlin.de (8.8.6/8.8.7) with ESMTP id NAA15417; Fri, 31 Oct 1997 13:27:09 +0100 (MET) Received: (from wosch@localhost) by panke.panke.de (8.8.5/8.6.12) id LAA00508; Fri, 31 Oct 1997 11:21:16 +0100 (MET) To: "Bryn Wm. Moslow" Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Password file builds References: From: Wolfram Schneider Date: 31 Oct 1997 11:21:11 +0100 In-Reply-To: "Bryn Wm. Moslow"'s message of Thu, 30 Oct 1997 14:00:31 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Lines: 37 Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk "Bryn Wm. Moslow" 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 http://www.apfel.de/~wosch/